People

Angela M. Mills, MD

Immediate Past President

Columbia University Vagelos

Angela M. Mills, MD is the J. E. Beaumont Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Chief of Emergency Services for NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) – Columbia. Dr. Mills graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction from Temple University Medical School and completed the University of Pennsylvania Emergency Medicine residency program serving as Chief Resident. As a University of Pennsylvania faculty member, she advanced academically being promoted to Professor of Emergency Medicine and served in several capacities including Medical Director and Vice Chair of Clinical Operations.

In January 2018, Dr. Mills joined NYP-Columbia as the founding Chair of the newly formed Department of Emergency Medicine leading all academic and operational activities for the four emergency department sites caring for over 240,000 patients annually. As Chair, Dr. Mills has worked to successfully advance education, research, clinical care, and diversity and inclusion efforts while building a premier nationally recognized academic department of emergency medicine.

For her accomplishments, Dr. Mills has been honored with several prestigious national awards including the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award from SAEM, the Mid-Career Award from the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM), and the 2020 Chair of the Year Inaugural Award from the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association. Under her leadership, the Columbia Department of Emergency Medicine has been awarded the Outstanding Department Award from AWAEM, as well as the Exemplary Commitment to Physician Well-Being Inaugural Award from the New York Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Dr. Mills has served as an elected member of the SAEM Board of Directors for the past six years, most recently in the position of President-Elect. She has authored over 110 scientific publications, has received federal and industry research funding, and has influenced the careers of numerous faculty and trainees.

Robert S. Hockberger, MD

SAEMF Secretary-Treasurer

Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center

 

Benjamin Abella, MD, MPhil

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Benjamin Abella, MD MPhil is the Mount Sinai Endowed Professor and System Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System. Dr. Abella attended medical school at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and then completed residencies in both internal medicine and emergency medicine at the University of Chicago. He served as Vice Chair for Research and William G. Baxt Endowed Professor at the University of Pennsylvania before moving to Mt. Sinai. Dr. Abella has led numerous clinical studies on cardiac arrest and post-arrest care, having authored over 250 published works including in high impact journals such as Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, and Circulation. His work has been continuously funded by the NIH for 20 years. Dr. Abella has served as Chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) national 3CPR Council and has co-authored international guidelines for CPR training. He is the emergency care and CPR consultant to the National Basketball Association, and has worked with the United States Air Force in the development of post-arrest care protocols. His work has been featured on Good Morning America, CNN, the New York Times, and other national media outlets.

J. Scott VanEpps, MD, PhD

President

University of Michigan

Dr. VanEpps is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is also faculty in the Biointerfaces Institute and the Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care. During his doctoral training, Dr. VanEpps’ research focused on the relationship between cardiovascular biomechanics and the development of coronary artery disease. In addition, he has extensive experience in computational modeling including finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. His research is currently focused on life threatening infections, and in particular those related to implantable medical devices.

Dr. VanEpps has been on the SAEMF Board of Trustees since 2018. He served as the secretary-treasurer from 2018-2020, as a member-at-large 2021-2023, and as president-elect in 2023. He is a prior recipient of a Research Training Grant and is intimately aware of the tremendous impact SAEM grants can have.

He received bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pittsburgh in Molecular Biology and Chemical Engineering in 2001. He then entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Pittsburgh and obtained his MD as well as his PhD in Bioengineering in 2009. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan/St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in 2013 and joined the faculty at the University of Michigan. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine.

Ryan E. Tsuchida, MD

Assistant Professor

University of Wisconsin

Dr. Ryan Tsuchida is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the assistant dean for multicultural affairs for health professions learners at UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Tsuchida has a long-standing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. While attending medical school at the University of Michigan, he founded the transgender M4 elective and created a student-run faculty development seminar on LGBTQ+ Health. While in residency, he organized and participated in several institutional and departmental programs including acting as lead house officer liaison for a multi-site ACGME collaborative on health care disparities and quality improvement. Within the department, he has participated in the residency’s holistic review process for residency applications, been a member of the program director search committee, and published a commentary on the RAND blog on the importance of health system workforce diversity. Now as faculty, Dr. Tsuchida chairs the department's EDI committee and is involved in institutional URiM mentorship programs. Dr. Tsuchida is the inagural and former chair of the equity and inclusion data and metrics subcommittee (2020-22), the current SAEM ADIEM membership committee, and was elected by the ADIEM members to be the 2024-25 secretary-treasurer. Through his various committee works, he has presented didactics at the SAEM 2021-24 annual meetings on resident-driven recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority medical students and has been an unconscious bias workshop facilitator for SAEM committee and academy chairs. His work has been recognized by the University of Michigan Medical School’s award for excellence in institutional change to promote health equity, SAEM’s ADIEM future outstanding academician award, and the University of Wisconsin, Department of Emergency Medicine faculty award for excellence in leadership and service.

Aaron Kuzel

Emergency Medicine Resident, PGY-II University of Louisville School of Medicine

Aaron R. Kuzel, DO, MBA is an Emergency Medicine Resident at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and is currently serving as a Member-at-Large on the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s (SAEM) Resident and Medical Student’s (RAMS) Board. Dr. Kuzel is a former Forensic Scientist for the United States Department of Justice and currently works on projects related to medical education, rural emergency medicine, health policy, ems, tactical emergency medicine, and forensics. Dr. Kuzel is a graduate of the DO/MBA program at Lincoln Memorial University College of Osteopathic Medicine where he received induction into Sigma Sigma Phi (SSP), the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS), and Omega Beta Iota (OBI) the Osteopathic Health Policy Honor Society. Dr. Kuzel is also a recipient of the commission of Kentucky Colonel and a member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.

Vicken Totten, MD, MS

Retired

Vicken Totten, MD, MS, is a pioneer in emergency medicine (EM). When she started in medicine, there were ten men for everyone woman physician and there was no specialty of EM. After an internship, two years in the U.S. Public Health Service in remote rural America, she returned to a family practice residency and was "grandmothered" into EM. A few years later she was working full time in rural emergency rooms and raising children as a single mom. She has a passion for academia and started her academic career as faculty in Brooklyn, NY. After spending six months working in Sweden as their first full time emergency physician and the only American-trained board certified EP in the country, she got a degree from the University of Michigan in Research Design and Statistics. Through her career, Dr. Totten has had the experience of helping residents get excited about projects. She finally retired in 2018 but remains engaged in the EM community.

Bisan Salhi, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine

Emory University School of Medicine

Dr. Salhi is dual trained in Emergency Medicine and Anthropology, having completed a PhD examining homeless super-utilizers at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research focuses on underserved populations, social determinants of health, and housing deprivation in the Emergency Department.

Patrick Meloy, MD

Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine

Emory University School of Medicine

 Dr. Patrick Meloy joined the Emory University School of Medicine faculty in 2013. He serves as Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, and is currently practicing at Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospitals. He earned his bachelor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and his MD from St. George’s University School of Medicine. He successfully graduated from the Sinai-Grace Hospital/Wayne State University Emergency Medicine residency after serving as chief resident. He is currently a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physician and was named “Teacher of the Year” twice of the Emergency Medicine program at Emory. He has authored several book chapters, and has published multiple clinical and research papers. He currently is the Site Director of the Emergency Medicine Residency at Emory University Hospital Midtown, and is coordinator of the Mock Oral Boards for the residency program. His interests include trauma care, infectious disease preparedness, pediatric emergency care and EKG instruction. He currently lives in Atlanta, GA, with his wife and two daughters.

Robert A. Lowe, MD, MPH

Emeritus Professor

Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine

Health services researcher in Emergency Medicine, focus on access to care for the underserved and social determinants of health.

Kelly Klein, MD

Associate Professor

University of Texas Southwestern

Dr. Klein originally hails from NYC and has lived everywhere from New York to Maine, and Michigan to Texas with brief stints in the UK and the Caribbean. Her career paths have taken her in many directions from sailing on traditional sailboats, teaching environmental and experiential education; to prehospital work in wilderness medicine, search and rescue, flight paramedic and finally after a dare to going to medical school and becoming an emergency medicine physician. She completed her residency at Detroit Receiving Hospital in Michigan, which was followed by a two year CDC funded fellowship in WMD-Disaster Medicine and EMS where she engaged in hands on disaster courses in radiation, chemical, biological, and decontamination. Aside from academia, she is part of a DMAT, which has allowed her to be deployed to multiple real world disaster events. At present, she is an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern medical center at Dallas where she is part of the division of Emergency and Disaster Global Health and clinically works at Parkland Hospital. She is an active instructor both nationally and internationally for the National Disaster Life Support Foundation series of courses and has the privilege of being an associate editor for the “purple journal”. She continues to lecture on disaster and EM topics nationally and internationally and is about to embark on an MPH.

Wendy Sun, MD

Instructor, Emergency Medicine

Yale University

Dr. Wendy Sun is an Administration Fellow and Instructor of Emergency Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. She is passionate about patient quality and safety, physician wellness, and health innovation. Having served as a past President of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Residents and Medical Students (SAEM RAMS) and the Resident Member on the SAEM Board of Directors, she continues to be invested in the advancement of emergency medicine through research, mentorship, education, and advocacy.

Dr. Sun earned her undergraduate degree at Columbia University in Biomedical Engineering. She subsequently obtained her Doctor of Medicine from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine where she was inducted into the Gold Humanism and Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Societies. Most recently, she completed Emergency Medicine residency at Yale - New Haven Health where she served as Chief Resident. She continues to further her education as a candidate of the MBA for Executives at the Yale School of Management. A Canadian from Toronto, she now resides in New Haven.

RJ Sontag, MD

EMRA President

Azita Hamedani, MD, MPH, MBA

University of Wisconsin

Opeolu Adeoye, MD, MS

Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine

Washington University School of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine

Dr. Adeoye is the BJC HealthCare Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency
Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Adeoye is also the Emergency Physician-in-Chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Our Level 1 Trauma Center is the largest in Missouri, seeing approximately 80,000 patients per year. WUSM ranks among the top academic medical centers in the world. Dr. Adeoye is an accomplished researcher with over 200 indexed publications in PubMed and he currently serves as Lead PI of an NIH-funded Phase 3 acute stroke clinical trial. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of Stroke Journal, and is an American Heart Association Stroke Section Co-Editor. His research accomplishments have garnered a national and international reputation. Outside of his faculty duties, he founded a medical device company using innovative technology from his very first research grant award and serves as the Chief Medical Officer for Sense Diagnostics, Inc. On a personal note, Dr. Adeoye very much enjoys reading, walking, and traveling with his family.