People

Samuel Malakhovsky, MD, EMT-P

University of Michigan

Originally from Massachusetts, Sam spent over eight years in EMS on the east coast. He was involved in both 911 response and critical care transport roles as a paramedic and was also heavily engaged in EMS education, both at state training academies and as a field training officer. Now a PGY-III Emergency Medicine Resident at University of Michigan, Sam has a research and operations interest in the intersection of healthcare and the criminal justice system. In particular, building on his prior EMS experience of interfacing with law enforcement, he is engaged in growing the field of tactical and law enforcement medicine.

Esther Hwang, DO, MPH, FACEP

Emory University School of Medicine

Dr. Esther Hwang is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University and works clinically with Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta’s only Level 1 trauma center. She is the Medical Director for AMR DeKalb County and associate Medical Director for the Emory-Grady EMS Biosafety Transport Team (BST), who safely transported the first patients to be treated for Ebola Virus infection in the United States to Emory University for care in 2014. She is also a Local Emergency Medical Advisor (LEMA) for the National Park Services for the Atlanta Region, serving three major National Park areas including the Chattahoochee River, the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site, and Kennesaw Mountain. Dr. Hwang completed a fellowship in EMS at Emory University in 2020. She is currently the NAEMSP Operational EMS Committee chair, serving the term for 2023 – 2025. She is also the current Vice President for the NAEMSP – Georgia Chapter. Her academic interests include emergency and disaster preparedness for CBRNE events and tactical EMS. Her primary focus is on CBRNE HazMat emergency preparedness resiliency. She has spoken regionally, nationally, and internationally on topics pertaining mass casualty disaster triage and tactical EMS.

Joan Chen, MD

Mount Sinai Hospital

Joan Chen is a third year resident physician in Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Previous to their career in medicine, they worked many years in street-based syringe distribution, HIV/STI testing and harm reduction counseling, and as an outreach worker and community paramedicine adjunct for high utilizers of emergency services in the San Francisco Bay Area.

William Weber, MD, MPH, FACEP

Rush University Medical Center

William Weber, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He helped found the Medical Justice Alliance, a national organization that trains volunteer physicians to provide medical reviews to advocate for the health of individuals in carceral settings. He serves on ACEP’s Medical-Legal Committee and Public Health Committee.

Kyle D. Martin, DO, MPH

Assistant Professor

Brown University

Dr. Kyle Denison Martin is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He received his Doctorate of Osteopathy from the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He also received a Masters of Arts in bioethics and Masters of Public Health from Michigan State University. Dr. Martin completed his specialty training in Emergency Medicine at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. He completed a Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and has a Certificate of Knowledge in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health from the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. Dr. Martin is an Affiliate Faculty of the Institute at Brown University for Environment and Society (IBES). He is also Affiliate Faculty at the Global Health Institute (GHI) of Brown University.

Gayle Kouklis, MD

University of California (San Francisco)/Fresno

Gayle Kouklis graduated from UCSF Fresno Emergency Medicine Residency where she spent her four years pursuing both wilderness and climate and health medicine outside of clinical practice. She continues to work closely with the Parkmedic program, having spent time teaching both national courses and local courses in Yosemite, Sequoia/Kings Canyon, and Rocky Mountain National Parks. She and several colleagues were awarded a grant from the California Resilience Challenge to design a climate vulnerability and adaptation assessment of Fresno County. She currently is working with FEMA and the Environmental Defense Fund as a fellow with University of Colorado Climate Change and Health Science Policy program. She remains on faculty at UCSF Fresno and works in the community in Southern Oregon.

Tracy G. Sanson, MD

TracySansonMD

Dr. Sanson is a Board-Certified Emergency Physician who practices clinically as an independent contractor. Dr. Sanson heads her own consulting firm. She was recently awarded the American College of Emergency Physicians Judith E. Tintinalli Award for Outstanding Contribution in Education. Dr. Sanson completed her medical degree and EM residency training at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has held director positions in the US Air Force and the University of South Florida and is a career educator in Emergency Medicine and leadership in healthcare.

Amal Mattu, MD

University of Maryland School of Medicine

Dr. Amal Mattu is a tenured professor, Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, and Director of the Faculty Development Fellowship in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He has received more than 20 teaching awards including national awards from the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, and the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine, and he received two national Residency Director of the Year awards during his 9 years as a Program Director. He has provided over 3000 hours of CME lecturing at conferences in the US and in more than 20 other countries, and he frequently lectures on topics pertaining to education and faculty development.

Sara P. Dimeo, MD, MEHP

Dignity Health East Valley Emergency Medicine

Dr. Dimeo is a practicing emergency physician and the inaugural residency program director at the Dignity Health East Valley Emergency Medicine Residency Program in Chandler, Arizona. She attended the University of Arizona-Tucson for her residency after which time she completed a two year fellowship in Multimedia Design and Educational Technology through UC Irvine. She obtained her Masters in Health Professions' Education through Johns Hopkins. Her primary areas of expertise relate to curriculum design, active learning techniques and gamification, the use of technology in education, as well as enhancing slide design.

Mary W. Gitau, MbCHB

Kenyatta National Hospital

Dr Mary Gitau is a medical doctor working at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya interested in emergency medicine training and research. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and is also a qualified Basic Emergency Care (BEC) trainer.

Her interest in emergency medicine started during her clinical years in medical school. She undertook the WHO/ICRC Basic Emergency Care (BEC) training of trainers course in 2020 and successfully trained medical final-year students in the basic emergency care course in 2021 and 2022. This allowed her to be involved as a co-investigator in the research on emergency training in Kenya and in this conference, she will be presenting on the Longitudinal Analysis of the World Health Organization/International Committee of the Red Cross Basic Emergency Care Course on Kenyan Physician Knowledge and Confidence.

Out of the hospital, Dr Gitau volunteers with a local organisation to promote talent in underprivileged youth, specifically working with children with an interest in fashion and modelling. She is also a devoted Christian who enjoys spending time with family and friends, nature walks, hiking and swimming in her leisure time.

Ramu Kharel, MD, MPH, DTM&H, CTropMed

Dr. Ramu Kharel is an Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine with an appointment in the Division of Global Emergency Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He received his Medical Doctorate from UT Southwestern in Dallas and his Masters of Public Health from the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. He completed specialty training in Emergency Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. Dr. Kharel also has completed focused sub-specialty training in Global Emergency Medicine research and Clinical Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Kharel works clinically in the United States as a practicing emergency care physician and also undertakes global health research focused in Nepal.. His research focuses predominantly on improving emergency care systems. His work equips community health workers to respond to emergencies in pre-hospital settings. Dr. Kharel is the founder of a grassroots NGO in Nepal called HAPSA Nepal and has worked extensively in earthquake response, COVID-19 response and other disasters. He is on board of non-governmental organizations working in health care delivery in Nepal as well. Dr. Kharel is very active in social media, mostly teaching public health measures in the face of population disasters. Dr. Kharel loves basketball and Urdu poetry.

Sally Graglia, MD, MPH

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Sally Graglia is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (UCSF-ZSFG) with fellowship training in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). After completing Emergency Medicine residency at UCSF, Dr. Graglia pursued fellowship training in Ultrasound at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). During her fellowship, she worked with PURE (Point-of-care Ultrasound in Resource-limited Environments) in Uganda which led her to take an appointment in Liberia with the Liberia College of Physicians and Surgeons (LCPS) as Ultrasound Education Director in Monrovia, Liberia. Dr. Graglia has experience in various capacities and environments including Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, India, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, and rural California. Her passions include teaching, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), and global health. She serves as the Director of Medical Student Ultrasound Education and a Bridges Coach at the UCSF School of Medicine.

Halley Alberts, MD

University of South Carolina Prisma Health - Midlands

Halley is a Global Emergency Medicine Fellow at the University of South Carolina Prisma Health - Midlands and MPH candidate at Johns Hopkins University.

Priya Arumuganathan, MD

Fellow Representative

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Priya Arumuganathan is a Penn Global Emergency Medicine Fellow and an Instructor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at Penn Medicine. She is from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and completed her medical school and residency training at West Virginia University. While there, she completed the Global Health Track, served as a Chief Resident, and conducted telestroke research within rural critical access hospitals. Her rural background and training have helped her to build a foundation for working in low-resource environments. Currently, her work in Global Emergency Medicine involves creating emergency medicine curriculum and helping to build emergency care capacity.

Travis Wieland, MD, MA, MSc

Emergency Physicians Professional Association (EPPA)

Travis Wieland, MD is an emergency physician at Emergency Physicians Professional Association (EPPA) based in Minneapolis, MN. He went to medical school at Southern Illinois University before completing residency at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a fellowship in global health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tim Depp, MD, MPH

Prisma Health Upstate, University of South Carolina School of Medicine

Tim Depp works as an Emergency Physician at Prisma Health Upstate. When not working he enjoys time with his family and working on conservation ecology projects.

Nichole Michaeli, MD, MPH

Brigham & Womens Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Dr. Michaeli is an attending emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a fellow in Global Emergnecy Medicine. She completed residency in emergency medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She completed medical school at the University of Texas School of Medicine at San Antonio and her Master of Public Health degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She has a strong interest in strengthening global emergency care systems through the design, adaptation, and implemention of emergency tools and training for local frontline providers in regions affected by conflict and humanitarian crises. She has recently worked with in Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Somalia, and Ukraine.

Amanda Irish, MD, MPH, MS, CEIDE

University of Iowa

Amanda Irish is an Emergency Medicine faculty physician at the University of Iowa. She completed her International Emergency Medicine Global Health Fellowship at Prisma Health (formerly Palmetto Health) Midlands/University of South Carolina School of Medicine-Columbia. She has demonstrated a lifelong interest in international medicine and has been involved in a variety of research and education projects in low-resource settings over the years. She enjoys working with and teaching others how to positively and sustainably impact health systems and is excited to be involved with WHO-ICRC Basic Emergency Care.

Joy Mackey, MD

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Joy Mackey is the Director of the Global Health and International Emergency Medicine Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine, Deputy Ambassador to Belize for the American College of Emergency Physicians and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine for the Henry JN Taub Department of Emergency Medicine. She has worked to develop emergency medicine in Central America and the Pacific, particularly focusing on capacity building and educational initiatives in Belize. This has included the nationwide introduction of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) and Basic Emergency Care (BEC) train-the-trainer curriculum in Belize.

Sean M. Boaglio, DO, MAS, DTMH

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Sean Boaglio, DO, MAS, DTMH, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Global Emergency Medicine Division, Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dr. Boaglio grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in the small town of Longview, Washington. He graduated summa cum laude from Pacific Lutheran University. He received his medical degree from Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2017 and completed his Emergency Medicine Residency training at Stony Brook University Hospital, serving as Chief Resident in 2020. He completed a Global Emergency Medicine fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, working in resident education at Georgetown Public Hospital in Guyana, South America and earning a Master's of Applied Science in Humanitarian Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the Gorgas Institute in Lima, Peru. His areas of academic interest are Emergency Medicine development and education, simulation and procedural education, critical care, humanitarian health, and tropical medicine.