Student Updates

GSDM Faculty Appointment

Congratulations to the following Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine faculty on his recent appointment.

Professor

Konstantinos X. Michalakis, DDS, MSc, MSc, PhD, Restorative Sciences & Biomaterials, is a clinician-educator-scientist with an extensive background in prosthodontics, biomaterials and biomechanics. Chair of the department of restorative sciences & biomaterials, his research focuses on identifying and treating biomechanical and biological factors that impact all aspects of dental care. His efforts will primarily include studying and understanding postural and gait disturbances due to dental or medical interventions in the craniofacial complex and providing a refined insight into cellular biomechanics, via advanced computer modelling and in-vitro studies, aiming to advance surgical implant therapy in patients with poor bone quantity and quality. Dr. Michalakis has built a state-of the-art biomechanics laboratory to support his research interests. This new laboratory, envisioned as a multi-disciplinary resource, is dedicated to furthering research and development in biomechanics and will complement the well-known biomaterials laboratory of the department.

BUSPH Faculty Appointments & Promotions

Congratulations to the following BU School of Public Health faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.

Carol Dolan, PhD – Promotion to Clinical Professor of Community Health Sciences: Dr. Dolan’s work focuses on the social-contextual determinants of health and mental health. She teaches several mental health-related courses and directs the Certificate in Mental Health and Substance Use. Her research focuses on stress and health in various contexts, including the effects of psychosocial factors and stress on cardiovascular health, and stress and coping in minority women. Previously as a research scientist with Walter Reed Medical Research Unit, she conducted quantitative and qualitative research examining the physical and psychological effects of stress among deployed military members. Her work also includes counseling experience with military members and families, with a focus on how deployments and trauma affect family members.

Justin White, PhD – Appointment to Associate Professor of Health Law, Policy, and Management: Dr. White is a health economist who joined BUSPH this summer, following eight years as a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. His work focuses on the use of incentives to foster healthy behaviors and reduce the disease burden caused by chronic disease risk factors. He has engaged in multiple collaborations with interdisciplinary teams across the U.S. and globally to inform policy decisions and translate evidence to policy. His work has made unique contributions to understanding and preventing use of tobacco as well as improving nutrition and oral health among underrepresented and disadvantaged populations.

Lawrence Long, PhD, MCom – Promotion to Research Associate Professor of Global Health: Dr. Long is a health economist with more than 18 years of experience conducting applied research on the economic impact of HIV, TB and associated conditions within South Africa and the region. In addition to his position at BUSPH, he holds a joint appointment at the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). He has training in economics, finance, mathematics, research methodology and behavioral science, and extensive experience in organizational management, leadership and grant management. He is currently the principal investigator of an NIH K01 award, “Using behavioral economics to improve the uptake of and persistence on pre-exposure prophylaxis in men who have sex with men to prevent HIV infection.”

BUMC Faculty Appointments and Promotions – September 2023

Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.

Associate Professor

Nicholas Butler, MD, Ophthalmology, specializes in uveitis and ocular immunology, with particular interest in infectious causes of ocular inflammation and uveitic macular edema. He serves as chief of ophthalmology at VA Boston Healthcare System, where his clinical work focuses on treating veterans with complex, immune-mediated or infectious ocular inflammation and teaching ophthalmology residents cataract surgery. Dr. Butler’s interest and research in treating inflammatory macular edema, most notably with systemic interferon alpha for refractory disease, has garnered national attention. As a clinician educator, he prioritizes clinical and surgical teaching of residents and fellows on rotation at VA Boston and in the uveitis clinic at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Since completing fellowship, he has provided clinical and surgical teaching and mentoring to nearly 200 residents and fellows in ophthalmology.

Kelly Kenzik, PhD, Surgery, focuses on using advanced methodology to examine disparities in outcomes among individuals diagnosed with cancer, which include mortality, morbidity, healthcare utilization patterns, costs of care, patient-reported quality of life, symptoms and functioning. She joins BU from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she was an associate professor in the division of hematology and oncology and an associate member of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. She now serves as the associate chair for research in the department of surgery and has taken a leadership role in the Surgical Outcomes & Analysis Research (SOAR) group, directed and led by Dr. Teviah Sachs. Dr. Kenzik earned her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Florida, where she also received a master’s degree in health behavior.

Clinical Associate Professor

Maithri Ameresekere, MD, MSc, Psychiatry, joined BU in 2023 from the University of California-San Francisco, where she was a clinical associate professor. Her research centers on understanding barriers to accessing care among vulnerable and marginalized communities, locally and globally. She has worked on a World Bank-funded project in South Sudan focusing on evaluating the impact of programming on various dimensions of adolescent girls’ lives and research related to Somali immigrants’ perception of cesarean delivery and patient-provided communication surrounding female circumcision and childbirth. Dr. Ameresekere provides clinical services within Boston Medical Center’s Women’s Mental Health Program, encompassing the departments of psychiatry and OB-GYN including Project RESPECT and the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic (RWHC). She received her BA in human biology from Stanford University, MSc from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and her MD from the Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in psychiatry at the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program.

 Christine Cheston, MD, Pediatrics, is a clinician-educator with a clear and consistent focus on antiracism in medical education, fostering inclusive learning environments and responding to bias and racism in the resident workplace. Previously the associate program director of the Boston Combined Residency Program (BCRP) at Boston Medical Center (BMC) since her hire in 2016, Dr. Cheston was appointed program director in May 2023. She has received numerous honors, including being named to the BCRP’s Annual Teaching Honor Roll from 2017-23, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Faculty Honor Roll since its inception in 2022, and the Feedback Honor Roll from 2021-23. Dr. Cheston serves as an attending hospitalist on BMC’s inpatient pediatrics service and in its newborn nursery.

Gopala Yadavalli, MD, Medicine/Infectious Diseases, is a clinician-educator focused on the care of inpatients. He splits his clinical time at Boston Medical Center (BMC) between attending on inpatient infectious diseases ward and consult services. Shortly after joining the faculty in 2011, Dr. Yadavalli co-created BMC’s inpatient infectious diseases ward team (MP ID) and the current version of the inpatient “Advanced Acting Internship” teams. The department’s current vice chair for education and former director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, he has recruited and mentored faculty to co-create and implement numerous educational innovations, including eight individualized career pathways to augment traditional internal medicine training. He served as founding program director of the Ravin Davidoff Executive Fellowship in Health Equity, has served on the Council of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine and chaired the Wellness Committee for the Alliance for  Academic Internal Medicine.

BUMC Faculty Appointments and Promotions – August 2023

Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.

Professor

Alison Galbraith, MD, MPH, Pediatrics, is chief of the division of health services research (HSR) for the department. She joins BU from Harvard Medical School where she was an associate professor of population health, site director of its HSR fellowship and a staff pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Galbraith’s research focuses on the impact of health insurance policy on health care access and affordability for children and families. Dr. Galbraith will lead a division of academic research faculty while advancing the science of child and family health. She will oversee faculty and staff development, foster collaboration and growth in grant submissions and scholarly output, and grow the presence of HSR research within the department. Dr. Galbraith will build a research program that promotes and drives initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion; build and support opportunities for sharing research; and partner with clinical leadership to establish research projects and protocols that are aligned with clinic operations and resources. Dr. Galbraith serves as an associate editor for JAMA Pediatrics, co-hosts the JAMA Pediatrics’ podcast and regularly speaks at institutions across the country.

Associate Professor

Jennifer Davids, MD, Surgery, studies colon and rectal surgery outcomes, as well as issues impacting gender equity in surgery. Dr. Davids’ work in implicit gender bias has led to policy changes at national meetings to improve equity for women surgeons. She comes to BU from University of Massachusetts TH Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Healthcare, where she served as program director of the colorectal surgery fellowship and associate program director of the surgery residency program. Dr. Davids has clinical expertise in all aspects of colon and rectal surgery, ranging from benign anorectal conditions to diverticular disease, inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer and pelvic organ prolapse. She is facile with endoscopic, laparoscopic, robotic and open surgical approaches.

Johanna Thompson-Hollands, PhD, Psychiatry, focuses on the role of social/family support in enhancing PTSD treatment retention and outcomes. She has been awarded several federal grants to develop and test family inclusive approaches to treatment, and to explore questions related to the implementation of family inclusive PTSD treatment within the VA. Dr. Thompson-Hollands has investigated the impact of family involvement on PTSD symptom change and treatment dropout. She has also examined veteran and family member goals for family inclusive treatment, and the specific needs and desires of women veterans regarding family involvement in care, among other topics.

Clinical Associate Professor

Karin S. Leschly, MD, Family Medicine, a clinician and academic leader, is the chief quality officer/VP of quality and population health at East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC). Recipient of the department of family medicine’s Medical Students Education Teacher of the Year Award, Dr. Leschly serves as faculty for family medicine (FM) clerkship didactics and regularly precepts BU FM clerkship students and Boston Medical Center (BMC) FM residents in her primary care practice at EBNHC, as well as oversees many BU students’ and BMC residents’ Qi Projects. She studies clinical quality improvement and has active grants investigating team-based diabetes care, colorectal cancer screening, mental health discharge follow-up, decreasing albuterol overuse in asthmatics, hypertension control, increasing statin use in CAD, and antiplatelet use in IVD.

BUMC Faculty Promotions – July 2023 

Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion.

Professor

Elijah Paintsil, MD, Pediatrics, is chair and chief of pediatrics at the school and Boston Medical Center (BMC). He joins the BU/BMC community from Yale School of Medicine where, over 18 years, he assumed progressive leadership responsibilities, and served as section chief of pediatric infectious diseases and global health and was a professor in pediatrics and pharmacology as well as professor of epidemiology at Yale University School of Public Health and a professor at Yale School of Management. A physician-scientist and an NIH-funded investigator, Dr. Paintsil’s research has focused on antiretroviral therapy induced mitochondrial dysfunction, transmission of hepatitis C among injection drug users, and pediatric HIV treatment outcomes in resource limited countries. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Society, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Board, a scholar of the Pediatric Leadership Development Program sponsored by the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs (AMSPDC), and a consultant to Africa CDC in their continent-wide COVID-19 mitigation efforts in Africa.

Frederick Ruberg, MD, Medicine/Cardiovascular Medicine and Radiology,  is associate chief for cardiovascular medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and a clinical scientist with expertise in cardiac amyloidosis with continuous funding since 2005. He senior authored a number of important consensus guidelines statements relative to cardiac imaging, cardiac amyloidosis management and cardiac amyloidosis imaging/diagnosis. He currently is multi-PI of the $7.2M NHLBI-R01 funded Screening for Cardiac Amyloidosis with Nuclear Imaging in Minority Populations (SCAN-MP) study. An expert in cardiac imaging, Dr. Ruberg is senior associate editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging and a Fellow of the American Heart Association. In 2017 he was recognized as the outstanding research mentor by the BMC Medicine house staff, and in 2022 recognized with the Outstanding Citizen award from the department of medicine. A member of the BU Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) leadership team since 2016, he presently directs research workforce development activities for the Medical Campus. In 2022 he was elected to membership in the Association of University Cardiologists.

Research Professor

Yuriy Alekseyev, PhD, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, is a scholar, scientist and educator with expertise in genetic sequencing, genomics, single cell and spatial biology. He was appointed director for the BU Microarray and Sequencing Resource Core Facility in 2007 and also has served as director for the department of medicine’s Single Cell Sequencing Core Facility. Dr. Alekseyev participates in the development of novel, less invasive gene expression biomarkers for lung cancer and studies of gene expression changes caused by COPD. He has provided invaluable consultative services to the clinical branch of the department as it was planning and investing in next generation sequencing in the Boston Medical Center’s Anatomic Pathology division.

Associate Professor

Matthew Nayor, MD, MPH, Medicine/Cardiology, is a physician-scientist and cardiologist with subspecialty training in advanced heart failure and transplantation. He is a previous recipient of the school’s Aram V. Chobanian Distinguished Assistant Professorship. Dr. Nayor’s research uses physiologic studies and cardiovascular epidemiology to focus on the intersection of metabolic health and cardiovascular disease, especially heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). His NIH-funded laboratory is engaged in examining individual responses to discrete physiological perturbations, such as dietary stress or exercise, as precision phenotypes of impaired reserve capacity. By combining these assessments with high-throughput molecular screens (metabolomics, proteomics), Dr. Nayor’s laboratory has the ultimate goals of furthering understanding the underlying pathobiology, improving risk stratification, and potentially identifying novel therapeutic targets.

Michelle Bovin, PhD, Psychiatry, is a staff psychologist in the Behavioral Science Division of the National Center for PTSD at VA Boston Healthcare who focuses on two complementary areas: the development, validation and application of trauma-informed assessment tools and the improvement of access to care for patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Bovin led efforts to develop and validate key PTSD assessment instruments and training tools to ensure appropriate use, which has informed policy nationwide. She is extending this work in a VA HSR&D-funded MERIT award to help the VA ensure that Veterans with PTSD can access care. Dr. Bovin is a subject matter expert in the development of training instruments for the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5, the gold standard interview for diagnosing PTSD. She serves on the editorial boards of Psychological Services, Assessment, and Journal of Traumatic Stress and is a standing member of the Mental and Behavioral Health VA HSR&D study section. She provides direct clinical training of psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows in the Boston Consortium in Clinical Psychology.

Andreea Bujor, MD, PhD, Medicine/Rheumatology,  is is a rheumatologist-scientist who focuses her research on the role of myeloid cells in scleroderma pathogenesis and cardiac fibrosis. She has made a major contribution in her field by identifying Fli-1 as a key player in cardiac fibrosis with an h-index of 14. She is currently a PI on an R01 and a grant from the National Scleroderma Foundation, in addition to being site PI for the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium study. Dr. Bujor also serves as associate director for the rheumatology fellowship and has established and organized an institutional scleroderma biorepository of patient and control skin biopsies and blood samples linked to a clinical database.

Shuaiying Cui, PhD, Medicine/Hematology & Medical Oncology, specializes in sickle cell disease. His work has elucidated new mechanisms for the induction of fetal hemoglobin and has tremendous therapeutic potential. He is PI on an R01 and PI on five other grants from foundations and industry. Dr. Cui has served on several editorial boards and is currently associate editor of Frontiers in Hematology.

Katherine Gergen Barnett, MD, Family Medicine, is a primary care physician and researcher with expertise in health care policy and delivery, medical training and community engagement. She has served as a PI and co-PI on multiple grants, including a MassHealth grant to create and evaluate addiction training for family medicine residents, a Pfizer grant to study the efficacy of Paxlovid in high risk children, a CTSI grant to evaluate best practices for hospital based youth advisory boards, a PCORI grant to create and evaluate integrative medicine group visits for chronic pain, and an NIH grant to study the efficacy of restorative justice and storytelling on healing medical mistrust. Dr. Gergen Barnett is vice chair of primary care innovation and transformation in the department of family medicine and has served in multiple leadership roles including as Residency Program Director, Medical Director, and co-founder of the joint Family Medicine-Psychiatry Residency. She directed the school’s Healers’ Art Course and regularly supervises medical students in her clinical practice. Finally, Dr. Gergen Barnett is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, and multiple television outlets.

Karin Schon, PhD, Anatomy & Neurobiology,  is a cognitive neuroscientist with expertise in human learning & memory, cognition and brain structure. Her research focuses on modulators of the medial temporal hippocampal (MTH) memory system in humans using neuroimaging, cognitive, biomarker, and exercise physiology methods. Her experimental approach uses high-resolution structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)methods enabling visualization of hippocampal subfields noninvasively, combined with quantification of plasticity-related biomarkers derived from peripheral blood samples and exercise physiology. Dr. Schon's current research is focused on modulation of the MTH system by psychological and social stress. Her innovative research program centers on stress related to chronic exposure to racism in self-identified Black or African American young and older adults. She co-directs two GMS graduate courses and mentors undergraduates, master’s and PhD students. Actively involved in the STaRS and BU PREP pipeline programs, Dr. Schon has an active collaboration with the University of Virgin Islands, where she is a research mentor in their undergraduate research training summer program.

Clinical Associate Professor

Linda Ng, MD, Urology, is a urologist with subspecialty in urogynecology (female pelvic medicine, neurourology and reconstructive surgery). She focuses on caring for patients with functional lower urinary tract and pelvic floor disorders such as urinary incontinence, overactive bladder, and pelvic organ prolapse. She also treats men with urethral stricture disease. Since 2017, she has served as the director of the Urology Residency Program. As the only female faculty member in urology, she has been actively recruiting and mentoring more women in the field of urology. She has participated in panels for medical students interested in surgical fields, increasing exposure to urology and highlighting the benefits of a career in urology.

Rachel Stark, MD (CAMED’02), MPH, Medicine/GIM, joined BU in 2022 and is based at VA Boston Healthcare System where she cares for the frail and aging veteran population in its Home-Based Primary Care Program. Dr. Stark has served in various roles in primary care and medical education leadership, most recently as the director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Cambridge Health Alliance and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. During her 11 years at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, she won multiple awards for her excellence in teaching, mentoring and leadership. Most notably, she won the Young Mentor Award at Harvard Medical School in 2019. She also was honored as the Medical Educator of the Year by the New England Region of the Society of General Internal Medicine in 2014.