2024 Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course – Faculty Listing

Brenessa Lindeman, MD, MEHP, is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Surgery, and Assistant Dean for Graduate Medical Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A native of eastern Kentucky, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Louisville and Alpha Omega Alpha as the Founder’s Medalist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She completed General Surgery residency and earned a Masters of Education in the Health Professions at Johns Hopkins University, then completed simultaneous fellowships in Endocrine Surgery and Surgical Education at Harvard Medical School. At UAB, she also serves as the Fellowship Director for Endocrine Surgery. She is a Councilor for the American Board of Surgery, General Surgery Board Director, Member of the ACS Master Surgeon Educators, and President-Elect of the Association for Academic Surgery. Her research interests are in development and assessment of competency in surgical trainees, including Entrustable Professional Activities.

Dr. Datta is the DiMare Family Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy, Associate Professor of Surgery, and a hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgical oncologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Research at the Sylvester Pancreatic Cancer Research Institute, and a surgeon-scientist studying myeloid immunobiology in the pancreatic cancer microenvironment. He is the Co-Leader of the Gastrointestinal Site Disease Group (SDG) at Sylvester where he serves as the Translational Director to augment the portfolio of investigator-initiated clinical trials offered in GI cancers.
Dr. Datta joined the faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 2019. He graduated Summa cum Laude from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY and attended Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN where he earned his MD and was inducted in the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) National Honor Society. He completed his residency in General Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, during which he completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in cancer immunology. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he focused on surgical management of hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and gastric malignancies and developed expertise in computational immunogenomics.

Since starting his lab at Sylvester, his research has been extensively funded by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute with an NIH KL2 award, Stanley Glaser Foundation, American College of Surgeons’ Franklin H. Martin Research Fellowship, Association for Academic Surgery Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Award, Society for Surgical Oncology Young Investigator Award, the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Career Development Award, and the Department of Defense Pancreatic Cancer Research Program (PCARP). He was recently awarded a prestigious Young Physician-Scientist Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Dr. Susanne Warner is a surgeon-scientist who seeks to better the lives of her patients through research in operative, scientific, and social arenas. Her studies have addressed a range of topics from minimally invasive surgical techniques to racial and gender bias in the profession of surgery, to oncolytic viroimmunotherapy to treat aggressive hepato-pancreato-biliary solid tumors.
Dr. Warner completed General Surgery Residency at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, during which time she also completed a Research Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She went on to a clinical fellowship in hepato-pancreato-biliary and advanced gastrointestinal surgery at the University of Michigan before taking her first job at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Los Angeles area. Dr. Warner was thrilled to move to the Mayo Clinic and leverage unparalleled systemic excellence to push the boundaries of surgical treatments for patients suffering from hepatopancreatobiliary maladies.

Ben James, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Chief of General Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Dr. James completed a general surgery residency at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and an endocrine surgery fellowship at the University of Chicago. Following this, he obtained a Master’s in Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago and completed an Endocrine Surgery Research Fellowship. He is Board-certified in Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
Dr. James serves as an Associate Program Director for the general surgery residency program and has a research lab focused on financial toxicity and quality of life in cancer survivors. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Surgical Research.
He is the Chair of the Health Services Research Committee for the AAS and Chair of the Reseach Committee for the AAES. Further, he serves as a councilor for the AAES.

Melina R. Kibbe, MD, is the Dean of the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine, the James Carroll Flippin Professor of Medical Science, and Chief Health Affairs Officer at UVA Health. Prior to arriving at UVA, she was Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina (UNC). Clinically, Dr. Kibbe has significant experience with both open and endovascular surgery. Dr. Kibbe’s research interests focus on developing novel drug-eluting therapies for patients with vascular disease while simultaneously studying the mechanism of how these therapies impact the vasculature. She has been funded as Principal Investigator (PI) by the NIH, DOD, VA, AHA, and AMA among others. She has also served as the national PI or site PI for many gene and cell-based clinical trials for patients with critical limb ischemia, as well as consultant for many clinical trials for patients with peripheral artery disease. She holds >10 patents or provisional patents. Her research was recognized by President Obama with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2009.

Dr. Kibbe has assumed national positions of leadership. She is the Editor-in-Chief for JAMA Surgery which is currently the #1 surgery journal in the world with an impact factor of 16.9. She has served as president for the Association for Academic Surgery, the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society, the Association of VA Surgeons, and Surgical Biology Club II. Most notably, she was inducted as a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Her bibliography includes over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, review articles, and book chapters. She has authored or co-authored over 240 nationally and internationally presented abstracts. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the AMWA Gender Equity Award, AMSA Women Leaders in Medicine Award, Association of VA Surgeons Presidential Citation, University of Chicago Distinguished Service Award and most recently the Virginia Business 2023 Women in Leadership award. She has also received 24 awards for teaching excellence as faculty member.

Dr. Ghaferi is Professor of Surgery with Tenure, the President and CEO of the Physician Enterprise, and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin. In these roles, he leads the enterprise strategy for establishing and advancing a regionally integrated and aligned medical group operation. He is accountable for identifying opportunities to develop new and innovative patient centered care delivery models to support the commitment to national leadership in quality, safety, value, and the patient experience. Prior to moving to the Medical College of Wisconsin, he was the Moses Gunn, M.D. Professor of Surgery and the Chief Clinical Officer of the University of Michigan Medical Group where he oversaw clinical operations, quality, strategy, and finance. He was also the Director of the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative, a consortium of 40 hospitals and 80 surgeons focused on improving the safety and quality of bariatric surgery. He received his Bachelors degree from UCLA, his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed his surgical training at the University of Michigan. Dr. Ghaferi also completed advanced training in health services research and obtained a Masters degree in Health and Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan. He also completed his Executive MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Dr. Ghaferi\’s research focuses on understanding the relationship of organizational systems and design to quality and efficiency. Dr. Ghaferi has received research funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). His research has been published in prominent journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Health Affairs, Harvard Business Review, and the British Medical Journal. He also serves on the editorial board of several prominent journals including JAMA Surgery and is Associate Editor of GI Surgery for the Journal of Surgical Research.

Dr. Datta is the DiMare Family Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy, Associate Professor of Surgery, and a hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgical oncologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Research at the Sylvester Pancreatic Cancer Research Institute, and a surgeon-scientist studying myeloid immunobiology in the pancreatic cancer microenvironment. He is the Co-Leader of the Gastrointestinal Site Disease Group (SDG) at Sylvester where he serves as the Translational Director to augment the portfolio of investigator-initiated clinical trials offered in GI cancers.Dr. Datta joined the faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 2019. He graduated Summa cum Laude from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY and attended Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN where he earned his MD and was inducted in the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) National Honor Society. He completed his residency in General Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, during which he completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in cancer immunology. He subsequently completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he focused on surgical management of hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and gastric malignancies and developed expertise in computational immunogenomics.

Since starting his lab at Sylvester, his research has been extensively funded by the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute with an NIH KL2 award, Stanley Glaser Foundation, American College of Surgeons’ Franklin H. Martin Research Fellowship, Association for Academic Surgery Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Award, Society for Surgical Oncology Young Investigator Award, the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Career Development Award, and the Department of Defense Pancreatic Cancer Research Program (PCARP). He was recently awarded a prestigious Young Physician-Scientist Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

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 is the current Chair of the AAS Education Committee

Dr. Callisia N Clarke completed her medical degree at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine where she was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society. She completed a general surgery residency at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2013 and a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She joined the faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2016 and now serves as the Division Chief of Surgical Oncology and an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Clarke specializes in hepato-pancreatic-biliary malignancies, melanoma and sarcoma, with her research efforts centered on epigenetic regulation of Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors and Workforce Diversification in Academic Surgery. Dr. Clarke is the President of the Association for Academic Surgery.

Dr. Jonathan DeLong is a Hepatobiliary and Pancreas (HPB) Surgeon at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is trained in advanced robotic techniques in HPB and GI oncology and is passionate about expanding access to these services. His research interests include technology, next generation surgical robotics, and integration of artificial intelligence into research and clinical practice. His background includes industry experience working at Google on next-gen surgical robotics.

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 is the Secretary of the Association for Academic Surgery and previously served as the 2014 Class Representative, Chair of the Committee on Academic Advancement and Co-chair of the Leadership Committee.

Anai N. Kothari, MD, MS, is an assistant professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery with additional faculty appointments in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of SE Wisconsin and the Data Science Institute. He currently directs the Integrated Cancer Data Program in the MCW Cancer Center and is the Inaugural Director for the Bud and Sue Selig Hub for Surgical Data Science.
He received his BS and MD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Kothari completed his General Surgery training at Loyola University Medical Center where he also earned a Master’s degree in Epidemiology with a focus on Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning. This was followed by a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kothari\\’s clinical expertise is the surgical treatment of upper gastrointestinal cancer, including robotic HPB and advanced cancer therapies. He is an active researcher with a focus on using data science and translating AI discovery to the bedside.

Heather Wachtel, MD, FACS is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and Associate Program Director for the University of Pennsylvania General Surgery Residency Program. Dr. Wachtel’s clinical practice in endocrine surgery focuses on adrenal, thyroid, and parathyroid disorders. Her translational research laboratory uses genomic and bioinformatics approaches to study endocrine and neuroendocrine tumors with the goal of developing novel therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Joseph D. Phillips, MD, FACS is an Associate Professor of surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He is a general thoracic surgeon specializing in minimally invasive robotic oncologic surgery. His research interests are in tumor immunology in non-small cell lung cancer, smoking cessation, and health services research, including implementation of patient reported outcomes to improve care. He is an investigative member of the Dartmouth Cancer Center in the Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy Program where he is a Faculty Research Fellow.

Dr. Susanne Warner is a surgeon-scientist who seeks to better the lives of her patients through research in operative, scientific, and social arenas. Her studies have addressed a range of topics from minimally invasive surgical techniques to racial and gender bias in the profession of surgery, to oncolytic viroimmunotherapy to treat aggressive hepato-pancreato-biliary solid tumors.
Dr. Warner completed General Surgery Residency at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, during which time she also completed a Research Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She went on to a clinical fellowship in hepato-pancreato-biliary and advanced gastrointestinal surgery at the University of Michigan before taking her first job at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Los Angeles area. Dr. Warner was thrilled to move to the Mayo Clinic and leverage unparalleled systemic excellence to push the boundaries of surgical treatments for patients suffering from hepatopancreatobiliary maladies.

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.

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.

Heather Wachtel, MD, FACS is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and Associate Program Director for the University of Pennsylvania General Surgery Residency Program. Dr. Wachtel’s clinical practice in endocrine surgery focuses on adrenal, thyroid, and parathyroid disorders. Her translational research laboratory uses genomic and bioinformatics approaches to study endocrine and neuroendocrine tumors with the goal of developing novel therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Section head of the Massachusetts General Hospital Endocrine Surgery Unit, and a senior scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Technology Assessment. She is a Past-President of the Association of Academic Surgery. She is the principal investigator of an NIH/NCI R-37 (R01-type merit award) award to examine the potential impact of new diagnostic technologies and personalized management strategies in patients with thyroid cancer using mathematical disease simulation modeling and an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award to develop a patient-reported instrument to assess thyroid-cancer specific quality of life. She speaks widely on mental health awareness and advocacy.

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 is the Secretary of the Association for Academic Surgery and previously served as the 2014 Class Representative, Chair of the Committee on Academic Advancement and Co-chair of the Leadership Committee.

LaDonna Kearse is currently a PGY5 general surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Kearse earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland – College Park and her medical doctorate from Howard University College of Medicine. She completed three years of general surgery residency at Howard University Hospital before transferring to the Mayo Clinic to continue her surgical training. During residency, she completed an American College of Surgeons-Accredited Education Institutes Surgical Simulation Fellowship at Stanford University and also was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Technology Enabled Clinical Improvement Center. She is completing her Masters in Health Professions Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her current education research interests include applications of technology and simulation to enhance surgical training and the development of methods to increase global understanding, implementation, and achievement of competency-based education metrics. Her clinical research interests include exploring the impact of surgical interventions and chemotherapy and immunotherapy regimens on quality of life in patients with cancer. She will commence Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship training at MD Anderson Cancer Center in August 2025.

Dr. Villano is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Clinically, he has a broad practice spanning GI, HPB, and sarcoma with a particular focus in robotic surgery. He has an interest in surgical education and oversees the robotic surgery curriculum for the Surgical Oncology fellowship. His research encompasses clinical outcomes and translational research. He has been an active member of the AAS since training and currently serves on the Education committee.

Dr Gifty Kwakye is the Arthur W. Fleming, M.D. Research Professor and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at University of Michigan. In addition, she serves as the Assistant Dean of Clinical Medical Education in the Medical School. Dr Kwakye earned undergraduate degrees in both Biology and Psychology from Yale University, an M.D. from Yale Medical School, and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins. She completed her general surgery residency at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School followed by a colorectal surgery fellowship at University of Minnesota before joining the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School in 2018. She is a Health Services Researcher with a particular interest in Global Surgery.

Dr. Megan Quintana is currently a trauma surgeon at George Washington University Hospital. A native of Colorado, Megan graduated with honors from Yale University with a degree in the History of Science and Medicine, specifically studying World War II German medicine. She then attended the University of Colorado for Medical School followed by a seven-year general surgery residency at the University of North Carolina. During her residency, she completed a two-year research fellowship in cardiovascular pathology. After residency, Megan completed a fellowship in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and Acute Care Surgery at Shock Trauma in Baltimore, Maryland. She is now an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the George Washington University. She served as interim Trauma Medical Director at Virginia Hospital Center where she helped establish a level 2 trauma center in 2021. She currently serves as the Director for Acute Care Education at George Washington University Hospital. She is currently pursuing a master\\’s in education. She enjoys teaching and training pre-hospital providers, nursing and other hospital staff, medical students, and residents of different disciplines in current trauma practices. She has been honored to present at the Virginia State EMS Symposium and for the Society of Trauma Nurses. Her most treasured awards are her “Off-Service Attending of the Year Awards” from the GW Department of Emergency Medicine in 2020 and 2022. She has served on the Online Education Committee for EAST and is currently the Subcommittee Vice Chair for Communication and Education for the AAST’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Her research interests include tactical medicine, pre-hospital medicine, and medical education.

Dr. Liebert is a board-certified General Surgeon with fellowship training in Advanced GI/Minimally Invasive Surgery. Her clinical practice focuses on robotic ventral hernia repair, abdominal wall reconstruction, and metabolic/bariatric surgery. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine and VA Palo Alto. Dr. Liebert is the Associate Chair of Education in the Department of Surgery, Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency Program, and Associate Program Director for the Advanced GI/MIS Fellowship at VA Palo Alto. She completed an American College of Surgeons- Educations Institute Surgical Education Fellowship at Stanford. Her research focuses on competency-based medical education, assessment, entrustable professional activities (EPAs), educational innovation, and global surgical education.

Daniel Hashimoto, MD MSTR is assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Perelman School of Medicine and in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a senior fellow in the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics and faculty in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory – Penn Engineering’s robotics center. He is director of the Penn Computer Assisted Surgery and Outcomes (PCASO) Laboratory, a multidisciplinary group of clinicians and computer scientists that aims to translate advances in data science and artificial intelligence to surgical care and to promote the integrated education of clinicians, engineers, and data scientists.
 
Dr. Hashimoto earned his MD and MS in Translational Research at the University of Pennsylvania, completed his surgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a research fellowship in surgical artificial intelligence and innovation at MGH and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed a clinical fellowship in foregut surgery and comprehensive flexible endoscopy at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. He serves on the editorial boards of Annals of Surgery and Computer-Assisted Surgery, and the Journal Oversight Committee of Academic Medicine. He is editor of the textbook Artificial Intelligence in Surgery: Understanding the Role of AI in Surgical Practice.
 
Lab website link: https://www.pcasolab.org/
X profile link: https://twitter.com/Laparoscopes
 

LaDonna Kearse is currently a PGY5 general surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Kearse earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland – College Park and her medical doctorate from Howard University College of Medicine. She completed three years of general surgery residency at Howard University Hospital before transferring to the Mayo Clinic to continue her surgical training. During residency, she completed an American College of Surgeons-Accredited Education Institutes Surgical Simulation Fellowship at Stanford University and also was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Technology Enabled Clinical Improvement Center. She is completing her Masters in Health Professions Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her current education research interests include applications of technology and simulation to enhance surgical training and the development of methods to increase global understanding, implementation, and achievement of competency-based education metrics. Her clinical research interests include exploring the impact of surgical interventions and chemotherapy and immunotherapy regimens on quality of life in patients with cancer. She will commence Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship training at MD Anderson Cancer Center in August 2025.

Dr. Hope T. Jackson is a faculty member in the Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Jackson graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She went on to receive her medical degree from the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences (GW) and completed her internship and residency in General Surgery at GW as well. After completing a Foregut and Bariatric focused Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle, Dr. Jackson served as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Maryland before returning to GW where she would become an Associate Professor of Surgery and serve as an associate program director in the general surgery residency program. In August 2023, Dr. Jackson joined the University of Michigan as an associate professor and as associate program director for the general surgery residency program.
 
Dr. Jackson has been recognized for excellence in clinical care, teaching, research, and humanism and has been recognized as a 40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health. This award is given annually by the National Minority Quality Forum and recognizes leaders who are making a difference in healthcare and have the potential to positively impact minority communities. 
 
Dr. Jackson’s clinical interests include benign foregut disease (hiatal hernias, achalasia, GERD), bariatric surgery, and abdominal wall hernias. Her research interests include quality improvement and inclusivity in graduate medical education, clinical outcomes research and medical communications.

Ben James, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Chief of General Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.Dr. James completed a general surgery residency at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and an endocrine surgery fellowship at the University of Chicago. Following this, he obtained a Master’s in Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago and completed an Endocrine Surgery Research Fellowship. He is Board-certified in Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of SurgeonsDr. James serves as an Associate Program Director for the general surgery residency program and has a research lab focused on financial toxicity and quality of life in cancer survivors. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Surgical ResearcHe is the Chair of the Health Services Research Committee for the AAS and Chair of the Reseach Committee for the AAES. Further, he serves as a councilor for the AAES.

Joel T. Adler, M.D., MPH, is an assistant professor of surgery in the Department of Perioperative Care in the Division of Abdominal Transplantation. He specializes in kidney and pancreas transplantation in both children and adults, with a particular interest in highly sensitized recipients and peritoneal dialysis access. Adler’s research focuses on increasing equity in access to care for historically vulnerable populations through the use of technology, increasing the utilization of marginal organs and novel methods to improve the evaluation and waitlisting process associated with transplantation.

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.

Dr. Scott is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington where he works as a trauma surgeon at Harboview Medical Center. His clinical practice consists of all aspects of emergency general surgery, trauma surgery, and surgical critical care. He is PI on a K08 from AHRQ and co-PI on an R01 from NIDDK. He is an active faculty member with UW\’s Surical Outcomes Research Center (SORCE) where he mentors T32 fellows. He is also an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Health Metric Sciences and is a faculty member at the UW\’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), where he focuses on health economics, health policy, and injury-related research.

Joal D. Beane, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at The Ohio State University, James Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his medical degree and general surgery training at Indiana University School of Medicine and completed fellowships in complex surgical oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA. He is a dedicated surgical oncologist and passionate researcher and scientist. His research interests span both clinical and basic science arenas with the overarching goal of improving the delivery of cancer care and improving survival in patients with advanced cancer through the identification of novel treatments. His research is funded in part by the National Cancer Institute, the American College of Surgeons, and Steps for Sarcoma.

Dr. Keung is Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She completed general surgery residency and surgical critical care fellowship at Brigham and Women\’s Hospital and fellowship training in Complex General Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Keung’s clinical practice focuses on the care of patients with soft tissue sarcomas and her primary research focus has been to investigate the immuno-oncology of soft tissue sarcoma and role of immunotherapy in sarcoma treatment.

Patrick Schwartz is a current PGY5 in general surgery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a future surgical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He plans to pursue a career as a surgeon-scientist with an interest in circadian biology and a clinical practice in hepatobiliary surgical oncology. He is a current member of the basic and translational research committee of the AAS and looks forward to mentoring at the FSRC.

Dr. Priya Dedhia is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at the Ohio State University. She completed her MD and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, general surgery residency at University of Michigan, and Endocrine Surgery fellowship at University of Wisconsin. Her clinical practice encompasses caring for patients with thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal diseases. Dr. Dedhia\’s translational research efforts are focused on using patient-derived 3-dimensional organoid models to elucidate drivers of metastasis and drug resistance in endocrine cancers.

I am a surgical oncologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. My clinical practice focuses on patients with breast cancer and sarcoma. The Overarching goal of my NCI funded laboratory is to predict which breast cancer patients will respond to therapies and identify therapeutic vulnerabilities of resistant tumors by understanding how tumors alter gene regulation in response to treatment.