Student Updates
Chobanian & Avedisian SOM February 2026 Faculty Appointments & Promotions
Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their February 2026 appointment or promotion.
Clinical Associate Professor
Dominic Pisano, MD, Anesthesiology, is a clinician-educator who focuses on critical care, the physiologically difficult airway, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and mechanical circulatory support. Dr. Pisano joined the faculty in 2024 as an anesthesia intensivist at Boston Medical Center (BMC). He holds double board certification in anesthesiology and anesthesia critical care with an additional specialization in echocardiography. Dr. Pisano served as surgical intensive care unit rotation director (2024–2025), a critical role for resident education in complex critical care. In 2025 he was appointed anesthesiology residency program director at BMC-Brighton. He is the recipient of numerous teaching honors and awards, including the prestigious Golden Apple Teaching Award (2024) and the department’s Ellison C. Pierce, MD Patient Safety/Teaching Award (2025).
Sankalp Sehgal, MD, Anesthesia, is vice chief of anesthesiology at Boston Medical Center (BMC) – Brighton, division of cardiothoracic anesthesia and perioperative echocardiography. Dr. Sehgal oversees the clinical operations at all anesthetizing sites at BMC Brighton, including operating rooms, catheterization lab, cardiac electrophysiology lab, endoscopy suite and radiology. He previously served as section head and director of perioperative teaching at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Hospital, associate vice chair of education at Drexel University School of Medicine and as section chief of anesthesia for the Cardiac EP lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sehgal’s research work on perioperative outcomes after cardiovascular surgery and advanced echocardiography imaging for structural heart diseases has been recognized with several distinguished institutional and organizational awards.
Jaromir Slama, MD, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, is a clinician-educator whose initial focus was on hand and reconstructive surgery but now has shifted to transgender surgical care and breast and body contouring. In 2016 he and colleague Robert Oates, MD, professor of urology, performed a neovaginoplasty for a transgender woman – a first at a Boston hospital. Dr. Slama has helped train teams at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital in performing gender-affirming surgery. Over the past decade he has performed hundreds of gender-affirming procedures for BMC patients.
2/23 BUMC Closed
Due to the impending winter storm, Boston University Medical Campus will be closed on Monday, Feb. 23, including the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine and its Patient Treatment Centers, and the BU School of Public Health.
Medical, PA and GMS students who are assigned to inpatient services or clinics are expected to be present, if possible. Students who are assigned to outpatient services, including GSDM students on externship, should check with their course directors or the policy at the clinical site.
Employees in essential services should report as scheduled. Essential services include, but are not limited to Public Safety, Facilities Management, Emergency Patient Treatment, Environmental Health & Safety, Occupational & Environmental Medicine, and Mail Service.
Chequers and the Alumni Medical Library will be closed.
BUMC Faculty Promotions – January 2026
Congratulations to the following Medical Campus faculty on their January 2026 appointment or promotion.
BU School of Public Health
Professor
Patricia Fabian, ScD, Environmental Health, serves as associate director of the university’s Institute for Global Sustainability. Her research focuses on three general areas: building resilience to extreme heat through transdisciplinary research; understanding the complex role of the built environment on indoor air quality, energy and health in homes and schools; and airborne infectious disease transmission and mask interventions. Dr. Fabian founded the Sustainable Built Environment Lab, which conducts research on extreme heat resilience in cities, indoor air quality in schools and homes, and energy transitions in the built environment. Dr. Fabian leads multiple interdisciplinary teams and is a faculty affiliate of the BUSPH Center for Climate and Health, BU URBAN and the BU Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.
Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Associate Professor
Jessica Taylor, MD, Medicine/GIM, is a clinician-innovator recognized for her novel work in substance use disorders, HIV prevention and low-barrier care models. She is medical director of Faster Paths to Treatment at Boston Medical Center (BMC), the hospital’s innovative, low-barrier substance use disorder bridge clinic and recently supported the launch of an ED-based addiction consult service. She also directs HIV prevention programs at BMC. Dr. Taylor has developed and published protocols that are the first of their kind in the nation, including the bridge clinic implementation of the outpatient “72-hour rule methadone” protocol for opioid withdrawal management. Dr. Taylor has a long history of being funded by the Massachusetts Department of Health and is PI on two active projects through this funding source. She has been site PI or Co-I on eight federal grants.
Clinical Associate Professor
Kara Smith, MD, MSCI, Neurology, is a clinician-scientist specializing in the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease and movement disorders. As chief of the movement disorders division in the department of neurology, she joins BU and Boston Medical Center (BMC) from UMass Chan Medical School where she built an interdisciplinary clinical research program and co-directed the division and fellowship program since 2015. Dr. Smith's research interests include speech and language markers in neurodegenerative diseases including mild cognitive impairment and Parkinson's disease, as well as non-pharmacological approaches such as exercise and music-based interventions to address refractory symptoms in patients with movement disorders. She has received funding from the NIH for her work on speech markers of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. Dr. Smith also has a passion for teaching and mentoring, and she will serve as program director of BMC’s Movement Disorders Fellowship.
Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine
Clinical Associate Professor
Xiaofei Zhu, BDS, DST, CAGS, Endodontics, is a clinician-educator-scientist who serves as research director of endodontics in addition to treating patients with diseases of the dental pulp and surrounding root tissues. He is Co-I on multiple industry sponsored and collaborative studies, including projects funded by Sonendo, the American Association of Endodontics (AAE) Foundation as well as a reviewer for more than a dozen professional dental and endodontic journals. Dr. Zhu is the first GSDM faculty member to receive the highly competitive AAE Endodontic Educator Fellowship Award that supports promising early career educators within the US for five years.
December 2025 Chobanian & Avedisian SOM Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.
Clinical Professor
J. Mark Sloan, MD, Medicine/Hematology & Medical Oncology, is a hematologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC) with research interests in HTLV-1 associated adult leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), AL amyloidosis, and Duffy-null associated neutrophil counts (DANC). His pioneering work on DANC has helped transform clinical management for individuals of African descent, who are disproportionately affected by low white blood cell counts. Nationally, Dr. Sloan led a landmark multi-center trial for the frontline treatment of ATLL, demonstrating that long-term survival is an achievable goal for patients in the United States. Beyond his research, Dr. Sloan serves as program director for the Hematology/Oncology fellowship and director of the Gene Therapy Program for hemoglobinopathy at BMC. His serves on NIH study sections and European Medicines Agency panels. The clinician-scientist and mentor also is the co-founder of the Engraftment Project, a non-profit dedicated to expanding opportunities for sickle cell disease survivors following curative treatment.
Associate Professor
Avik Chatterjee, MD, MPH, Medicine/GIM, has implemented innovative treatment models for opioid use disorder and harm reduction interventions for people experiencing homelessness. He led the creation of a first-of-its-kind, shelter-based opioid addiction treatment program, and recently published an analysis of the health and economic outcomes of rolling out shelter-based buprenorphine to emergency shelters across Massachusetts, demonstrating that the strategy would not only save lives, but also save money. He is a physician at several shelter-based clinics for adults and children through Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and serves as a site PI or Co-I on four NIDA grants. Dr. Chatterjee recently was named to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Advisory Council on Substance Misuse. He is the recipient of numerous teaching and advising awards, including the Thomas Hoopes Prize, the STAR Family Prize for Excellence in Advising, and the John R. Marquand Award for Exceptional Advising.
Jessica L. Fetterman, PhD, Medicine/Vascular Biology, is a basic and translational scientist studying the intersections of mitochondrial physiology, mitochondrial genetics and cardiovascular disease. She has developed and applied bioinformatics methods for identifying and annotating mitochondrial DNA variants in population-based cohorts. She has published a rigorous protocol for biobanking of whole human hearts preserved to maintain the spatial resolution for multiomics, which served as the basis for her funded MPI R01 to build a cardiovascular biobank in the Framingham Heart Study. Dr. Fetterman’s second research focus is on the cardiovascular health effects, health perceptions and social media marketing of new and emerging tobacco products to inform policy. Her research has shown that e-cigarette use is associated with increased vascular stiffness, and the flavoring additives used in tobacco products induce endothelial cell toxicity. She is a Framingham Heart Study investigator and fellow of the American Heart Association.
Astrid Suchy-Dicey, PhD, Medicine/Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology, is a neuroepidemiologist focusing on health inequities in cognitive aging with a particular emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in Native American populations. Dr. Suchy-Dicey received a BA in history and biology from Smith College and MS and PhD in epidemiology from the University of Washington School of Public Health. A T32 trainee for the entirety of her graduate training, Dr. Suchy-Dicey subsequently became research assistant professor at Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, and was promoted to assistant professor in 2018, funded by her K01 in neurology and neuropsychology. She became an associate professor and director of clinical neurosciences at Huntington Medical Research Institutes in 2023 before joining BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 2025.
Xueling Wu, MD, PhD, Medicine/Infectious Diseases, studies HIV and other viruses with pandemic threat, with a focus on developing broad and potent neutralizing antibodies and more effective vaccines. Her work has demonstrated antibody escape favors HIV mother-to-child transmission and her research in neutralizing antibodies has advanced to multiple clinical trials. Dr. Wu received a BS in Clinical Medicine from Tongji Medical College in China and did her residency in internal medicine at Guilin People’s Hospital. Dr. Wu earned her PhD in microbiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed her postdoctoral training in Molecular Virology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center before becoming a staff scientist at the NIH Vaccine Research Center and then joining the faculty at Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, an affiliate of Rockefeller University. While there, Dr. Wu was promoted to associate professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center before joining BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 2025.
Clinical Associate Professor
Felipe Agudelo, PhD, MPH, Medical Sciences & Education, serves as director of the Program and Curriculum Evaluation Office in the department of medical sciences & education, supporting many programs, such as the Propelling Rise of Faculty (PRoF) initiative, as well as helping faculty design evaluations and build rigorous evaluation plans for educational interventions. His research focus includes the school-to-prison pipeline, health professions education, curriculum design and evaluation, and the intersection of public health, hate speech and digital racism on social media. In addition, he has been a lecturer in MET’s MS in Health Communications program since 2018.
Fabio Petrocca, MD, Medicine/Hematology & Oncology, is a clinician-investigator focused on cellular therapy and hematology. He is the founding director of the Cellular Therapy Program at Boston Medical Center (BMC), where he helped build a comprehensive CAR T service offering both FDA-approved and investigational therapies. Dr. Petrocca has served as PI/co-PI or study director on multiple CAR T clinical trials in hematologic and autoimmune diseases and leads CAR T-focused translational research within the Hem/Onc Translational Research Laboratory. Previously, he was a medical director in the biotech industry, where he played a key role in advancing the first multiple myeloma CAR T therapy from phase 1 through regulatory approval, and PI of an NCI-funded cancer research laboratory at Boston University. He has served on NIH study sections and industry advisory boards for Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis, Tessera Therapeutics, and Catamaran Bio.
Reggie R. Thomasson, MD, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, is chief & vice chair for the division of laboratory medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC). He holds the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) license as laboratory director for BMC’s laboratories. He formerly served as associate director for the pathology residency program and now serves as medical director for Blood Bank and Transfusion Medicine, Phlebotomy and Point-of Care as well as Inpatient Apheresis. Dr. Thomasson is a site PI at BMC, where he leads multiple studies focused on sickle cell disease, including investigations into antigen and antibody frequencies, transfusion practices, and complications related to stem cell mobilization in donors with sickle cell trait. In addition, he is a CO-I on an American Society of Hematology (ASH)-funded initiative establishing absolute neutrophil count reference ranges for Duffy-null individuals.
December 2025 SPH & GSDM Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) and School of Public Health (SPH) faculty on their recent promotion.
GSDM
Professor
Sami Chogle, BDS, DMD, MSD, FICD, FACD, Endodontics, serves as Herbert Schilder professor in endodontics, chair of endodontics and director of the school’s advanced education program in endodontics. He has collaborated with program residents to design their overall educational experience, including the design of their MSD or DScD research projects. Dr. Chogle has served as a research advisor and mentor to 34 postdoctoral residents. In 2022, he collaborated both nationally and internationally on research including a visiting Fulbright Program Scholar from Albania and a second Fulbright Scholar from Turkey. His multifaceted research has included investigations on AI-assisted diagnostics, root canal irrigation/disinfection devices, use of robotics in microsurgery, development of optical coherence tomography devices for root canal systems and nanoparticle-incorporated materials for endodontic procedures.
SPH
Associate Professor
Allegra Gordon, ScD, MPH, Community Health Sciences, is a social epidemiologist who focuses on mental health and sexual health promotion among marginalized adolescents and young adults (AYA), stigma and discrimination as multilevel determinants of health, and advancing quantitative and qualitative methods for research and clinical care with underserved populations. She is PI of a K01 Career Development Award developing methods for measuring mental health-related exposures among AYAs in online environments and validating existing measures in understudied populations. Dr. Gordon also serves on the editorial board for the journal Psychology & Sexuality.
Sarah Gordon, PhD, Health Law, Policy & Management, is a health services researcher with expertise in health insurance, access to care, and Medicaid policy. She applies econometric and causal inference-based methods to assess the impacts of state-level health care policies on low-income populations. She has experience merging and analyzing multiple state all payer claims databases and national Medicaid claims to conduct cross-state policy comparisons. She is PI of a K01 Career Development Award studying the effects of postpartum Medicaid policies on maternal mental health care. Dr. Gordon also serves as senior associate editor at Health Services Research.
Intersession 2025 Preparations
BUMC Facilities would like to conserve energy over Intersession in non-occupied spaces. Below is a list of steps to follow before leaving on holiday break as we head into Intersession.
- Close windows.
- Turn off all electrical equipment i.e. computers, monitor, lights, any portable heaters, copiers, printers, coffee pots and lamps.
- Lock all doors that can be secured; close any propped doors.
- Contact the Control Center regarding any special conditions that may need to be monitored (email: CPO-FMO-BUMC-CONTROL-CENTER@bu.edu or call 617-358-4144).
- Remove all holiday decorations.
- Check all your lab equipment status before leaving and add contact information on -80 and incubators in case an event occurs.
- Power down all non-essential lab equipment.
- Turn off all sterilizers.
- Refrigerators – Adjust the setting to 1 or 3 to keep the compressor from cycling on and off. If possible, empty the refrigerator and turn the unit off. If refrigerator is turned off, place a bucket inside to catch water when the ice melts and put some absorbent pads under the refrigerator to catch any water, which might get past the gasket.
Building Access: Entrance will be by card access only.
Email: Please post an “Out of Office” message.
Mail Services:
- Internal Mail will be suspended; normal operations resume Jan. 5, 2026.
- UPS-FedEx-Amazon: Mail Services will contact carriers to inform them BUMC is not open for deliveries, but they may drop packages at Mail Services 120 Ashford Street.
- For those who are on campus and wish to collect mail for their department, mail pick-ups may be made on Dec. 23, 26 and 30, plus Jan. 2, 2026, between 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at University Mail Services located at 120 Ashford St., Room 163. Individuals must show a valid BU ID card.
On Jan. 5, 2026, all adjustments to the buildings air handlers and hot water systems should return to their normal settings to ensure everyone who returns on Monday, Jan. 5, enters into a normal working climate.
October 2025 Chobanian & Avedisian SOM Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.
Clinical Professor
Charles Tifft, MD’73, Medicine/GIM, specializes in the prevention and treatment of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. The clinician-educator has been a member of the BU/Boston Medical Center (BMC) community since he was a medical student and he joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1978. He was promoted to associate professor in 1985. His research contributed to landmark studies on the treatment of hypertensive emergencies with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. Since 1991, Dr. Tifft has run a busy clinical general medicine practice affiliated with BMC and continued his academic pursuits with regular participation in grand rounds and occasional publication reviews and commentaries on hypertension.
Associate Professor
Stacy Andersen, PhD, Medicine/Geriatrics, studies cognition, particularly cognitive resilience, in cohorts with exceptional longevity. She is the co-director of the New England Centenarian Study and multiple PI of two National Institute on Aging-funded U19 grants, the Resilience/Resistance to Alzheimer’s Disease in Centenarians and their Offspring study and the Long Life Family Study. She is a core faculty member of the behavioral neuroscience doctoral program and has served on its admissions committee since 2018. She also is an ad hoc reviewer for 17 journals related to aging, cognition and Alzheimer’s disease; and has served on six NIH study sections reviewing career development awards (K awards), research project grants (R awards), and cooperative agreements (U19s), as well as study sections for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a private foundation.
Heather Hsu, MD, MPH, Pediatrics, is a clinician-scientist who conducts policy-relevant health services research focused on advancing the quality, efficiency and equity of healthcare delivery across the lifespan. Her work leverages data locally and nationally to inform health policy, healthcare delivery and resource allocation decision-making. Dr. Hsu is the PI of an NIH K01 grant on improving healthcare delivery for opioid use disorder and a co-I on an AHRQ/PCORI P30 grant developing infrastructure and expertise to support a community-engaged learning health system that improves care delivery within the safety net. She also led the development of a national approach to pediatric sepsis surveillance, which was adopted by the CDC. Dr. Hsu is the recipient of the 2025 Excellence in Faculty Mentorship: Early Career Award. Her teaching and mentoring excellence has been recognized for five straight years on the Teaching Honor Roll, and she received the inaugural Leadership in Equity & Advocacy (LEAP) award from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2023.
Charlene Ong, MD, MPHS, Neurology, is a physician-scientist in neurologic critical care whose research develops data-driven tools to detect neurological deterioration and support real-time decision making in acute brain injury. Her work integrates physiologic monitoring, particularly quantitative pupillometry and noninvasive intracranial compliance, with real-world clinical data to enable earlier recognition of decline and treatment response. She led foundational studies demonstrating pupillometry as an early marker of deterioration and developed one of the first externally validated pipelines to quantify eye movements from electrooculography and neurological examination elements from clinical documentation. Dr. Ong is the PI on an NINDS K23 grant and an American Heart Association Career Development Award, with additional support from Neuroptics, the Gertler Foundation, Brain4care and the Reddy Foundation, and serves as co-investigator on a multi-site NINDS R61 grant. She received the institution’s Excellence in Research Mentorship Award for 2025 and has mentored more than 40 trainees across clinical and data science projects.
Clinical Associate Professor
Rivka Ayalon, MD, Medicine/Nephrology, is a clinician-educator specializing in nephrology and hypertension. Dr. Ayalon founded the multidisciplinary hypertension clinic and collaborates with colleagues across multiple disciplines to advance the care of patients with complex and resistant hypertension. The clinic provides education for providers at all levels and has received national recognition as a specialized center for the evaluation and management of primary aldosteronism. It also offers advanced diagnostic and management tools, including antihypertensive drug testing to assess medication adherence. In addition, Dr. Ayalon implemented the use of unattended automated oscillometric blood pressure measurement across multiple clinics to improve accuracy and standardized assessment. Dr. Ayalon attends on the inpatient nephrology service and provides ongoing care for patients with end-stage kidney disease at DaVita Boston. She teaches residents on the renal medicine service and fellows on the nephrology consult service.
Neely Hines, MD, Radiology, returns to BU/BMC as a member of the breast imaging faculty. She joined our community in March 2013 as an attending breast radiologist and served as the section chief of breast imaging and director of the Breast Imaging Fellowship in the department of radiology. Dr. Hines streamlined clinical worklflow in the Belkin Breast Imaging Center, which led to more timely access to breast screening at the hospital. In 2016 she moved on to Beth Israel Deaconess/Harvard Medical School and then to Atrius Health, where she rose to associate chief of radiology. In that capacity, she developed outreach campaigns to improve screening mammography compliance in their patient population and implemented a peer mentoring program to support radiologists joining the practice. She also created a peer learning program to improve the quality of imaging care and helped to streamline integration of Atrius Health, Reliant Medical Group and Optum Health.
Aram Kaligian, MD, Family Medicine, is a clinician-educator with a special interest in medical education, global health and health system strengthening. For the past 20 years, Dr. Kaligian has served continuously as a continuity clinic residency preceptor of family medicine (FM) residents at South Boston Community Health Center (SBCHC), inpatient adult medicine attending teaching and supervisor of residents and medical students during hospital rotations, and as a medical student preceptor teaching third-year family medicine clerkship students assigned to SBCHC as their community-based site. In 2022, he was named director of the Boston University–Armenia Medical Partnership (BU-AMP), which strives to help improve the healthcare system of this country by establishing key relationships between BU departments and partners in Armenia. Working with the Ministry of Health and other institutions there, BU-AMP launched the “Health for Armenia” initiative, which is supplementing training of primary care physicians in the rural regions of Armenia and is building competency-based curriculum in medical professional education programs.
Lilani Perera, MD, Medicine/Gastroenterology, specializes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Dr. Perera earned her MD with honors from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and completed fellowships in gastroenterology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and an IBD immunology research fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York. She brings extensive experience directing multidisciplinary IBD programs in both academic and clinical settings, including as director of the IBD Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin (2010-2014), a leadership role in the IBD Program at Aurora Health System (2014-2023), and director of the IBD Center at Tufts Medical Center (2023-2025). In these positions, she developed programs providing care to thousands of patients and established dedicated IBD rotations for GI fellows. Dr. Perera is a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, serves on the National Scientific Advisory Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, and chairs the Women’s Committee for the AGA. She also represents the Massachusetts Medical Society as a delegate to the American Medical Association House of Delegates. She joins BU/BMC as director of the Crohn’s and Colitis program.
Xinxin Sun, MD, PhD, Anatomy & Neurobiology, is a clinician-educator who focuses on medical anatomy and histology instruction. She joins BU from Tufts University School of Medicine where she served as curriculum co-director of the basic science program. Her expertise in medical education ranges across anatomy, histology, neuroscience, endocrinology and human pathology. She is an integrator of complex biological concepts with clinical applications for her students. Dr. Sun received her MBBS and MSc in genetics from Shandong University School of Medicine in China and PhD in genetics from Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Elisabeth Woodhams, MD, MSc, Obstetrics and Gynecology/Complex Family Planning, focuses on mitigating disparities in access to comprehensive reproductive health care, specifically for complex abortion care. She serves currently as the ambulatory medical director for OBGYN, as well as the director of the division of family planning and the program director for the Fellowship in Complex Family Planning. Her clinical focus, research and scholarship aim to dismantle barriers to reproductive healthcare and build in their place patient-centered, sustainable structures and models of care across spaces caring for pregnancy capable patients. She works toward this through interdepartmental initiatives like the integration of anesthesia into the ambulatory procedure space for abortion care, inter-professional reproductive healthcare education, and research focused on provision of equitable and patient-centered reproductive healthcare for racialized communities and other groups that have been economically or socially marginalized.
Sally S. Vanerian, MD, Medicine/GIM, is a clinician-educator who has provided care to medically complex and diverse patients for more than 25 years at the VA Boston Healthcare System. The recipient of many teaching awards, throughout her career she has been an attending resident preceptor, working with residents in their continuity clinics, and has taught medical students. Since 2021, she has also precepted residents during their ambulatory rotations in the Ambulatory Diagnostic and Treatment Center. Most recently, Dr. Vanerian was appointed the VA site director for the advanced ambulatory care rotation for fourth-year Chobanian & Avedisian SOM students. She is a career-long member of the Armenian American Medical Association (AAMA). Since 2022, Dr. Vanerian has volunteered in the mentorship program of the American University of Armenia Turpanjian College of Health Sciences, in collaboration with the AAMA, meeting virtually with physicians in rural Armenia, providing guidance on challenging clinical cases in their practices, and giving lectures on the management of various medical conditions.
August & September 2025 Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following Medical Campus faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.
Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Clinical Associate Professor
Omar Siddiqi, MD, Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine, is a clinician-educator who is the program director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship and co-director of the cardiovascular module for PISCEs. Dr. Siddiqi also is faculty mentor of the Fellows in Training (FIT) Council of the Massachusetts chapter of the American College of Cardiology (MA-ACC). He is an attending physician at the BU Amyloidosis Center and director of cardio-oncology at Boston Medical Center (BMC). He specializes in structural echocardiographic imaging through which he provides transesophageal imaging support to the structural interventional program. A graduate of the Harvard Macy Program for Educators in Health Professions and the Clinician Educator Leadership Program (CELP) at BMC, Dr. Siddiqi's medical education research interests include developing simulation-based curricula in cardiovascular medicine fellowship. He is the site-PI or co-PI for seven clinical trials, six of which involve patients with cardiac amyloidosis.
Peter Hoffmeister, MD, Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine, is a clinician-educator with advanced training in clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Based at VA Boston Healthcare’s West Roxbury Campus, he is associate director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Lab and program where he sees patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), heart failure and arrhythmia disorders. He is an expert within the VA system in the management of patients with implantable cardiac electronic devices, providing long-term device care including pacemakers and defibrillators as well as expertise in complex lead management including lead extraction in conjunction with the cardiothoracic surgical service. He also helps lead an advanced AFib management program and has worked to establish the section as a major training site for physicians and students from BU and throughout the region.
Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine
Clinical Professor
Elie Amm, DDS, PhD, Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopedics, is a clinician-educator with areas of interest in materials research and biomechanics: digital technology, finite element analysis, and the use of newer technologies such as augmented reality and 4D materials to improve patient care. He directs or co-directs five courses in the orthodontic department and lectures in four additional didactic courses. He has developed a new course in biomechanics for second-year residents and is the course coordinator for the department’s resident participation in the Tweed Foundation’s prestigious Tweed Study Course, the oldest continuing education program in dental medicine. Tweed’s intensive seven-day program brings together residents and young orthodontists from ~100 training programs for an intensive seven-day training in advanced edgewise mechanics, differential diagnosis and biomechanics.
Breno Reboucas, DDS, DSc, MBA, General Dentistry, is a clinician-educator who serves as the school’s director of predoctoral pediatric dentistry, where he has overseen the delivery and refinement of the pediatric curriculum, ensuring that instruction remains evidence-based, innovative and responsive to the evolving needs of learners. He has served as course director for multiple didactic, preclinical and clinical courses. Dr. Reboucas also managed two HRSA grants and has made significant contributions to interprofessional and experiential learning initiatives, including leading the international externship program in Nicaragua and fostering global and community partnerships that enhance pediatric clinical training.
Roya Zandparsa, DDS, CAGS, MSc, DMD
Dr. Zandparsa serves as associate dean of admissions and clinical professor of restorative sciences & biomaterials. She is the founder & CEO of Expert Dental Advisory, president of the American Association of Women Dentists, past president of the American Academy of Dental Science, and a member of InnoTech Precision Medicine Scientific Board. Dr. Zandparsa received her DMD from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, MS in biomaterials & biomimetics, and a certificate in prosthodontics from New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science and New York University College of Dentistry, respectively. She completed a fellowship in implant dentistry at HSDM, a fellowship in academic leadership at ADEA Leadership Institute, certificates in entrepreneurship-HBSx, and innovation processes-MITx. Dr. Zandparsa has received numerous awards during her academic career for outstanding scholarship and clinical work, excellence in clinical teaching and exemplary leadership.
July 2025 Chobanian & Avedisian SOM Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.
Clinical Professor
Ashish Upadhyay, MD, medicine/nephrology, serves as director of the nephrology fellowship and director of research for the internal medicine residency. Previously, he led evidence review teams for international nephrology clinical practice guidelines (2009-2012), was associate director of the internal medicine residency (2012-2018), and director of the nephrology clerkship (2018-2025). His scholarly contributions spanning clinical nephrology and medical education have been cited over 5,500 times. He also is an investigator in multiple kidney disease-related clinical studies, a member of AAMI’s Renal Disease and Detoxification Committee, and chair of the school’s Committee on Appeals. Dr. Upadhyay received Boston Medical Center’s 2021 Program Leadership Award and the department of medicine’s 2022 Evans Special Recognition Teaching Award.
Associate Professor
Devin Steenkamp, MBChB, medicine/endocrinology, diabetes, nutrition & weight management, is an endocrinologist with a particular interest in type 1 diabetes, atypical diabetes phenotypes and the application of diabetes technologies in care. He is director of the clinical diabetes program in the section of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition and weight management and established the diabetes technology program, specifically focused on caring for underserved adults living with diabetes. Dr. Steenkamp has been an investigator on multiple multi-center clinical trials and translational projects and is currently a co-I on two NIH-funded R01 clinical studies investigating diabetes technology in novel populations (underserved adults with type 1 diabetes and non-diabetic members of the longitudinal Framingham Heart Study).
Alysse Wurcel, MD, medicine/GIM, specializes in implementation science and carceral health with a robust research portfolio examining health disparities. Dr. Wurcel has delivered clinical care as an infectious diseases physician at various institutions, including Tufts Medical Center, Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Beverly Hospital and several Massachusetts county jails. She has more than 20 years of experience as a clinician and researcher working with communities of color, people with HIV, people who use drugs and people who have experienced incarceration. She is a member of the leadership team of the Academic Consortium for Criminal Justice Health and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Correctional Health Care.
June 2025 Chobanian & Avedisian SOM Faculty Promotions
Congratulations to the following BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.
Professor
Valerie Gouon-Evans, PhD, PharmD, Medicine/Gastroenterology, studies liver development and therapeutic strategies to alleviate liver diseases using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and innovative nanoparticle mRNA platforms. Earlier this year she was named the inaugural BMC Research Excellence Award winner. She has a track record for training postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and technicians who have remained in the research field either in academia or with industry/consulting firms. She also mentors junior and peer faculty members through her position as the director of the BU Liver Biologist (BULB) program, which provides intellectual and technical resources for peers in the liver field at a local and national level. In addition, she is associate director of the molecular and translational medicine PhD program.
Associate Professor
Sung Kwon, MD, MPH, MBA, Surgery, is a surgical oncologist who studies population health and cancer outcomes. His clinical interests are in caring for patients with peritoneal surface malignancy and in regional therapies for advanced cancers. Using large databases, Dr. Kwon is working to build prediction models and to identify modifiable factors that may improve cancer outcomes. Particularly, he is interested in evaluating interventions to improve surgical and cancer outcomes of older patients undergoing multi-modal cancer therapies. He directs the Roger Williams Surgery and Cancer Outcomes Research and Equity Center. In addition, he directs the surgery clerkship at Roger Williams Medical Center (RWMC) and is an associate clerkship director for BU’s medical school. He also is associate program director of RWMC Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship and serves on several national committees related to surgery and surgical oncology.
Clinical Associate Professor
Krithika Muruganandan, MD, Emergency Medicine, is a clinician-educator with a focus on point-of-care ultrasound, global health and medical education. She previously served as the Advanced Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship director and Emergency Ultrasound Clerkship director and currently is the director of Emergency Ultrasound in the emergency department. Dr. Muruganandan has developed and implemented novel ultrasound curricula that have influenced emergency medicine training both locally and internationally. She created a point of care ultrasound training for emergency providers (both physicians and non-physicians) in low-resourced settings (Haiti, Uganda, Rwanda and Sierra Leone), which has contributed to increased diagnostic accuracy, increased local expertise and a more sustainable healthcare infrastructure.
Sundara Rengasamy, MD, Anesthesiology is a clinician-educator specializing in cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Dr. Rengasamy has held academic and clinical roles in cardiac anesthesia across Boston-area hospitals including Mt. Auburn Hospital and Mass General Brigham Salem Hospital. He has received multiple teaching awards and mentored numerous trainees. He serves on the BU Medical Group’s Wellness and Professional Vitality Advisory Council and BMC’s Central Venous Access Safety Committee. Dr. Rengasamy has led international education in perioperative transesophageal echocardiography, helping establish protocols in India. His leadership contributed to Holy Family Hospital receiving the first Center for Orthopedic Excellence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Mona Doss Roberts, DO, Pediatrics, is a clinician-educator who serves as director of the Boston Combined Residency Program BMC Primary Care Continuity Clinic. She also works in BMC’s GROW clinic caring for children with growth failure. She created the Primary Care Refresh (PCR) Series that provides didactic topic updates to BMC pediatric primary care providers. Dr. Roberts also designed and implemented a “mini” clinic in primary care that offers developmental evaluations for vulnerable children with developmental delays and concern for autism spectrum, which has helped decrease barriers in accessing these developmental assessments. She precepts pediatric residents, medical students and dental students in pediatric primary care. She serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine.
Dellara Terry, MD, MPH, Medicine/Geriatrics, specializes in geriatrics and performs cognitive assessments at Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Geriatrics Memory Disorders Clinic. Her primary role is chief and vice president of Value Based Care for the BMC Health System, where she addresses opportunities to improve clinical care delivery and risk-based contractual performance using a data-driven approach. Dr. Terry brings 20+ years of experience working in large integrated healthcare systems, venture-backed companies and academic medicine to her current rol
Deborah Whalen, MSN, MBA, APRN, Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine, is a clinician and leader whose career over the last 30 years epitomizes individual clinical excellence. She currently serves as the director of quality and patient safety for the department of medicine. Through her extensive accomplishments in championing methodologies of quality assessment and improvement (QA/QI), she has inspired generations of MD-trained clinicians and advanced practice providers in the cardiovascular medicine section and larger department of medicine to incorporate QI into their clinical practice. Ms. Whalen has played a leadership role in shaping the clinical environment through numerous contributions that have been recognized at local, national and international levels.