Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

29th Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course

October 20, 2018 | Sheraton Boston Hotel, Boston, MA

View the Course Agenda

COURSE PRESENTATIONS

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

  • Junior Faculty Pursuing a New Research Career
  • Fellows
  • Residents
  • Undergraduates and Medical Students

LEARN HOW TO:

    • Find the right mentor for your research
    • Efficiently manage time to succeed in a research project
    • Apply for research funding, and where to obtain these funds
    • Develop a hypothesis and design experiments to test it
    • Submit work for national meetings
    • Deliver an effective research presentation
    • Prepare and revise a manuscript based on research findings
    • Optimize success in basic/translational research and clinical/health services research (via breakout sessions)
    • Conduct global surgical research
    • Conduct educational/simulation research

FACULTY BIOS

Daniel Abbott, MD
Daniel Abbott is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin.  His clinical interests include hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, while his research efforts are directed towards developing cost-effective diagnostic and treatment algorithms for patients with hepatobiliary, pancreatic and gastrointestinal malignancies.

Amal Alhefdhi, MD
Amal Alhefdhi is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center (KFSH&RC) and Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She completed her MD at King Saud University, MS in Clinical Investigation and her fellowship in breast and endocrine surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and EdD, Madison, USA. She has the Arab and Saudi board in general surgery. She has published several papers in reputed journals and has been serving as a reviewer member of repute. Currently, she serves as the Chairman of Morbidity and Morbidity of the general surgery department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, as a Board Editor of the Clinics in Surgery Journal, and as an active member of Global affairs Committee of Association for Academic Surgery. In addition, she had been elected to serve in the fellowship committee of the American Association of Endocrine Surgery for 2019.

Christina Angeles, MD
Christina V. Angeles, MD is an Assistant Professor at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.  She completed her general surgical training at New York-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center during which she dedicated two years to a basic/translational science research fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).  Following this, she completed a clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at MSKCC before joining the faculty at Dartmouth.  Her clinical practice encompasses caring for patients with sarcoma, melanoma, breast cancer, and gastric malignancies. Dr. Angeles’ current translational research efforts are focusing on the mechanism and effects of immunotherapy in melanoma patients, specifically investigating the role of resident memory T cells in providing durable cancer immunity.

Georgia Beasley, MD, MHSc
My career plan is to be a physician-scientist with a practice in clinical surgical oncology and active high-level engagement in basic and translational research. My training includes two dedicated years of laboratory research. During my surgical residency at Duke, I was awarded a traineeship under a long-standing Surgical Oncology T32 grant (T32-CA093245, PI: HK Lyerly) in which I played a significant role in the preclinical development, trial design, trial accrual, and analysis for multiple Phase I and II clinical trials developing novel therapeutics for melanoma. To formally prepare for a career in research, I also obtained a master’s degree in clinical research during residency. As a result, during my concurrent rigorous clinical training in surgery, and surgical oncology I authored over 40 peer reviewed publications including a first-authored clinical trial paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a paper on the results of a Phase II trial of a novel drug combination for in-transit melanoma. I have first authored multiple other clinical trials in the treatment of in-transit melanoma using novel drugs and have given presented clinical trial results at numerous national meetings including three plenary sessions at the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. I currently have ongoing interests in oncolytic viral therapy, immune therapy, and other novel treatments for melanoma.

Filip Bednar, MD, PhD
Dr. Bednar received his BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 2000. He then trained as an MD/PhD candidate at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University with a focus in microbiology and immunology, which he finished in 2007. He was an Intern and Resident in the General Surgery residency program at the University of Michigan until 2014. He completed his surgical training with a Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh under the tutelage of Dr. David Bartlett and Dr. Herb Zeh. He now serves as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He is an active surgeon-scientist with a basic and translational laboratory focusing on pancreatic cancer.

Karl Bilimoria, MD
Dr. Bilimoria is the Director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Vice President for Quality for the health system, and the Vice Chair for Quality in the Department of Surgery. He is also the John B. Murphy Professor of Surgery, and his clinical practice focuses on melanoma and sarcoma. His research focuses on surgical quality measurement and improving the quality of healthcare for surgical and oncology patients, and he has a particular interest in large cluster-randomized trials.  He is the founding director of the 56-hospital Illinois Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative (ISQIC).  He was the PI for the national FIRST Trial of resident duty hour policies. His research is supported by the NIH, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the American Board of Surgery (ABS), and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and other societies.  He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed in articles, with multiple recent studies in JAMA and NEJM.  He is a Faculty Scholar at the American College of Surgeons.  He is the past President of the Surgical Outcomes Club and the current Secretary of the Association of Academic Surgery (AAS). He was recently listed by Becker’s as one of the “Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety” in the U.S.

Stephanie Bonne, MD
Dr. Stephanie Bonne graduated from Rosalind Franklin University, completed residency at University of Illinois Metropolitan Group and fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.  She is an assistant professor of surgery in the division of Trauma and Critical Care at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.  She sits on the Clinical and Health Sciences Research Committee of the Association for Academic Surgery council of the Association for Women Surgeons, the governing council for the American College of Surgeons Young Fellows Association, the Injury Prevention and Mentoring Committees of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and the Future Trauma Leaders program of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma.  Her nonclinical interests are in Hospital Based Violence Prevention and Risk assessments for violence injury from a public health perspective.

Richard Burkhart, MD
Rick Burkhart, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital with a focus on complex minimally-invasive surgery and research for cancers of the pancreas, liver and bile ducts. His current research focuses on precision medicine initiatives in cancer care.  He has a particular research interest in the study of personalized models of pancreas cancer, made from each patient’s tumor after surgical resection, to serve as predictive biomarkers of systemic response to therapy.


Justin Dimick, MD, MPH
Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH is the George D. Zuidema Professor of Surgery, Chief of the Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, and Director of the Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy at the University of Michigan. Dr. Dimick’s clinical practice is primarily devoted to advanced laparoscopy, including treatment of morbid obesity, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), abdominal wall hernias, and other benign and neoplastic diseases of the stomach, spleen, and foregut. Dr. Dimick’s research program, currently funded by 4 R01 grants from the NIH and AHRQ, focuses on quality measurement, policy evaluation, and large-scale quality improvement interventions. He has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in NEJM, JAMA, Health Affairs and the leading surgical journals. Dr. Dimick serves in leadership positions in several organizations, including President of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) and the Board of Directors of the Surgical Outcomes Club (SOC). He is currently a standing member of the NIH Health Services Organization and Delivery (HSOD) Study Section. He has served in advisory roles on quality and health care policy issues for several organizations, including the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA), and the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP).

Christopher Dodgion, MD, MSPH
Chris Dodgion is a Trauma and Critical Care surgeon at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He has a significant interest in trauma systems, quality improvement and the global surgical workforce. His research focus to date has been on critically evaluating trauma management decision making and investigating the global burden of surgical disease specifically caused by work force shortages and identifying educational opportunities to address this gap. He has led collaborative projects throughout the world, most recently including Belize, Haiti, and Ghana. He currently holds a number of leadership roles in both trauma quality and global health at the Medical College of Wisconsin and he is the current Co-chair of the Global Affairs Committee for the Association for Academic Surgery.

Lesly Dossett, MD, MPH
Dr. Lesly Dossett MD, MPH is Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Dossett’s academic focus is on the interface between primary care providers and cancer specialists. She uses qualitative and mixed methods research as well as methods in implementation science. She was a 2015 Michael Zinner Health Services Research Fellow through the Surgical Outcomes Club and a 2017 Fellow of the NCI-sponsored program Mentored Training in Dissemination and Implementation in Cancer (MT-DIRC). She is an active member of multiple professional societies including AAS and currently serves on the AAS Health Services Research Committee.

Jeffrey Farma, MD
Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology, Surgical Director of the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Program, Program Director of surgical oncology fellowship at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.  My clinical interests include colorectal surgery, GI malignancies, melanoma, and sarcoma.  I am currently involved in clinical trials, outcomes, educational and translational research.

Tamara Fitzgerald, MD, PhD
Tamara Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Duke University.  Her research focus is in global surgery, surgical capacity building, and cost-effective, durable biomedical devices for low-middle income countries. She works with pediatric surgeons in sub-Saharan Africa to increase training and support for young surgeons, thereby improving children’s access to surgical care.  She received her B.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and her M.D. from Boston University.  She completed a general surgery residency and fellowship in pediatric surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Amir Ghaferi, MD, MS
Dr. Ghaferi is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Business at the University of Michigan. He is currently the Surgeon-in-Chief of the University Hospital Operating Rooms and 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 also served as the Chief of General Surgery and Founding Director of the Bariatric Surgery Program at the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System. 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.

Dr. Ghaferi’s research focuses on understanding the relationship of organizational systems and design to quality and efficiency, with the ultimate goal of designing interventions to improve care locally, regionally, and nationally. Dr. Ghaferi receives 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, Medical Care, and Annals of Surgery.

Dr. Ghaferi is an active member of several national societies (Association for Academic Surgery, Society of University Surgeons, AcademyHealth) and serves on, chairs, or co-chairs several national committees. He is currently the President of the Surgical Outcomes Club and Secretary of the Association for Academic Surgery.

Allan Goldstein, MD
Dr. Allan Goldstein received his undergraduate education at Yale and his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1993. He completed his surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1993-2000, followed by a fellowship in pediatric surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center from 2000-2002. In 2002 he returned to MassGeneral, where he is currently Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Pediatric Surgery. He is also Surgeon-in-Chief at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. Dr. Goldstein directs a NIH-funded basic science lab studying the enteric nervous system, the complex neuronal network that regulates gastrointestinal function. His specific area of research relates to Hirschsprung disease and other neurointestinal diseases. He is director of the Center for Neurointestinal Health at MassGeneral and is actively engaged in clinical and translational research projects aimed at improving the diagnosis and treatment of functional disorders of the intestine in children.

Ankush Gosain, MD, PhD, FACS, FAAP
Dr. Gosain’s laboratory research focuses on the development of the Enteric Nervous System and Gastrointestinal Mucosal Immune System. The long-term goal of his research is to gain an understanding of the interactions between the Enteric Nervous System and Gastrointestinal Immune System in both development and disease to permit the generation of novel neuro-immunomodulatory therapies that may potentially target a broad range of congenital and acquired pediatric gastrointestinal tract diseases (Hirschsprung’s disease, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, Intestinal Atresia, Motility Disorders, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, etc.).

Angela Ingraham, MD, MS
Dr. Ingraham is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin and an Investigator in the Wisconsin Surgical Outcomes Research (WiSOR) Program. She is developing a health services research program with an emphasis on improving care and outcomes of emergency general surgery (EGS) patients, including research on quality of care, practice patterns, and policy evaluation. Prior to coming to UW, she completed a two-year full-time research fellowship during her General Surgery residency at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Scholars in Residence Program and a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation at Northwestern University. She continued her research during her two-year fellowship in Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on examining outcomes after EGS procedures at the patient and hospital levels, critically evaluating the methods through which hospital performance is measured, and disseminating proven methods in quality improvement.

Fabian Johnston, MD, MHS
Fabian Johnston MD MHS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and Division of Surgical Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the Associate Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology Program and Director of the Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Program.  His research interests include both education and implementation and dissemination of best models of care in palliative care. Dr. Johnston earned his medical degree from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine. He began is surgical training at Louisiana State University in New Orleans and completed general surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by fellowship in surgical oncology at the Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in Clinical Investigations from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Lillian Kao, MD, MS
Lillian Kao is Professor, Division Chief of Acute Care Surgery, Vice-Chair for Research and Faculty Development for the Department of Surgery and Co-Director of the Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-Based Practice (C-STEP) at McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). She is a Past President of the Association for Academic Surgery.

Rachel Kelz, MD, MSCE
Rachel R Kelz, MD MSCE MBA FACS graduated magna cum laude from Union College (Mathematics) in 1992 where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  She received her medical degree cum laude from Yale University School of Medicine (cum laude) in 1997.  She went on to complete her internship (1998) and general surgery residency (2004) at the University of Pennsylvania.  While enrolled in the residency program, she earned a Masters degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. In 2018, Dr. Kelz earned an Executive Masters in Business Administration at the Wharton School and was appointed as a Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a board-certified surgeon with an active endocrine surgical practice.  Dr. Kelz is an Associate Program Director of the General Surgery Residency Program, the founding Director of the Center for Surgery and Health Economics and the ACS NSQIP Surgeon Champion for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, she received The Christian R and Mary F Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching award given out by the University. She has received the Buzby Leadership Award and the Mentorship Award from the Department of Surgery. She is a senior scholar at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the Wharton School. Dr Kelz is a federally funded investigator with a particular interest in the eradication of surgical disparities and the advancement of surgical care using health services research methods, quality improvement methodology and innovative educational techniques.

Sundeep Keswani, MD, FACS, FAAP
Sundeep G. Keswani, M.D., associate professor of Baylor College of Medicine’s Division of Pediatric Surgery, is a member of the pediatric surgery and fetal surgery team at Texas Children’s Hospital and the principal investigator for the Texas Children’s Laboratory for Regenerative Tissue Repair.

Eugene Kim, MD
Dr. Eugene Kim is Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Surgery and Division of Hematology-Oncology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California.  Dr. Kim has clinical expertise in pediatric surgical oncology, the management of chest wall deformities and anorectal malformations.  He also has expertise in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) as it relates to newborn pulmonary and cardiac failure.  Dr. Kim is the principal investigator of a basic science laboratory focused on novel preclinical therapeutics for the aggressive childhood malignancy, neuroblastoma.  His research interests are focused on the mechanisms and pathways responsible for recurrent metastatic disease, the primary cause of death in children with high-risk neuroblastoma. Contact him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dreskim

Roger Kim, MD
Roger H. Kim, MD, FACS is currently an Associate Professor of Surgery at the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, IL. He is also the Program Director for the General Surgery Residency. His clinical practice is in surgical oncology. His research interests are in clinical surgical oncology and in education. Contact him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rogerhkim

 

Afif Kulaylat, MD, MSc
Dr. Kulaylat is a pediatric surgery fellow at Nationwide Children’s Hospital/Ohio State University.  He completed his general surgery training at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.  He is the chair of the Resident and Associate Society of the American College of Surgeons and serves on the education committee for the Association for Academic Surgery.  He has a strong interest in medical education. He completed a Surgical Education Research Fellowship through the Association for Surgical Education, as well as the Harvard-Macy Program for Future Academic Clinician-Educators.  His teaching efforts have been recognized by the Association for Surgical Education and the American College of Surgeons.

Brenessa Lindeman, MD
Brenessa Lindeman, MD, MEHP, is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Associate Designated Institutional Official for the Clinical Learning Environment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A native of eastern Kentucky, she completed her undergraduate training summa cum laude at the University of Louisville and was the Founder’s Medalist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  She completed residency training in General Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she served as an Administrative Chief Resident, and completed a fellowship in Endocrine Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.  Brenessa earned a Masters of Education in the Health Professions from Johns Hopkins University and completed Surgical Education Research Fellowships with the Association for Surgical Education and Massachusetts General Hospital.  She served as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Core EPAs for Entering Residency Drafting Panel as well as the Resident Member of the AAMC Board of Directors from 2012-2016 and has worked with the American Board of Surgery to define EPAs for General Surgery.  Her research interests are in development and assessment of competency in surgical trainees, resident supervision and autonomy, and evaluation of the learning climate/physician wellness as an academic surgeon.

Kristin Long, MD
Dr. Long is an Assistant Professor in the Department of General Surgery, Section of Endocrine Surgery, at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, Wisconsin. Her clinical practice involves treating patients with diseases of the thyroid, parathyroid or adrenal glands. In addition to clinical research within endocrine surgery she focuses on global surgical outreach, operating in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and working to improve surgical education in low-resource settings. Within the AAS, she serves as a member of the Global Affairs Committee.

Carrie Lubitz, MD, MPH
Carrie C. Lubitz, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Endocrine Surgeon in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Senior Scientist at the MGH Institute of Technology Assessment. In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Lubitz has health-service and translational research interests including decision-analytic modeling to assess the comparative effectiveness and improve the quality of care of patients with endocrine-related disorders, with a focus on thyroid cancer. She served as the Chair of the Clinical & Health Services Research Committee of the AAS and is a member of the Nominating Committee.

Stephanie Lumpkin, BS, MD
Dr. Stephanie T Lumpkin is a fifth year general surgery resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow. Her research is funded by both the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons General Surgery Resident Research Initiation Grant and the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her primary research is a mixed methods study examining post discharge healthcare utilization after colorectal surgery. Additionally, Dr. Lumpkin enjoys hiking, healthy cooking, and traveling with her husband and son.

Jeffrey Matthews, MD
Dr. Jeffrey B. Matthews is the Dallas B. Phemister Professor of Surgery, Chairman of the Department of Surgery, and Surgeon-in-Chief of The University of Chicago Medicine.  A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Matthews completed surgical residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and a hepatobiliary fellowship at the University of Bern.  During his appointment at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital, he rose to the rank of Associate Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of General Surgery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  In 2001, he was appointed Christian R. Holmes Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Cincinnati until assuming his current position in 2006.

Dr. Matthews is a leading expert in pancreaticobiliary and gastrointestinal surgery.  He has over 150 original articles and other publications.  He led a federally funded research laboratory studying the regulation of epithelial transport and barrier function for over two decades.  He serves on the editorial board of 11 scientific journals and is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery. He is the Chair of the Surgery Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.  He is a senior Director of the American Board of Surgery, and past President of the Society of Surgical Chairs, the Society of University Surgeons and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT).

Alexandria McDow, MD
Alexandria McDow is an Endocrine Surgery Fellow and Clinical Instructor of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin. Her clinical interests include thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal endocrinopathies. Her research focuses on health care disparities and provider decision-making in patients with thyroid disease both in the United States and in low and middle-income countries. She currently serves on the AAS Global Affairs committee.

Ryan Merkow, MD
Dr. Ryan Merkow is a board certified surgical oncologist and health services researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago. He completed his surgical residency at the University of Chicago and fellowship training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on upper gastrointestinal malignancies and regional cancer therapies. He received formal health services research training at the American College of Surgeons as a Clinical Scholar in Residence and completed a Master’s in Health Services and Outcomes Research in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University. He is currently on faculty in the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) at Northwestern University with a focus on perioperative surgical quality, cancer care quality measure development, and patient reported outcomes.

Erika Newman, MD
Dr. Newman is an Assistant Professor and Surgeon Scientist in the Section of Pediatric Surgery. She completed undergraduate work and medical school at Georgetown University in 2001. After medical school, she completed General Surgery training at The University of Michigan and Fellowship training at The University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital. Dr. Newman’s practice includes all areas of general pediatric surgery and pediatric diseases of the neck, chest, and abdomen. Her clinical areas of specific interest are pediatric surgical oncology including neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, and soft tissue sarcoma. Dr. Newman is also interested in surgical diseases of the biliary tract including liver tumors and biliary atresia. Dr. Newman is certified in both general surgery and pediatric surgery by the American Board of Surgery and has an active research laboratory studying cancer stem cell biology and the developmental pathways of neuroblastoma.

Rebecca Rentea, MD
Rebecca M. Rentea, MD is an assistant professor and director of the pediatric surgical Comprehensive Colorectal Center- Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her general surgery residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She then did a pediatric surgery fellowship at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Following this she performed an additional pediatric surgical fellowship concentrating in complex pediatric colorectal surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital at the Ohio State University- Columbus, Ohio. Basic science research has been an interest since her undergraduate years, and in addition to spending two years during residency studying necrotizing enterocolitis at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin she continues to be involved in clinical and translational research projects in pediatric surgery.

Jennifer Rickard, MD, MPH
Jennifer Rickard, MD, MPH, obtained her BS and completed medical school at University of Wisconsin – Madison. She completed her general surgery residency at Rush University Medical Center and Cook County Integrated Surgical Residency Training Program in Chicago, IL. After residency, she was a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellow and completed her Master’s in Public Health at Harvard School of Public Health. She completed a Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at University of Minnesota, where she is now faculty. She works in Rwanda 6 months each year with the Human Resources for Health Program focuses on surgical education, trauma and acute care surgery.

Christina Roland, MD, MS
Dr. Christina Roland is the Chief of Sarcoma Surgery, Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology 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 currently serves as the 2014 Class Representative on the AAS Executive Council.

 

Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD
Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD, was named an assistant professor of surgery in the Section of Minimally Invasive Surgery after completing a minimally invasive surgery fellowship at Washington University. Salles completed a general surgery residency and earned a medical degree at Stanford University. She also earned a PhD in Education from Stanford University.

Heena Santry, MD, MS
Dr. Santry is an acute care surgeon at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Vice-Chair for Health Services Research and Director, Center for Surgical Health Assessment, Research, & Policy (SHARP).  She is a multi-modal health services researcher who studies emergency general surgery structures, processes, and outcomes. She is funded by the AHRQ to study the impact of the dissemination of acute care surgery nationally. Contact her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/heenastat

Dorry Segev, MD, PhD
Dr. Dorry Segev is an abdominal transplant surgeon focusing on minimally invasive live donor surgery and incompatible organ transplantation. His research uses advanced statistical methods for mathematical modeling and simulation of medical data, analysis of large healthcare datasets, and outcomes research. He has made significant contributions to the field of transplantation including development of a mathematical model to facilitate a nationwide Kidney Paired Donation program in both the US and in Canada. He is an NIH Clinical Research Scholar, American Geriatrics Society Dennis Jahnigen Scholar, National Institute of Aging Paul Beeson Scholar, senior investigator for the Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients, and Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award recipient for his groundbreaking work in clinical decision-making for renal failure patients over 65. He has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed research articles in journals including New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, American Journal of Transplantation, Annals of Surgery, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, and others. He is an Associate Editor for American Journal of Transplantation, American Journal of Kidney Diseases, and Liver Transplantation. His work is regularly featured in widely read media including TIME magazine, the Discovery Channel, US News & World Report, and the New York Times.

Drew Shirley, MD
Lawrence Andrew Shirley MD, MS is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Program Director of their Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship.  Dr. Shirley received his BA in English/Molecular Biology at Vanderbilt University and MD from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.  He went on to complete his General Surgery Residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and a Surgical Oncology Fellowship at The Ohio State University.  His clinical practice focuses on the surgical management of endocrine disease, including thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal diseases.  His laboratory investigates novel biomarkers and treatment targets in the microenvironment of non-medullary thyroid cancers.

Rebecca Sippel, MD
Rebecca Sippel is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Chief of Endocrine Surgery at the University of Wisconsin.  She is a past President of the AAS and is currently serving as the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs and Professional Development at the University of Wisconsin.  She is an established leader in the field of endocrine surgery and does clinical research focused on improving outcomes in patients with Endocrine surgical diseases.  She is currently PI on an NIH funded randomized controlled trial examining the impact of the surgical treatment of thyroid cancer on patients overall quality of life.

Allison Speer, MD
Dr. Allison Speer is an Assistant Professor Pediatric Surgery at the McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).  She completed her general surgery residency training at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA.  During residency, she completed a 3 year research fellowship investigating tissue-engineered intestine as a solution for short bowel syndrome at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in the laboratory of Dr. Tracy Grikscheit.  Dr. Speer has received several research awards including Best Manuscript by a New Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) Member and Best Quick Shot Presentation by a New AAS member.  Additionally, she received grant funding from the Ethicon-Society of University Surgeons (SUS) Surgical Research Fellowship Award.  After residency, she completed fellowship training in Pediatric Surgery at Children’s National Medical Center/George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Speer is a basic-translational surgeon-scientist focused on developing novel regenerative medicine strategies for intestinal failure such as tissue-engineered intestine and cell-based therapies.

Sam C. Wang, MD
Sam C. Wang, MD is Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He received his bachelor degrees from Stanford University and medical degree from Duke University. He completed his general surgery residency at the University of California, San Francisco and Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Wang’s clinical interests are in malignancies of the stomach, pancreas, and liver, which reflect his research efforts. As a surgeon-scientist, the goal of his basic science projects is to discover essential mechanisms behind the initiation and maintenance of pancreas and liver cancer so as to identify novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Dr. Wang has also initiated a translational research program in gastric cancer, where he is working to discover novel prognostic and predictive biomarkers to better guide treatments.

Heather Yeo, BSFS, MD
Heather Yeo, MD, MHS, is Assistant Professor of Surgery and Assistant Professor of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College and Assistant Attending Surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She is board-certified in general surgery, colon and rectal surgery and complex general surgical oncology. Dr. Yeo has a Master’s in Health Services Research and is focused on surgical outcomes and quality improvement in Gastrointestinal Cancer Surgery. While a fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering, she worked to understand bowel function in rectal cancer patients who have undergone sphincter preserving surgery and studied ways to improve their quality of life. Dr. Yeo has recently focused her research on cancer surgery in aging populations, looking at outcomes, predictors of poor outcomes and possible ways to improve them.  She is particularly interested in the psychosocial factors that go into surgical decision making and how they influence outcomes in an aging population.  In addition she has been working with Cornell Tech to develop mobile apps to track patients in the perioperative period.

Syed N. Zafar, MBBS, MPH
Dr. Zafar is a current Surgical Oncology fellow at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  He completed his medical degree from the Aga Khan University, a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, a general surgery residency from Howard University and a MIS fellowship from the University of Maryland. Dr. Zafar has been a member of many professional societies and has been actively engaged in health services research for several years.  Dr. Zafar has published over 60 peer reviewed articles, with over 35 national and international presentations, and five book chapters. His research has focused on improving surgical outcomes with particular attention to national and international disparities in surgical care.  His clinical interests lie in oncologic surgery of the alimentary tract. His research interests include the use of large datasets to identify modifiable factors that could improve surgical outcomes. He is passionate about improving global access to essential surgical care.