Alumni Notes

Ed Margulies, M.D. ’56 asks, “Are you familiar with The Moth Radio Hour on NPR? In April 2023, I won the competition on The Moth Radio Hour in Portland, Ore. I had them rolling in the aisles, telling a story about one of my colonoscopies.”

Bernard Siegel, M.D. ’57 is still writing books and empowering patients to utilize their self- induced healing. 

Melvin S. Rosh, M.D. ’60 has published a picture book for children, “The Guest Who Came From Nowhere,” which has been translated into 12 languages. It can be found on Amazon and in fine bookstores.

John Krause, M.D. ’61 shares, “to my surprise, I am still here despite some medical issues. I am fully retired and my wife and her family have put me in a retirement facility called Beaumont in Bryn Mawr, Pa. If you are in the neighborhood, please reach out.”

Barton Schmitt, M.D. ’63 reports that he retired in July 2022 after serving 52 years on the pediatric faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He continues to teach pediatric residents in their continuity clinics one afternoon per week, using the direct observation coaching method. He also continues to write and update the telephone triage and advice protocols he created some 30 years ago. They are used in over 500 U.S. medical call centers and seven Canadian provinces. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently published the 17th edition of his book, “Pediatric Telephone Protocols.” “Integrating my engineering degree with my Weill Cornell Medical College degree made writing decision-support tools a logical focus,” he tells us. “Finally, while I remain healthy and active, I’m training co-editors. My thanks to Weill Cornell Medical College for starting me on a career and hobby that never grows old.”

Thomas “Mike” Anger, M.D. ’75 reports, “still cycling and weight training. Practice general peds three days a week. My wife, Ida, and granddaughter Maya are presently on a trip to Europe. Ida and I toured Japan earlier this year, hitting the cherry blossom season perfectly. I recently had a chance to sail with son Tom in Columbus on an MC (16-foot Inland Lake Scow), a cat-rigged version of the M-16, the racing sloop I learned on. One of my bucket list items achieved.”

Richard Lynn, M.D. ’71 says, ”so great to see so many of my classmates at Reunion 2022. I am grateful to have met Karl Weyrauch, M.D. ’80 and to hear about his incredible project in Rwanda, Pygmy Survival Alliance. I am now on the leadership team for this wonderful nonprofit. I am just finishing as immediate past second vice-president of the American College of Surgeons. Also, classmate Bob Laureno, M.D. ’71 shared with me that he came across a 21st century article from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston quoting our esteemed late physiology chairman, Dr. Robert F. Pitts. We were so lucky to be imprinted by giants! Please visit us in Palm Beach.”

Barry H. Smith, M.D. ’72 reports that he and colleagues “have been working on developing a new model of wellness that is based on a broad, multisectoral concept of health consistent with WHO’s 1948 definition of ‘health’ as complete physical, mental and social wellness and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This has resulted in the formation of a new nonprofit corporation, the Dreyfus Health Policy & Research Center Inc., as of July 1, 2023. It has launched a new campaign, Rise Up East New York, in collaboration with partners there. Specific goals include the prevention of chronic illness associated with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity and renal disease. Large-scale basic health and social determinants of health screening are part of an effort to build a meaningful AI-based risk stratification system. Critical is bringing health education and screening to where people live, work and play.”

James L. Bernat, M.D. ’73, emeritus professor of neurology and former Louis and Ruth Frank Professor of Neuroscience at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, received the Steven E. Hyman Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Neuroethics from the International Neuroethics Society at their annual meeting in Montreal in November 2022. The award is the society’s highest prize and was presented by its president, Joseph J. Fins, M.D. ’86, who described Jim as the “dean” of clinical neuroethics and a founder of the field of neuroethics. Jim has been at Dartmouth since graduating in 1973 from Weill Cornell Medical College.

Paul Church, M.D. ’75 is in his sixth year of retirement from urological practice in Boston. He is selling his home in Massachusetts and looking to resettle in Florida, at least during the winter months. First, he will be traveling around Europe. He shares that the love of his life and wife of 50 years died in June 2021. He enjoys spending time with family, fishing and skiing, although bodily ailments are making it more and more difficult.

Milagros Gonzalez, M.D. ’75 writes, “my husband, Keith Bracht, and I just returned from a weeklong vacation in the Dominican Republic. Wonderful vacation although hot and humid each day.”

Bill Powers, M.D. ’75 reports that he is back at Duke since July 1, 2022, as professor of neurology. After two years of internal medicine residency at Duke and a neurology residency at University of California, San Francisco from 1977–1980, he took a stroke research fellowship at Washington University. Twenty-seven years later, he tells us, “I had pretty much addressed the research questions I cared about and took the neurology chair job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). I served as chair for 11 years until 2008, then went to half-time teaching on the inpatient service. At UNC I had received multiple teaching awards, so when I decided it was time to move on in 2022, Duke offered me a job teaching on the inpatient service just 15 minutes down the road.” Bill and his wife, Karen, live in Chapel Hill. They just celebrated their 40th anniversary with a trip to France. They have two children who live in Boston.

Bill Packard, M.D. ’76 is still enjoying retirement. He and his partner have been going to Hawaii for two months in the winter and to the Berkshires for two months in the summer. He was honored to be the keynote speaker for the Stony Brook University Department of Languages and Cultural Studies commencement on May 19, 2023, having received an M.A. in Italian in 2011 and an M.A. in French in 2016 from Stony Brook. He is still playing the flute with his chamber music group and still takes piano lessons.

Stephen Ettinghausen, M.D. ’78 reports that in December 2021, after 25 years, he retired from a surgical oncology/hepatobiliary/pancreatic surgical practice in Rochester, N.Y. In June 2022, he moved to the shore of Lake Champlain in Panton, Vt. He is getting involved with surgical residents and medical student education at the University of Vermont’s college of medicine, and enjoys watching lots of his sons’ collegiate lacrosse games with his wife, Beth.

Carolyn H. Heyward-Grosvenor, M.D. ’80 has retired twice from paid work but continues to serve as a volunteer physician at a local free medical clinic and as an international medical missionary. In October 2023, she will travel to El Salvador for six weeks, for which she is preparing by learning Spanish. She tells us that “some experts say that learning a new language can slow down the progression to Alzheimer’s.” She continues to focus on social determinants of health as part of her comprehensive patient care, especially the plight of aging adults. She shares that her concern is personal: “Who’s going to take care of me when I am old?”

Gary J. Noel, M.D. ’80 retired in July and is looking forward to continuing to contribute as a consultant working to advance innovative therapies to treat patients with infectious diseases and to improve the efficiency of establishing safe, effective therapies for infants and children. “Deani and I,” he reports, “are enjoying the grandkids and splitting our time between Great Falls, Va., and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.”

Sara Dayan Kaner, M.D. ’86 writes, “Since 2018, I’ve been devoting more and more time to musical theater, and have been fortunate to be cast in several community theater and community college productions. This includes my first lead role last summer (2022) as Madame (the evil stepmother) in Cinderella at a local community theater, and as an ancestor (ensemble) and as Grandma Adams (for one performance) in the Addams Family Musical at Santa Monica College (Summer 2023). My husband, Ric, and I still live in Los Angeles, and will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary in September. We’re enjoying our empty nest with one old dog and two young cats, now that all three kids are living on their own. I’m taking a break from working part-time in public sector child psychiatry since most of what I enjoy about it was lost with the move to telehealth during the pandemic.”

Theresa M. Rohr-Kirchgraber, M.D. ’88 reports that she is working together with Paul Kirchgraber, M.D. ’88, Mark Pochapin, M.D. ’88 and Alex Te, M.D. ’88 as class leaders for Reunion 2024 next September. She is looking forward to meeting up and keeping in touch with classmates! She and Paul are both now in Georgia and enjoying being close to their four grandchildren and their new lake house. Advocacy work with the American Medical Women’s Association as well as state work keeps her busy, along with teaching at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership. “It reminds me of all our “firsts” as students and it is lots of fun to work with the medical students and residents,” she reports. “Paul is considering his next move as he steps away from the CEO position at Labcorp, so more to come on that. He is getting to do more fun travel so he is still earning all of those miles. Thanks for keeping in touch!”

Phyllis L. Townsend, M.D. ’88 tells us, “In October 2022, I retired from the practice of pediatrics. I had been a partner at Pediatric Associates of Franklin in Franklin, Tenn., for over 20 years and I had been practicing for 30 years. My diagnosis of tonsillar cancer in 2022 spurred my decision and while my prognosis is good, I am loving the retired life!”

Jeffrey Kauffman, M.D. ’93 reports, “After 10 years in Sacramento, I’ve now spent 10 years in New Hampshire. I live in Hanover and practice orthopedic sports medicine at the Alpine Clinic in Littleton, N.H.”

Avram Mack, M.D. ’98 moved South on interstate 95 from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to Nemours Children’s Health in Jacksonville, Fla., where he is now the chief quality and safety officer for the institution.

Sandy Saintonge, M.D. ’99 was named associate dean of the Program in Liberal Medical Education at Brown University. The eight-year baccalaureate-medical degree program is a signature feature of the university, accounting for a significant number of matriculants to its Warren Alpert Medical School, many of whom identify as underrepresented in medicine.

Michael S. Irwig, M.D. ’00 completed his third-year anniversary at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he has provided gender-affirming hormone therapy to 200 new patients. In his spare time, he volunteers at an animal rescue facility and enjoys biking.

Ross MacDonald, M.D. ’08 and his wife, Jenny, live in New York with their three kids. This year he started as chief medical officer of NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull. Woodhull is a community hospital in Brooklyn and one of 12 public hospitals in New York. He is also a clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Elizabeth Triche, M.D. ’09 tells us, “After living and working on the remote Pacific Island of Saipan for seven years, I moved to Australia at the height of the pandemic to join my Australian partner during that country’s border closure — going from department chair to trainee doctor in a matter of days. Two and a half years later, we’ve married and moved to the regional scenic Western Australian town of Albany, where I finally received full recognition of my pediatric qualifications and am a full-fledged consultant pediatrician. I am helping to establish pediatric care in the region.”

Erica O. Miller, M.D. ’11 tells us, “I am delighted to continue my career as a cardiologist and medical educator in my roles as associate program director for the University of Rochester’s cardiovascular disease fellowship as well as the internal medicine-pediatrics residency program. I am an alum of both programs! I am passionate about mentoring and gender equity. I lead our institution’s internal medicine women faculty mentoring and professional development group, and I was awarded the University of Rochester’s Susan B. Anthony Emerging Leader award this spring. I live in Rochester with my husband, Jesse (an internist in primary care), our two kids and our dog.”

Katherine H. Saunders, M.D. ’11 reports that she joined the Weill Cornell Medical College Alumni Association Board of Directors and serves on its DEI committee. She transitioned to voluntary faculty at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Comprehensive Weight Control Center so that she could join Intellihealth, the company she co-founded with Dr. Louis Aronne, full-time. She delivers care through their telemedicine practice, Flyte Medical.

Paul W. Furlow, M.D. ’15, Ph.D. ’14 graduated from the cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and joined its Division of Thoracic Surgery as an attending surgeon and instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School. Paul was also named director of the Lung Cancer Metastasis Biology Lab within the Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratories at MGH and visiting research fellow in Dr. Michael Yaffe’s laboratory at the Koch Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clinically, Paul specializes in the surgical treatment of lung cancer, and his observations in the operating room inform his research focused on understanding cell-signaling dysregulation in the mechanisms of lung cancer metastasis. He will forever be grateful to Dr. Olaf Andersen and the Tri-Institutional leadership for taking a chance on him, for Dr. Sohail Tavazoie’s mentorship and friendship, for Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi and Dr. Peter Allen for opening the door to the joy of surgery, and to everyone in Bedpan Alley who make it a mecca of health sciences.

Christopher Ryan, M.D. ’17 matched to a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Sasha Hernández, M.D. ’18 has received an NIH Fogarty Global Health Fellowship for cervical cancer research in Northern Ghana, where she will continue her research and clinical work with NYU/AMPATH Ghana for the 2023–2024 academic year.

Peter Hung, M.D. ’18 reports that after completing a radiology residency at Mount Sinai, he began a one-year neuroradiology fellowship at Yale. He and spouse Katie married in 2022 and split their time between New York and New Haven.

Susan M. Fitzpatrick, Ph.D. ’84 retired in December 2022 after almost 30 years with the James S. McDonnell Foundation. She reports that she is enjoying life split between a flat in St. Louis and her family farm in rural Missouri. She keeps in touch with science by serving as a trustee for the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute; and other science- and health-based nonprofit organizations.

Maureen Gannon, PhD ’96 received the Paul Lacy Medal and delivered the Lacy Award Lecture at the annual meeting of the Midwest Islet Club (MIC) in Minneapolis on May 25, 2023. The MIC meeting, now in its 15th year, is dedicated to fostering trainee and junior faculty career development and networking in the field of islet biology. The Lacy Medal Award, the highest MIC honor, is given in memory of Dr. Paul Lacy, a pioneer in islet transplantation for the treatment of diabetes, and honors highly meritorious career achievement in the field of islet biology. Maureen is a professor of medicine (diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

Katie Hisert, M.D. ’06, Ph.D. ’04 tells us, “I moved to Denver in 2019 to join the faculty at National Jewish Health, where I have continued my work researching and caring for adults with cystic fibrosis (CF). The introduction of new CF transmembrane conductance regulator modulator therapies has fundamentally changed CF for many of our patients. It has been an extraordinary time, both seeing the massive improvements in the health of people with CF receiving modulator therapy and beginning to understand the new state of disease that has been created. Because this therapy has many questions that need to be answered, I presented on this topic at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Milan in September.”

Na Xu, Ph.D. ’11 is chairperson of the natural sciences department and a professor in biology at the LaGuardia Community College (CUNY).

Sam Globus, Ph.D. ’13 recently took a position as chief operating officer of Genomenon Inc., a Michigan-based company that provides actionable genetic information to inform clinicians and drug discovery programs. Dr. Globus’ team will be responsible for Genomenon Inc.’s mission to become the first company to curate the human genome.

Armen Kherlopian, Ph.D. ’13 is now managing partner and CEO of Covenant Venture Capital after serving as chief science and innovation officer at the firm. Armen tells us, “This is an important milestone for the industry as the emerging trend of scientist-CEOs continues to accelerate and have an increased impact on society. Covenant invests in category-leading technologies and has a strong focus on health technology, robotics and AI.” For example, he led Covenant’s investment in Embodied, which has developed the category-defining Moxie robot as featured in TIME, and serves on the company’s advisory board with Peter Diamandis and will.i.am.” If you’d like to learn more and engage, please reach out to Armen.

Mark A. Carty, Ph.D. ’17 has been promoted to senior machine learning scientist at Tempus Labs. 

Spencer Krichevsky, M.S. ’20 is currently a third-year biomedical informatics Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. His research focus is on pathology informatics and he uses deep learning tools to characterize the tumor microenvironment of hematologic malignancies. He still maintains close ties with his graduate advisors, Dr. Joseph Michael Scandura and Dr. Fei Wang.

Vanessa Gutzeit, Ph.D. ’21 received the 2023 Boston Consulting Group Health Care Practice Area Scientific Network Fellowship for her proposal on identifying therapeutic areas ready for data-powered transformation. 

Paul Kim, M.S. ’21 was recruited as CEO of LevelUp MD Urgent Care, a private equity-backed regional urgent care group.

Jonghan Peter Lee, Ph.D. ’21 is working in business development in New York. He is happy to connect with current students and alumni on career planning in management consulting, investments and the business side of biotech/pharma.

Allan Mariano, P.A. ’21 writes that it has been almost five years since he became the chief PA for surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) Hospital. He oversees the following services: liver transplant, DHK ambulatory service, SICU/trauma, burn, orthopedics, urology, breast and general surgery. He continues to partner with the Health Sciences for Physician Assistants program in the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences in coordinating the surgical rotation and training the PA students at NYP as they are “the future of health care.” He encourages new grads and alumni to look at the many employment opportunities at NYP.

Ke “Dave” Xu, Ph.D. ’21 is the founder and CEO of META Pharmaceuticals Inc. in China. (Read more in Spotlight.)

Harshini Gokulakrishnan, M.S. ’22 currently works as a health care data analyst at Neighborhood Health.