Callisia N. Clarke, MD
AAS President-Elect
Rebecca A. Snyder, MD, MPH
Chair, Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course
Chair, Clinical & Health Services Research Committee
Ashley Holder, MD, FACS
Chair, Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course
Chair, Basic & Translational Research Committee
Keynote
Julie Ann Sosa, MD, MA, FACS
Julie Ann Sosa, MD MA FACS is the Leon Goldman MD Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she is also a Professor in the Department of Medicine and affiliated faculty for the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. Dr Sosa came to UCSF in 2018 from Duke. Her clinical interest is in endocrine surgery, with a focus in thyroid cancer. She is an NIH- and FDA-funded investigator and author of more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and 80 book chapters and reviews, all largely focused on outcomes research, health care delivery, hyperparathyroidism, and thyroid cancer, with a focus on clinical trials. She has authored or edited 7 books. Dr Sosa is President of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) and serves on the Board of Directors/Executive Council of the ATA and International Thyroid Oncology Group; for the ATA, she is chairing the committee responsible for writing the next iteration of differentiated thyroid cancer guidelines. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the World Journal of Surgery and an editor of Greenfield’s Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice. She has mentored more than 90 students, residents, and fellows, for which she was recognized with induction as a full member to the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Educators in 2020, and by the ATA with the Lewis E. Braverman Distinguished Lectureship Award in 2017 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2022. She received the Chancellor’s Diversity Award in 2022 for the Advancement of Women at UCSF. Dr Sosa was born in Montreal and raised in upstate New York. She received her AB at Princeton, MA at Oxford, and MD at Johns Hopkins, where she completed the Halsted residency and a fellowship.
Kick Off Lecture
Caprice C. Greenberg, MD, MPH
Caprice C. Greenberg MD MPH is the Colin G. Thomas, Jr., MD Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prior to that, she served as the Moretz-Mansberger Distinguished Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. She is a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer and a health services researcher with a focus in quality and safety. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She has founded several organizations to ensure research impacts practice, including the Surgical Collaborative of Wisconsin and the Academy for Surgical Coaching. Dr. Greenberg has served in multiple national leadership roles, including as Recorder and President of the Association for Academic Surgery and President of the Surgical Outcomes Club.
Mentorship and Collaboration
Ugwuji Maduekwe, MD
Dr. Ugwuji Maduekwe is a surgical oncologist and cancer health equity researcher in the Department of Surgery at Medical College of Wisconsin
Puneet Singh, MD
Dr. Puneet Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Breast Surgical Oncology and Associate Program Director of Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She graduated from The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine where she also completed her Residency as well as Research and Clinical Medical Ethics Fellowships. Following this, she completed her Clinical Fellowship in Breast Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Singh’s research focuses on axillary management in ER+/Her2- breast cancer and impact of tumor biology on breast surgical management. She also has an academic interest in surgical ethics.
Daniel I. Chu, MD, MSPH
Dr. Daniel I. Chu MD MSPH is an Associate Professor in the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He completed his undergraduate at Yale and medical school at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After residency at Boston University Medical Center, he completed a colon and rectal surgery fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. His practice specializes in the spectrum of colorectal disease including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, diverticular disease and anorectal disorders. His NIH-funded research interests focus on identifying, understanding and reducing health disparities in surgery with particular attention to health literacy.
Ariel Nehemiah, MD, MS
Dr. Ariel Nehemiah is a general surgery resident at the University of Pennsylvania and currently in her dedicated research time. Her research interests include health equity, health literacy, colorectal cancer survivorship, and surgical education. She is an associate fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, which has supported her health equity projects. She has also conducted colorectal cancer survivorship research under a T32 grant in surgical oncology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her works in surgical education focus on the experiences of trainees who are underrepresented in medicine and how mentorship can be a powerful tool to improve those experiences and aid in trainee success.
Nicole A. Wilson, MD
Dr. Nicole A. Wilson is a pediatric surgeon and biomedical engineer at the University of Rochester. Dr. Wilson runs the Wilson ECLIPSe lab, a multidisciplinary team focused on translational research with a wide array of research interests, focused on creating novel diagnostic, therapeutic, and predictive tools that will improve the overall health and care for children with surgical conditions. Dr. Wilson has recently been honored with the prestigious Jay Grosfeld, MD Scholar Grant from the American Pediatric Surgical Association. In addition, the trainees in her lab have been honored with a number of awards, including national abstract awards. Dr. Wilson is deeply committed to mentoring and supporting the next generation of medical students, graduate students, residents, and trainees. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in top academic journals. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the American Pediatric Surgery Association, and the Association for Academic Surgery.
Jonathan Mitchem, MD
Dr. Mitchem is a colorectal and general surgeon currently practicing at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus and the VA Northeast Ohio Health System in Cleveland, OH. He recently moved to Cleveland after spending the first years of his career in Columbia, MO at the University of Missouri and the Harry S. Truman VA Medical Center. He has a translational research lab focused on studying and overcoming resistance to immune mediated killing in colorectal cancer. His lab is currently funded through various mechanisms including the VA and NIH. He received his medical degree from the Ohio State University. After leaving Ohio State, he undertook his general surgery training at Washington University in St. Louis followed by a fellowship in colon and rectal surgery at the Lahey Clinic. In addition to work, Dr. Mitchem enjoys spending time with his family, running, watching college football, and tasting good whiskey. Go Bucks!
Honing Research Skills
Mustafa Raoof, MD
Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc
Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc (he/him)
Maud T. Lane Research Professor of Surgery, Architecture & Urban Planning
Vice Chair, Health Services Research
Co-Director, Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy
University of Michigan | www.SurgeryRedesign.com
His research is support by R01s from the NIH and AHRQ evaluating the impact of hospital system consolidation and healthcare payment incentives on access to surgical care.
Mei Li M. Kwong, MD
Mei Li M. Kwong, MD is an Assistant Research Physician and surgical oncologist in the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute at the NIH. Her research interests include adoptive cell therapy for the treatment of solid organ malignancies. She is the Associate Program Director for the Surgery Branch/Cancer Immunotherapy Research Fellowship that accepts three general surgery residents each year for 2-3 years of research training.
Christina Roland, MD, MS
Dr. Christina Roland is an Associate Professor of Surgery, Vice Chair for Research and Chief of Sarcoma Surgery, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, with expertise in the multimodality treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. Her primary research focus is focused on novel clinical trial design to improve multimodality treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. She previously served as the 2014 Class Representative on the AAS Executive Council and as Chair of the Committee on Academic Advancement and is currently co- chair of the Leadership Committee.
Pasithorn Amy Suwanabol, MD
Pasithorn Amy Suwanabol, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Colorectal Surgery. Dr. Suwanabol graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.S. in Biology. She received her M.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in 2007. She completed her General Surgery residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in 2014 and her fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Massachusetts-Memorial Hospital Medical Center in 2015. Dr. Suwanabol joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in September 2015.
Joseph Phillips, MD
Joseph D. Phillips is a thoracic surgeon and researcher in the areas of health outcomes and translational tumor immunology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and The Geisel School of Medicine. He has served on the AAS Executive Council in several positions, and currently as Chair of the Leadership Committee.
Ashley Holder, MD, FACS
Chair, Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course
Chair, Basic & Translational Research Committee
Wellness in Academic Surgery Starts in Training: Panel Discussion of Many Forms of Wellness
Rebecca A. Snyder, MD, MPH
Chair, Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course
Chair, Clinical & Health Services Research Committee
Ashley Holder, MD, FACS
Chair, Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course
Chair, Basic & Translational Research Committee
Carrie Peterson, MD, MS, FASC, FASCRS
Dr. Peterson is an Associate Professor of Colorectal Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where she treats all aspects of colorectal disease. As the Director of the Rectal Cancer Program, her practice has a focus on colorectal malignancies and minimally invasive surgery. She is also the Associate Vice Chair of Quality and the Patient Safety & Quality Officer for the Department of Surgery. Her quality work has involved expanding an enhanced recovery program, addressing VTEs in post-operative IBD patients, building and maintaining a colon-SSI bundle, and tracking rectal cancer outcomes, among other projects. In her free time, Dr. Peterson enjoys competing in long-course triathlon and spending time with her husband and family.
James N. Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS
Dr. Lau currently serves as the Vice Chair of Education and the Division Director of Minimally Invasive/Bariatric and Community Surgery for the Department of Surgery. He is a Professor of Surgery and Medical Education at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine where he also attended medical school and completed his surgery internship. He completed his fellowship training in Minimally Invasive, Bariatric, and Robotic Surgery at Stanford. He received his Master’s in Health Professions Education from the University of Illinois, Chicago.
He has been active in medical education for over twenty years. He was the medical student surgery core clerkship director at the Stanford School of Medicine for nine years. He had been the associate program director for the surgery residency at Stanford for seven years and for the University of Nevada for 5 years. As the Assistant Dean for Clerkship Education for the Stanford School of Medicine for over 5 years, he made improving the educational environment for all clerkship medical students and coordinating support and guidance for the struggling student his mission. Dr. Lau has been a simulation and skills center director at two different academic institutions and re-imagined the surgical education fellowship model at Stanford for surgical residents that has served as a model for other similar fellowships in surgery nationwide. He is currently the chair of the clerkship committee of the Association of Surgical Education and a co-chair for the curriculum committee of the American College of Surgeons Accredited Education Institutes Consortium. He is a Member of the American College of Surgeon’s Academy of Master Surgeon Educators and a member of the Academy of Surgery Clerkship Directors for the Association for Surgical Education. He enjoys the mentorship of and the mentoring of surgeons, trainees, and educators.
Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD
Dr. Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju is the Helen O. Dickens Presidential Associate Professor in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN) and Chief of the Division of Breast Surgery for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, aka Penn Medicine. She is also Surgical Director of the Rena Rowan Breast Center in the Abramson Cancer Center, Director of Health Equity Innovation at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I), and a Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) at PENN. Dr. Fayanju is an academic breast surgical oncologist whose research spans four areas: (1) addressing disparities and promoting equity in breast cancer presentation, treatment, outcome, and clinical trial participation; (2) improving prognostication and treatment for biologically aggressive variants of breast cancer; (3) creating value in oncologic care, especially through the collection and application of patient-reported outcomes (PROs); and (4) elucidating the importance of race, ethnicity, and gender in the conduct of research and the promotion of a diverse healthcare and medical research workforce. She received her undergraduate degree in History and Science and an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard. She received her MD and a master’s of population health sciences (MPHS) from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also completed her residency in General Surgery. She completed fellowship training in Breast Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. In 2019, she was recognized by the National Academy of Medicine as an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar. Her research is supported by a diverse array of organizations including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), and she has published in a variety of journals including Annals of Surgery, Cancer, JAMA Surgery, and JAMA.
Lauren Curwick, MD
Dr. Lauren Curwick is a current second year plastic surgery resident at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities prior to completely her medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin. She is founding president of a nonprofit, Designing Dreams, which redesigns bedroom for children diagnosed with cancer. In addition, she is an illustration artist of a book, My Dog Named Hope, which raised over $50,000 for pediatric cancer research and services. She spends much of her free time creating acrylic abstract paintings and hopes to continue to create commissions throughout residency and beyond.
Mediget Teshome, MD
Dr. Mediget Teshome is an Associate Professor of Breast Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center where she is a clinical breast surgeon with expertise in the surgical and multidisciplinary management of breast cancer. Her clinical research interests include implications of neoadjuvant therapy on surgical decision-making, inflammatory breast cancer, patient experience/reported outcomes and disparities in cancer care. She is also committed to surgical education and currently serves as the Program Director for the MD Anderson Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program and Chair of the Education Committee of the ACS Cancer Surgery Standards Program.
Education Research Breakout Session
Heather Lillemoe, MD
Dr. Heather Lillemoe is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Breast Surgical Oncology and Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. She is a surgical oncologist with a focus on breast cancer and sarcoma. Her research interests are in surgical education and clinical outcomes. During her residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Lillemoe completed both a T32 research fellowship in clinical outcomes research at MD Anderson and a Surgical Education Research Fellowship through the Association for Surgical Education. She is a member of the AAS Education Committee.
Monica Dua, MD
Dr. Monica Dua is a Clinical Associate Professor within the Department of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her specialty is Hepatobiliary & Pancreas surgery and she is also trained in minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic techniques for the management of HPB cases. Dr. Dua is passionate about education and is the Associate Program Director for the Stanford General Surgery Residency Program and the Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary fellowship. She was recently elected to the AAS Education Committee for the next two years.
Christopher Scally, MD, MS
Christopher Scally, MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Scally graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and completed his general surgery residency training at the University of Michigan. While at Michigan he obtained a Masters Degree in Healthcare Research through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson. His clinical practice focuses on the treatment of patients with peritoneal malignancies and soft tissue sarcoma. He has a strong interest in surgical education and currently serves as the Associate Program Director for the CGSO fellowship program at MD Anderson.
Brigitte Smith, MD
Dr. Brigitte Smith is an Associate Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Utah where she also serves as the Vice Chair of Education for the Department of Surgery and Program Director for the Vascular Surgery Fellowship. She is a proud alumnus of the University of Illinois at Chicago Masters of Health Professions Education program. Dr. Smith holds numerous national leadership positions in surgical education, including member of the Board of Directors for the Association for Surgical Education, and is a Director of the Vascular Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery and Director of the ACGME Board of Directors. Dr. Smith’s research seeks to examine the association between educational variables, including programs, policies, and individual measures of competence, with patient care outcomes in unsupervised practice. This work has previously been funded by the National Board of Medical Examiners Stemmler Fund. Her clinical expertise is in the full range of vascular surgical care with an emphasis on complex venous disease. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Tyler, and they have 2 amazing children, Gretchen (7) and Henry (5). They enjoy hiking and skiing in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.
Kyla Terhune, MD, MBA
Kyla Terhune is currently the Vice President for Educational Affairs and the Designated Institutional Official at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. A general surgeon and intensivist, she served as Program Director in Surgery at VUMC and the Chief of General Surgery at the VA Medical Center in Nashville until 2019. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt. She has received local and national awards for teaching and serves on the Board of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS).
Meredith J. Sorensen, MD
Meredith J. Sorensen, MD is an endocrine surgeon and an assistant professor of surgery at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She is the surgery clerkship co-director at Geisel Medical School at Dartmouth. She has a master\’s degree in science and medical journalism. Her research interests involve public perceptions of the surgical experience, including involvement of surgical trainees.
Yue-Yung Hu, MD, MPH
Dr. Yue-Yung Hu is a pediatric surgeon and health services researcher at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at Northwestern University, where she serves as an Associate Program Director of the general surgery residency program. She is co-PI of the SECOND Trial, a cluster-randomized trial of 212 general surgery residency programs that seeks to understand and intervene on resident well-being at the environmental level. SECOND Trial research has been published in journals such as NEJM, JAMA, JAMA Surgery, and Annals of Surgery. Dr. Hu is the co-chair of the AAS DEI Committee and co-PI of the upcoming THIRD Trial, which will focus on DEI in departments of surgery. The SECOND and THIRD Trials are funded by the ACS, ABS, ACGME, and AHRQ.
Clinical & Health Services Research Breakout Session
Annabelle Fonseca, MD
Dr. Fonseca is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is a surgical oncologist, with a clinical focus on hepatopancreatobiliary malignancies and a research focus on disparities in access to complex oncologic care.
She completed medical school in India where she was raised, followed by residency training in general surgery at Yale University School of Medicine, where she also obtained a Master of Health Science Degree. She completed fellowship training in Complex General Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is an active member of several surgical organizations including AAS, SSO, AHPBA, SSAT, SAAS and AWS.
Ben James, MD, MS
Ben James, MD, MS, is the Chief of Endocrine Surgery and Associate Professor of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.
Dr. James received his M.D. from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 2008. He completed his general surgery residency at Penn State Hershey Medical Center (Alpha Omega Alpha) and served as the administrative chief resident in his final year of training (2013). He then completed an endocrine surgery fellowship at the University of Chicago (2014). Following this, he obtained a Master’s in Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago and completed an Endocrine Surgery Research Fellowship (2015). He is Board-certified in Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
Dr. James is an endocrine surgeon with extensive knowledge in endocrine surgery. He has made scientific contributions in health policy, quality of life in thyroid cancer survivors, and financial toxicity in cancer survivors and has authored many book chapters in endocrine surgery.
Chandler S Cortina, MD, MS, FSSO, FACS
Dr. Cortina is a Louisiana native and obtained a bachelor’s in Biochemistry from LSU followed and an MD from LSUHSC-Shreveport. He completed surgical residency at Rush University Medical Center and Cook County Hospital in Chicago followed by a fellowship in Breast Surgical Oncology at the Lynn Sage Comprehensive Breast Center at Northwestern University. He joined the Division of Surgical Oncology at MCW in 2019 and received an MS in Clinical and Translational Science through MCW in 2021. He is Service Chief of the Surgical Oncology Breast Service and Clerkship Director for MCW’s Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship program.
He is a skilled health services researcher and has published over 60 articles in high-impact journals such as The Lancet, JAMA Oncology, and JAMA Surgery. His research focuses on breast cancer risk, screening, and treatment in transgender and gender-diverse populations. Dr. Cortina’s research is currently funded through a K08 from the NCI, a Eugene Washington Engagement Award from PCORI, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeastern Wisconsin, and the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment. He is also actively involved in numerous societies and currently serves on committees for the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Society of Breast Surgeons, and the Association of Out Surgeons and Allies.
Sarah Tevis, MD
Dr. Sarah Tevis is a breast surgical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She earned her MD and completed general surgery residency at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. This was followed by a breast surgical oncology fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her research focuses on patient reported outcomes, shared decision-making, and development of meaningful patient education tools.
Samir Gadepalli, MD
Pediatric Surgeon, Pediatric Surgery Fellowship Program Director, and Medical Student Clerkship Director for Pediatric Surgery at University of Michigan. Expertise in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and Extracorporeal Life Support. Health Services Researcher and Multicenter Outcomes Studies through Midwest Pediatric Surgery Consortium. Fan of New York Knicks, Dave Matthews Band, and the StarWars Universe. Listens to 90s Hiphop in the OR.
Basic & Translational Research Breakout Session
David Harris, MD
Dr. Harris is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He is also an Affiliate member of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism as well as an Associate Director of the UW-Madison Mouse Phenotyping and Surgery Core. He runs the Wisconsin Laboratory for Surgical Metabolism which is focused on the mechanistic intersection between bariatric surgery, metabolism, and aging.
Lily Cheng, MD
Dr. Lily Cheng is an assistant professor in pediatric surgery at the University of Virginia. She completed her general surgery residency at the University of California San Francisco and her fellowship in pediatric surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital / Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She has a basic/translational research lab that is focused on investigating the effect of extrinsic forces on the enteric nervous system with the long-term goal of improving care for children with functional gastrointestinal diseases. Her research is funded through a NIH K08 award from NIDDK and grants from the American College of Surgeons and the American Pediatric Surgical Association.
Juliet Emamaullee, MD, PhD
Dr. Juliet Emamaullee is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Immunology (Clinical Scholar) at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and an attending liver and kidney transplant surgeon at Keck Hospital and Children\’s Hospital-Los Angeles. She is also the Associate Chief, Division of Clinical Research, Department of Surgery. She is a surgeon-scientist with an NIH-funded translational immunobiology lab, exploring immunological phenotypes associated with liver transplant recipients. Dr. Emamaullee’s areas of expertise include computational biology, Fontan-associated liver disease, and living donor liver transplantation. Dr. Emamaullee holds leadership roles in several surgical societies including the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, and Association for Academic Surgery. She serves as Chair of the North American Living Liver Donation Innovation Group. She has >110 peer-reviewed publications, has received more than 50 awards, and has over $2 million in extramural funding including a National Cancer Institute K08 Award.
Marc L. Melcher, MD, PhD
Dr. Marc L. Melcher serves as the Chief of the Division of Abdominal Transplantation at Stanford University. With a focus on liver and kidney transplantation, he is committed to increasing the number of patients who benefit from organ transplantation by employing innovative strategies. Dr. Melcher champions the integration of technology, advanced mathematical models, and artificial intelligence algorithms into surgical decision-making and implementation. He argues that the application of these interdisciplinary methods can result in improved and more efficient outcomes in transplant surgery.
Sabrinah Christie, MD
Dr. S. Ariane Christie is an assistant professor of trauma, acute care surgery, and critical care at the University of California, Los Angeles and faculty at the UCLA Program for the Advancement of Surgical Equity. She received her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, completed a general surgery residency at the University of California San Francisco and a trauma and surgical critical care fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In her academic practice she is federally-funded global surgery researcher focused on the data-driven development, context-appropriate implementation and rigorous validation of strategies to build scalable, sustainable and evidenced-based care systems in sub-Saharan Africa (NIH K01TW012689-01, R21TW012609)
Loretta Erhunmwunsee, MD, FACS
Loretta Erhunmwunsee, M.D., F.A.C.S., joined City of Hope in 2015 and is an assistant professor in both the division of thoracic surgery and the division of health equity. Dr. Erhunmwunsee graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University in Atlanta, GA and received her medical doctorate from Harvard Medical School in Boston, graduating magna cum laude. She continued her post-graduate training at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, completing a general and cardiothoracic surgery residency. Board-certified in both general and thoracic surgery, she became a fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 2018. Dr. Erhunmwunsee is also a funded health disparities researcher who focuses on the impact of social determinants and structural inequities on lung cancer risk, biology and screening. She is the recipient of the 2021 Lung Cancer Research Foundation William C. Rippe Award for Distinguished Research in Lung Cancer. She was also awarded the City of Hope Songs of Hope Beverly and Ben Horowitz Legacy Award in 2021. In 2022, she was invited to participate in the National Lung Cancer Roundtable forum on Lung Cancer Screening. She has written numerous publications and given several local and national presentations that bring awareness to the impact of structural inequities on disparate health outcomes.
Dr. Erhunmwunsee is also highly involved in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts both at COH and nationally. She sits on the COH DE&I Governance Council as well as co-leads the Health Equity in Diverse Populations Workstream at COH. She is also the Vice Chair of the NCCN DEI Director’s Forum and has been a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Workforce of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons since 2019.