People

Ynhi Thomas, MD, MPH, MSC

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Ynhi Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and serves as the Assistant Medical Director of Operations Research at the Ben Taub Hospital Emergency Center. She also holds the role of Investigator in the Behavioral Health Program at the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety (IQuESt). Drawing on her expertise in public health, mental health, and leadership in quality improvement, Dr. Thomas develops innovative interventions to enhance emergency care for patients experiencing mental health crises.

Her contributions include the development of the Behavioral Health Sorting Tool, establishment of a multidisciplinary Crisis Intervention Team, and the formulation of data-driven guidelines for the use of physical restraints. Dr. Thomas's research, funded by federal and private entities, focuses on substance use disorders, suicide prevention, and the development of clinical decision support tools. She has served as principal or co-investigator on various projects, including an FDA-funded U01 study on kratom's human abuse potential and National Institutes of Health-funded initiatives on diagnostic accuracy.

Dr. Thomas has received several accolades, including the 2025 American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology New Investigator Award, the 2024 Chao Physician-Scientist Award, and the 2023 Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine President's Momentum Award. An inductee of Alpha Omega Alpha and The XXXI Honor Society, she completed her medical degree at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, her M.P.H. at the University of Alabama School of Public Health, her M.Sc. in Medical Anthropology at Oxford University, and her Emergency Medicine residency and fellowship training in Leadership, Quality, and Administration at BCM. Dr. Thomas enjoys hiking, traveling, and spending time with her husband and two school-aged sons.

Kinjal Nanavati Sethuraman, MD, MPH

University of Maryland

Dr. Sethuraman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland and serves as the medical director of Hyperbaric and Dive Medicine at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. After completing her residency at Boston Medical Center and her fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, she has accumulated 24 years of experience in emergency medicine, spanning both academic and community settings. She currently leads one of the busiest 24/7 emergency-capable hyperbaric chambers in the United States.

Dr. Sethuraman has been deeply involved with the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM), serving on its board for ten years and as a past president. She continues to actively contribute to both AWAEM and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) by serving on multiple committees and mentoring medical students, residents, and junior faculty.

Her research focuses on gender equity within emergency medicine, particularly related to workforce dynamics, compensation disparities, and recognition gaps. Additionally, Dr. Sethuraman is the site Principal Investigator for the Hyperbaric Oxygen Brain Injury Trial (HOBIT) and leads one of the highest enrolling sites for the study. She is also a clinical collaborator for studies investigating the role of oxygen in microparticle expression.

Dr. Sethuraman remains committed to advancing emergency and hyperbaric medicine while supporting the growth and success of the next generation of emergency physicians.

Dong-han Yao, MD

Stanford Health Care-Sponsored Stanford University

Dong-han Yao, M.D., is an emergency medicine physician at Stanford Medicine and fellow in the Stanford Clinical Informatics Program. Dr. Yao holds a B.A. in Molecular & Cell Biology and Immunology from University of California, Berkeley, an M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at UCLA. Dr. Yao's research and operational work include expanding patient access to acute care via virtual care, responsible integration of AI into medical education and the clinical continuum, and leveraging technology to streamline workflow and improve patient outcomes in the emergency room.

Tatenda Mupepi, MPA

Saint James School of Medicine

Tatenda Mupepi is a devoted medical student at Saint James School of Medicine with a strong commitment to pursuing a career in Emergency Medicine. Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, she completed her Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences and a Master's degree in Public Administration, with a focus on Health Administration, at Grand Valley State University in Allendale and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Tatenda has worked with Michigan’s Department of Mental Health, Grand Valley State University’s Family Health Center, and multiple nonprofit health organizations in West Michigan, where she has advocated for quality healthcare and provided vital services to her community. She also successfully founded a healthcare organization that offers home health services, employment staffing, and recruitment, as well as healthcare training and certification programs.

Her unwavering dedication to community advocacy, global health, leadership, mentorship, and the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine is profoundly influenced by her multicultural background and personal experiences. This deep commitment fuels her ongoing efforts to address healthcare disparities and advance equitable access to care.

Colleen E. Laurence, MD, MPH

Boston Medical Center

Colleen Laurence, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and an Attending Physician at Boston Medical Center. Her research and educational work focuses on accessibility and delivery of comprehensive, trauma-informed emergency care for immigrant populations and realization of language justice in emergency care in the United States.

Dr. Laurence completed a Local Health Equity Fellowship at Boston Medical Center and her emergency medicine residency training at the University of Cincinnati where she also served as Chief Resident. She earned her MD from Wake Forest University and her MPH from Emory University. Before attending medical school, she served with the US Peace Corps for two years in Mauritania and Rwanda and helped to develop a mobile app to support people living with HIV/AIDS, now recognized by the CDC as a best practice.

Laura Janneck, MD, MPH

University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine

Laura Janneck is an Assistant Professor and Associate Program Director at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine, where her work focuses on social medicine and education.

She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University, her doctorate in medicine from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and a master’s in public health from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Janneck completed residency in emergency medicine in at the Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals.

After residency, she served as Country Director for sidHARTe in Rwanda where, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, she helped to guide the development emergency medical systems across the country. She worked as a community emergency physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance where her focus pivoted toward immigrant health and social medicine with a strong emphasis on education. She developed an open-access curriculum on immigrant health, and through the Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy she helped to create an interprofessional course called the Health Equity Scholars.

While caring for patients throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she transitioned to the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine to more actively pursue academic interests. There, she has created a section on Social Emergency Medicine and served in national roles in Social EM through ACEP and SAEM. She was appointed to be an Associate Program Director of the OU Tulsa EM Residency Program, and a Course Director for a pre-clinical medical student course focusing on the biopsychosocial approach to medicine. Outside of her work, she enjoys traveling, singing in a choir, and spending time with her family.

Cassandra Bradby, MD

East Carolina University

Dr. Cassandra Bradby is an EM physician and Assistant Professor at Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. As a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN, she has dedicated her career to improving diversity and inclusion in medicine through mentoring and education. After residency at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Bradby headed back south to Greenville, NC where she now serves as the Residency Program Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at ECU Health Medical Center. In addition to her work in North Carolina, Dr. Bradby serves as the current Immediate Past President of the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine for SAEM.

P. Logan Weygandt, MD, MPH, FACEP

Johns Hopkins University

P. Logan Weygandt, MD MPH is an instructor and associate program director in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Weygandt completed his Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health before graduating from medical school at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training at Northwestern University Emergency Medicine, where he served as chief resident.

Dr. Weygandt's interests include medical education, resident wellness, and healthcare disparities. He practices clinically in the Emergency Departments of Bayview Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

John Purakal, MD, MS

Duke University School of Medicine

John David Purakal, MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. He holds appointments with the Duke-Margolis Center on Health Policy and Samuel Dubois Cook Center for Social Equity. Dr. Purakal's educational roles include serving as the Emergency Medicine Clerkship Director for the Duke University School of Medicine Outpatient Integrated Longitudinal Experience (PIONEER), and Core Faculty within the Department of Emergency Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Purakal has been an invited speaker locally, nationally, and internationally on topics related to health equity, racial disparities in care, and cardiovascular disease. His medical career started as a student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he created a public health education initiative to provide multidisciplinary health education to at-risk populations around the city of Detroit. This work led to his receipt of the Arthur Johnson Leadership Award, Ralph Wadley, MD Scholarship, and the Crain's Detroit Business "Twenty in their 20's" Award. Dr. Purakal completed his emergency medicine residency at The University of Illinois - Chicago, and served as chief resident in his final year. He then started his academic career at The University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor in the Section of Emergency Medicine.

Since joining Duke University School of Medicine, Dr. Purakal has worked to address unmet social needs in the emergency department patient population through development of a social needs screening program utilizing student volunteers and cross-sectoral collaborations with platforms such as NCCare360. He created the Health Equity Curriculum for the Emergency Medicine Residency Program, and serves multiple teaching roles within the School of Medicine, including emergency medicine clerkship director for the novel PIONEER curriculum. Additionally, he advises multiple Duke University student organizations that address health inequities in the Durham community. He has been awarded multiple departmental awards for this teaching and leadership, and was the recipient of the 2022 American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) National Junior Faculty Teaching Award, the 2023 Duke University Presidential Award, the 2023 Triangle Business Journal "40 in their 40's" Leadership Award, and has been invited to the White House multiple times as a recognized health equity leader.

Kendrick Kennedy, MD

Duke University

Dr. Kennedy’s professional interests include advocacy, education, and service for marginalized populations. This includes working with community leaders to address social determinants of health and the emergency physicians' role in this process. Dr. Kennedy’s work within the community of Durham has given him an appreciation of strong community connections and the importance of understanding the resources that are available for the patients he serves. With that knowledge Dr. Kennedy strives to combine clinical knowledge, a great work ethic and a highly professional attitude to provide excellent patient care.

Matthew T. Ball, MD

Henry Ford Health System

Matthew Ball, MD, FAEMS graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 2016 and completed Emergency Medicine Residency at Henry Ford Hospital in 2019 and fellowship in Emergency Medical Services at The Ohio State University in 2020. Since then, he has served as faculty at Henry Ford Hospital's Emergency Medicine Residency program with an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and as fellowship director for the very recently ACGME approved Emergency Medical Services Fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital. Outside of the hospital environment, he serves as a medical officer on the MI-1/MN-1 DMAT, a member of the Detroit East Medical Control Authority (DEMCA) board after completing a 2 year term as deputy medical director at the end of 2023, and as Lead ED Physician Consultant for the Henry Ford Health Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) program. Research interests include care of time sensitive disease processes in the out of hospital environment, EMS ultrasound, EMS workforce issues, and medical education. 

Kyle A. Hultz, PharmD

Memorial Hospital West

I am a residency trained emergency medicine clinical pharmacy specialist currently practicing as a clinical coordinator at Memorial Hospital West with experience working in both large and small health systems in Florida, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania.

I am passionate about bedside patient care, customer satisfaction, multi-disciplinary continuing education, process improvement, and enhancing healthcare outcomes by optimizing clinical practice and the use of electronic medical records.

My areas of clinical interest include resuscitation, anticoagulation and management of antithrombotic associated bleeding, neurologic emergencies, and cardiovascular disease. 

My goal is to provide a pharmacist's perspective on the management of acute events and how patients experience the continuum of care from the Emergency Department to hospital discharge with the ultimate goal of returning to a high quality of life.

Joshua N. Goldstein, MD

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Goldstein is an emergency physician with expertise in neurologic emergencies. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 2000, and completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency in 2005. He then completed a research fellowship in Vascular and Critical Care Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. He is currently the Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; and a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
He is a Fellow of the Neurocritical Care Society, the American Heart Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Goldstein manages a clinical research program integrating neurology, hematology, neurocritical care, and emergency medicine. His team is funded by NIH, foundations and industry. He has served as an invited speaker at many national and international forums, coauthored the AHA Guidelines on Intracerebral Hemorrhage, and has published over 300 research articles, reviews, and book chapters. Finally, he co-directs a CME course on Neurologic Emergencies (the largest of its kind) that draws over 180 participants from across the world annually.

Andrea Lauren Klein, MD, MPH

Carilion Clinic-Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine

Dr. Klein is a second year emergency medicine resident at Virginia Tech Carilion in Roanoke, Virginia. She completed her undergraduate training at the University of California, San Diego, where she earned an honors BS in biochemistry and cell biology, specializing in genetic engineering and neuroscience. She then attended The George Washington University in Washington, DC for a combined MD/MPH degree, and completed her thesis on differences in stroke incidence, protocols, and outcomes by zip code in US urban centers. Dr. Klein has comprehensive experience teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level (structural biochemistry and molecular genetics), performing and directing basic, translational, and clinical neuroscience research, and presenting at the national and international levels, which has garnered her several major awards and fellowships. Her current work focuses on optimizing stroke protocols within VTC and studying stroke outcomes in the region. After graduating residency, Dr. Klein will complete a fellowship in critical care medicine within the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego under a T-32 grant with which she will continue her stroke research.

Salil Phadnis, MD

Indiana University

Dr. Salil Phadnis is a Fellow in Medical Simulation at Indiana University. He earned his medical degree at University of South Florida and completed a Residency in Emergency Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. Following the completion of his fellowship in June, he will be joining as faculty at Washington University in St Louis.

Brittany Kotek

Global Health Fellow 2024-2025

BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine

EDUCATION

Undergraduate: DePaul University
Medical School: University of Illinois College of Medicine
Residency: University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics

AWARDS & HONORS

• Howard J. Croft Resident Advocate Award, Wisconsin chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (2024)
• Commendation for Excellence in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine (2023)

Donald Wright, MD, MHS

Clinical Informatics Fellow

Yale-New Haven Hospital

Donald Wright, MD, MHS, is a clinical informatics fellow at Yale-New Haven Hospital and the West Haven Veterans administration Hospital. He is also currently studying toward a PhD in the Yale University Investigative Medicine Program. His main area of interest is the intersection of emerging data science methodologies and clinical medicine, with a particular focus on large scale electronic health record analyses and applications for language models.

Eric Moyer, MD

Clinical Informatics Fellow

Rush

Eric Moyer, MD, is a clinical informatics fellow at Rush and a practicing emergency medicine physician. He attended Washington University in St. Louis for biomedical engineering and Rush Medical College for medical school. There, he stayed for emergency medicine residency and now a clinical informatics fellowship. He has over 10 peer reviewed publications using Cosmos across a variety of journals, though with a focus on emergency medicine topics. His areas of interest include research, clinical decision support, and digital health equity.

Susan Wojcik, PhD

Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Susan Wojcik, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University with over 24 years of emergency medicine research and education experience. She received a PhD in Health Sciences from Trident University, a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, and a Bachelor of Science in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University. She has served as a site PI or co-investigator for numerous industry and publicly funded clinical and education emergency medicine research studies. Dr. Wojcik is an author on over 60 peer reviewed publications. As the Director of Research since 2017, she provides oversight, leadership, and mentorship in all aspects of research and scholarly activities for the department. Dr. Wojcik is also the director of many educational programs including a fellow research seminar series, the residency research requirement, and a medical student research elective. Her mentorship has resulted in both national and international research presentation by students, residents, and fellows, along with several manuscript publications.

Shana Haynes-Harp, MD

Director of Research for Emergency Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai

Shana Haynes-Harp, MD, is the Director of Research for Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Haynes-Harp possesses 20+ years of experience as a healthcare professional and 10 years in a leadership role within healthcare and research. Previously, she was employed with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and Tufts Medical Center. She has completed her Masters degree in Health Services Administration and her Doctoral degree in Health Science. Dr. Haynes-Harp has extensive experience in managing research teams carrying out multi-centered global clinical research trials as well as clinical research studies.