People

William Mehring, MD,MBA

Stanford University

Dr. William Mehring, MD, MBA, is an Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at Stanford Health Care. He earned his Doctor of Medicine from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and his Master of Business Administration from USC Marshall School of Business.
Dr. Mehring’s work sits at the intersection of clinical care, digital health, and innovation. He is particularly interested in the role of technology in transforming healthcare delivery and medical education, with ongoing work in digital health solutions, medical education innovation, and early-stage venture development.

K. Robert Thompson, III, MD, MBA

University of Cincinnati

Dr. K. Robert Thompson III is currently the Medical Director at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (UCMC) Emergency Department. UCMC is a tertiary referral center and a Level 1 Trauma Center located in an urban setting, with an annual volume of 65,000 patients. In addition to his role as Medical Director, he serves as the UC Clinical Operations and Administration Fellowship Director. He completed both his Clinical Operations and Administration Fellowship and his Emergency Medicine Residency at the University of Cincinnati.

Grace A. Hickam Retter, MD, MEHP

Virginia Commonwealth University

Grace Hickam, MD completed her undergraduate medical training at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine followed by her residency training also at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She has Fellowship training in Medical Education as well as a Masters in Education for Health Professionals from John Hopkins University. Her interests are in gender equity in residency training, medical education innovation, simulation, quality and safety, and educational evaluation and feedback.

Diana Yan, MD, MEd

Icahn School of Medicine

Diana Yan, MD MEd is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine and an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Morningside. Dr. Yan earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and completed her pediatric residency and chief year at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, OH. After her time in Cleveland, she moved to Chicago and was at the University of Chicago / Comer Children's Hospital as a Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellow and faculty member. She earned her Masters in Medical Education through the University of Cinnicinati. Her passion is in medical education and teaching the next generation of doctors.

Sanjay Mathew, MD

Baylor College of Medicine

I am a board-certified psychiatrist with extensive clinical/translational research experience in clinical trials and the neurobiology and treatment of mood/anxiety disorders and PTSD. I serve as Professor of Psychiatry and Vice Chair for Research and Director of the Mood & Anxiety Disorders Program at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Staff Psychiatrist at Michael E. Debakey VA Medical Center, and Senior Scientist at The Menninger Clinic. My research program focuses on experimental therapeutics and pathophysiology of these conditions, with grant support over the past 20 years from NIMH, Department of Veterans Affairs, PCORI, and industry. I have led or co-led numerous studies of pharmacotherapies many of which focused on glutamatergic systems, and have conducted multimodal biomarker (EEG, MRI, blood, cognitive) studies in the context of experimental medicine trials. I have experience in multicenter experimental medicine studies and integrated biomarker protocols.

Alan C. Swann, MD

Baylor College of Medicine

Alan Swann, MD, is professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Baylor College of Medicine and Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Professor Swann is directly involved in teaching, research, and patient care. He graduated from the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas, in 1972 and completed a medical internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. He then completed a research fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and a psychiatry residency at Yale University School of Medicine. Professor Swann recently completed a term on the National Advisory Council on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and has served on grant review boards for NIH and for the Veterans Administration, where he was chair of the Merit Review Board on Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences. He is a co-founder and former president of the International Society for Research on Impulsivity. His clinical interests include practical diagnosis and treatment of severe and common psychiatric disorders and their relationships to other medical conditions. He teaches residents and medical students at Baylor College of Medicine and the affiliated Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. His research support has included the NIMH, NIAAA, and the American Heart Institute. Clinical research focuses on treatment of affective disorders, especially prediction of treatment response and development of more objective measures of disease severity, its underlying behavioral mechanisms, and its change during treatment. Preclinical human research concerns the neurobiology of behavior, such as impulsivity and motivation, which may be basic to bipolar disorder and its most severe complications, including suicidal behavior. Basic research focuses on pharmacological and developmental aspects of behavioral sensitization to stimulants and other potential models for recurrence in affective disorders. His work has resulted in over 300 peer reviewed publications, plus reviews and book chapters.

Jetaury I. Davis

Baylor College of Medicine

JeTaury (Jet) is a recent graduate of Northeastern University where he studied Cell and Molecular Biology and minored in Africana Studies. Jet's research experience dates back to high school where he interned in a cardiovascular lab at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). During his undergraduate years, he engaged in computational chemistry research looking at the kinetics of biorthogonal reactions and worked in Investigative Toxicology at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Before applying to medical school, Jet has returned to BCM to participate in clinical research during his gap year under the guidance of Dr.Ynhi Thomas.

Nidal Moukaddam, MD, PhD

Baylor College of Medicine

Nidal Moukaddam, M.D.Ph.D., is an Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and the director of Psychiatry Outpatient Clinics at Harris Health.

Her recent work includes the creation and testing of smartphone applications for mental illness across the age spectrum, research performed in collaboration with the Rice University department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her team has also developed tools to enhance wellness and combat burnout in physicians. The results of this work include an open, fee-free, dynamic platform for academic collaboration, Healthsense, that is now available for researchers to engage in sensor-based measurements in their studies and earned the community paper award at the 25th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking. Their team has also released a longitudinal adaptive study for the effects of COVID-19 on mental health, available at http://sh.rice.edu/covid-sense/

Dr. Moukaddam has supervised many students and residents, leading to numerous awards including Women of Excellence Award at Baylor College of Medicine (2020), the Faculty Mentorship & Teaching award for Baylor Psychiatry Department (2018), being selected for Houstonia magazine- Houston top 100 doctors’ selection (2017) and Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences’ Outstanding Mentor Award (2017). She is also the creator of a wellness curriculum for Baylor College of Medicine’s Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Training and Research.

She received her MD from the American University of Beirut and did both her PhD and residency at UTMB-Galveston, in clinical sciences. She is board certified in General Psychiatry & Addiction Medicine and specializes in challenging adult populations: she practices emergency psychiatry at Ben Taub Hospital, a level 1 trauma center in Houston, Texas, with a special focus on individuals afflicted with both psychosis and addiction.

Stephanie A. Lareau, MD

Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine

Stephanie is an emergency medicine physician at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke Virginia and Associate Professor at the VT-Carilion School of Medicine. She completed a Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Georgia Health Sciences and completed her EM residency and medical school at Wake Forest University. She is the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship Director at VT-Carilion.
Stephanie earned the Fellowship of Wilderness Medicine and Diploma in Mountain Medicine. She the secretary of the WMS Board of Director, is part of the WMS DiMM Faculty. She served as a director for the WMS Student/ Resident Elective in Virginia for 10 years and is currently the director of the VTC/Radford WM Student Elective.
Her research interests include injuries in endurance mountain biking races, the effectiveness of high fidelity simulation in wilderness medicine education, student/resident WM elective curriculum and Lyme disease within SW Virginia.
She is a certified Level 4 Swift Water Rescue Instructor through the ACA. She is also a WFA and CPR/AED instructor through ECSI. She is also a dive physician through UHMS/NOAA. She volunteers as an instructor for local EMS.
Outdoors, Stephanie enjoys mountain biking, sailing, rock climbing, skiing, horseback riding and SCUBA diving.

Nicholas Murphy, PhD

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Murphy is an assistant professor of psychiatry and head of the Neural Oscillations and Modulations Lab within the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Murphy’s research is dedicated to precision neurophysiological biomarkers of mood and trauma-related disorders. His endeavors use linear and non-linear feature extraction methods to quantify dynamic activity within pre-frontal microcircuits; these provide an overview of information processing capacity and communication structure at a variety of temporal scales that describe the functional architecture of the brain and how it responds to treatment.

Christopher D. Verrico, PhD

Baylor College of Medicine

Christopher (“Chris”) Verrico is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), with a secondary appointment in Pharmacology. He is also a principal investigator (PI) on the Research Service Line at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC). Chris leads five active research projects, funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DOD), and the McNair Foundation, that tackle pressing public health issues. One of his prominent projects, funded by the FDA, is a U01 study examining the human abuse potential of kratom, an herbal substance with opioid-like effects. This research will generate critical data on the risks and potential therapeutic applications of kratom, which will help shape regulatory decisions and guide public health recommendations. His R21 investigates the use of a GLP-1 receptor agonist, exenatide, to treat cocaine use disorder, examining how it might modify cocaine's reinforcing effects. Chris is also co-leading an R01-funded trial in collaboration with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which studies the combination of a GLP-1 receptor agonist and nicotine replacement therapy to improve smoking cessation outcomes. This study also explores whether this approach can mitigate post-cessation weight gain, contributing to more effective long-term cessation strategies. In another project with the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, supported by DOD funding, he is exploring the combined use of lofexidine and buprenorphine for treating both opioid use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Lastly, in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital, Chris is leading a McNair Foundation-funded trial to assess the use of dronabinol for alleviating endometriosis and back pain, offering potential new avenues for pain management.

Geoffrey B. Comp, DO, FACEP, FAWM

Valleywise Hospital

Dr. Geoff Comp is an Associate Program Director for the Creighton University School of Medicine Emergency Medicine Residency at the Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Geoff participates as a leader, mentor, and advocate for wilderness medicine and EM medical education, with experience lecturing and teaching locally, regionally, and nationally. His professional and research focus includes wilderness medicine, physician wellness, mentorship, and innovation in medical education. He constantly seeks opportunities to combine his interests through collaboration with others and outdoor exploration. Outside of medicine, Geoff can be found running or road biking, trying to find the best Mexican food in Arizona, or chasing his twin boys (Austin and Carter) with his wife, Mackenzie.

Thomas R. Kosten, MD

Baylor College of Medicine

I have spent 45 years developing medications for psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, affective disorders, PTSD, substance use disorders and dementing disorders in over 50 clinical trials as PI with funding from NIH, DoD, VHA, Pharma companies and Foundations. These studies have resulted in my publishing over 900 papers and books in this field. I also have a human genetics lab that focuses on pharmacogenetics and epigenetics, particularly microRNA and DNA methylation as biomarkers in several neuropsychiatric diseases. I have consulted to many pharmaceutical companies over the years including Alkermes, Astellas, Boehringer-Ingelheim, BioXcel, Novartis, Pfizer, GSK, Otsuka, J&J, Sage, and Sandoz

Abigail T. Alorda, MD

University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Dr. Alorda is originally from rural East Canton, Ohio. She graduated valedictorian of her class and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio to obtain her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Spanish at Case Western Reserve University. After graduating summa cum laude she spent a transition year working as a part-time elementary school teacher, a full-time facilities worker, and an after school caregiver. From there she moved to Toledo, Ohio and matriculated into the University of Toledo College of Medicine where she found her calling in Emergency medicine.

In 2021, Dr. Alorda moved to Orlando, Florida to attend residency at the UCF/HCA Florida Healthcare GME (Greater Orlando/Osceola) emergency medicine program. Throughout her time in residency she applied and was successfully able to attend and present at over 10 different conferences- including local, regional, and national organizations- and was even fortunate enough to be a repeat presenter for a few.

During her third year of residency she served as the Administrative Chief Resident and served as the liaison between residents and faculty while coordinating schedules of emergency medicine residents, off service rotating students, and fellowship rotating students. Upon graduation of residency she was the recipient of several awards including: the annual Humanitarian Award, Prolific Scholar Award, and Resident DEI award.

Currently, Dr. Alorda is a Medical Education Fellow in Orlando, Florida and enjoys volunteering as teaching faculty at the UCF College of Medicine. She is a current student in the ACEP Teaching Fellowship program with goals to graduate in 2025 and become a core faculty member in an emergency medicine residency program in Florida.

Shayne M. Gue, MD, MSMEd

BayCare Health System / St. Joseph's Hospital

Dr. Gue was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia, where he earned his medical degree from the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University in 2015. He completed his Emergency Medicine Residency at AdventHealth East Orlando where he led as Chief Resident, was named Resident of the Year, and served as President of the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association of Florida.

Dr. Gue currently serves on the Executive Committee for the Florida College of Emergency Physicians and serves as Co-Chair of the Membership and Professional Development Committee and the Symposium by the Sea Planning Committee. He is also actively involved in national committees within ACEP and SAEM. Dr. Gue is a national speaker, having presented for ACEP, SAEM, CORD, IMSH, and ACOEP.

He is a proud graduate of the American College of Emergency Physicians Teaching Fellowship and completed a Master’s in Medical Education from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is the recipient of the AdventHealth GME Faculty of the Year Award for 2020, the ACEP Microteaching Award for 2021, the UCF Innovative Teaching Award for 2022, and was selected to the 2022 Class of the ACEP Young Physicians Leadership Society. More recently, he was awarded the UCF Educational Excellence Award and the ACEP National Junior Faculty Teaching Award for 2023.

His educational interests are focused on developing novel approaches to graduate medical education through the use of interactive curriculum design, gamification, faculty development, and educational scholarship in innovative teaching strategies.

Maia Winkel, MD

Stanford University

Maia Winkel, MD is the current Stanford Emergency Medicine Physician Wellness Fellow, as well as a Clinical Instructor at the Stanford School of Medicine. Prior to this, she completed Emergency Medicine residency at the Jacobi and Montefiore Medical Centers in the Bronx, NY, where she was Chief Resident. She holds a Masters in Bioethics from Columbia University.

Denise Marte, MD

Brown Emergency Medicine

Denise Marte, MD is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Marte is commited to advancing the science and practice of Social Emergency Medicine and currently serves on the curriculum committee for Brown Emergency Medicine's Social Equity in Emergency Medicine (SEEM) curriculum. Dr. Marte completed medical school at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and her EM training at the New York Presbyterian Hospitals of Columbia & Cornell Universities.

Ambuj Suri, MD

Brown University

Dr. Suri is a third year resident at Brown Emergency medicine and currently serves as the Chief of Equity and Inclusion

Almaz Dessie, MD

Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Dr. Almaz Dessie is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She earned her BA in Music Theory and Composition, cum laude, and her MD with a concentration in Global Health from Brown University's Program in Liberal Medical Education. Dr. Dessie completed her pediatrics residency at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, followed by fellowships in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Brown University and Emergency Ultrasound at Columbia University.

Dr. Dessie is an expert in pediatric point-of-care ultrasound. She also has a passion for diversifying the healthcare workforce and provision of equitable, justice-informed emergency care. At Brown, she is the director of the Pediatric Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship and Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. She researches the use of point-of-care ultrasound in pediatric emergency resuscitation. She has received numerous awards for her work both in ultrasound and diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine, most recently the Brown Physicians, Inc. Career Development Award and the Hasbro Children’s Hospital Emergency Department Exemplary Award. She practices as a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, RI.

Gianna Petrone, DO

Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Dr. Petrone is an assistant residency program director. She earned her bachelor of science degree in biology from Manhattan College and Medical Degree from The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford Maine. Dr. Petrone completed her emergency medicine residency and served as chief resident at Kent Hospital in Warwick RI. She recently completed a one year medical simulation fellowship with Brown Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Petrone is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and an attending physician at The Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital. Her current interests include curriculum development, simulation-based airway management and emergency procedural skills training in the bariatric population.