Professor, Infectious Diseases, Baylor College of Medicine
Robert L. Atmar, M.D., ’81, is the John S. Dunn Research Foundation Clinical Professor in Infectious Diseases in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Texas A&M University in 1978 and his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1981. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Baylor. Dr. Atmar is a member of Baylor’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit and the Digestive Diseases Center. He also serves as chief of the Infectious Diseases Service at Ben Taub Hospital.
Dr. Atmar’s research interests include the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of viral respiratory and enteric infections. He has studied influenza and noroviruses for more than 25 years, with a special emphasis on the diagnosis, clinical evaluation and immunology of these viral infections. Dr. Atmar also pursues the evaluation of vaccine candidates and strategies to prevent diseases caused by these viruses. He is a Fellow in the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Additionally, he serves as the North American editor for the Journal of Infection.
Master of science candidate, 2021
Jasmine Bailey is a student in the clinical residency phase of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Program at Baylor College of Medicine. She is expected to graduate in December 2021. Jasmine received her bachelor's degree in biology from McKendree University after securing a combined athletic and academic scholarship. She is focused on providing evidence-based practice and developing research in orthotic and prosthetic care.
Chief Scientific Officer, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
C. Frank Bennett, Ph.D. is the chief scientific officer at Ionis Pharmaceuticals and one of the founding members of the company. He is responsible for continuing to advance antisense technology and expanding the company’s drug discovery platform. Dr. Bennett also is the franchise leader for neurological programs at Ionis. He has been involved in the development of antisense oligonucleotides as therapeutic agents, including research on the application of oligonucleotides for inflammatory, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, oligonucleotide delivery, pharmacokinetics and medicinal chemistry.
Dr. Bennett is a co-recipient of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his contributions to the discovery and development of SPINRAZA® (nusinersen). In 2018, Dr. Bennett won the Leslie Gehry Brenner Prize for Innovation in Science from the Hereditary Disease Foundation for his leadership and continued commitment to developing antisense therapies for Huntington's disease.
Dr. Bennett has published more than 230 papers in the field of antisense research and development, and he is listed as an inventor on more than 175 issued patents.
Before joining Ionis, Dr. Bennett was an associate senior investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories (currently GlaxoSmithKline).
He received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas and his B.S. degree in pharmacy from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He performed his postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories.
Dr. Bennett also serves on the Advisory Board for the Hereditary Disease Foundation.
Assistant professor, General Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine
Christy Chai, M.D., F.A.C.S., ’06, is an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. She received her medical degree from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Linda, California. Dr. Chai completed the general surgery residency at Baylor and the surgical oncology fellowship at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. Before returning to Baylor, she has served in the United States Air Force as a seasoned officer, surgeon and educator. Dr. Chai now serves our veterans at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center as the Chief of the Section of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology. She also serves as the Deputy Executive of Operative Care Line for the Operating Room, providing comprehensive cancer care and complex general surgical care.
Professor, Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine; chief, Neurology, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center; chief, Neurology Service, Texas Children’s Hospital
Everton A. Edmondson, M.D., ’88, is a professor in the Department of Neurology at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as chief of the Section of Neurology at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and chief of the Adult Neurology Service at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. Dr. Edmondson received his medical degree from New York University Grossman School of Medicine in 1980. He pursued his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine from 1980 to 1982 before serving as a general practitioner in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps until 1985. Dr. Edmondson attended Baylor from 1985 to 1988 for training in neurology and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for training in neuro-oncology and pain medicine from 1988 to 1990. Since then, he has practiced general neurology and pain medicine and is board-certified in both disciplines.
Associate professor, Molecular Virology and Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit, Baylor College of Medicine
Hana M. El Sahly, M.D., is associate professor of Molecular Virology and Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. She is an investigator at Baylor’s Vaccine Research Center and Principal Investigator of Baylor’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit. She currently serves as the Chair of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. Dr. El Sahly received her medical degree from the American University of Beirut School of Medicine and her post-graduate training from the University of Connecticut and Baylor College of Medicine. Her research interests include clinical vaccine development.
Doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy candidate, 2021
Originally from Seattle, Washington, Gebert is now a fourth-year M.D./Ph.D. student at Baylor College of Medicine. In addition to his volunteer work with the Houston Outreach Medicine, Education, and Social Services (H.O.M.E.S.) clinic, Thomas is involved in basic and clinical research. His research activities include studying paracrine signaling in the intestinal epithelium and genetic drivers of neurodevelopmental disorders. He hopes to remain in academic medicine and use translational research to address unmet health needs in marginalized populations.
Associate professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine; Medical director, Anti-Human Trafficking Program, Baylor College of Medicine; Associate director, Inpatient Psychiatric Unit, Ben Taub Hospital; Co-founder, Division of Global Mental Health, Baylor College of Medicine
Mollie Gordon, M.D., is an associate professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. She completed medical school at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and residency at Barnes Jewish Hospital at Washington University. Dr. Gordon also serves as the associate director of the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit at Ben Taub Hospital and supervises residents, medical students and a team of interdisciplinary providers.
She cares for adults with acute exacerbations of chronic mental illness, many of whom are vulnerable and marginalized. Her research background is in the pharmacokinetics of dopamine-dependent disease pathways and the trauma of individuals who suffer from these conditions. Dr. Gordon has worked with survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to reintegrate them back into the workplace. In 2016, she participated in developing the first fellowship in the mental health impacts of human trafficking at an academic medical center where she is Medical Director of this program. She is a co-chair of Physicians against the Trafficking of Humans, which was founded by the American Medical Women’s Association in 2014 and for whom she leads “train the trainer” workshops nationally. Dr. Gordon serves on the HEAL (Health, Education, Advocacy, Linkage) trafficking speakers bureau. She has testified for the national advisory council for the Office of Trafficking in Persons, within the Administration for Children and Families in thr U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and lectures at national meetings on human trafficking. Recently, she founded Baylor’s Division of Global Mental Health to treat survivors of torture, trafficking and mass violence atrocities. Dr. Gordon has published numerous papers in the field, edited a book on this topic and won numerous awards for her work.
Associate provost, Institutional Diversity and Inclusion and Student Services, Baylor College of Medicine
Toi Blakley Harris, M.D., is associate provost of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Student and Trainee Services and is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Pediatrics and Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Harris oversees Baylor’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, as well as student and trainee services. Over the course of Dr. Harris’ twenty-year career, she has led various initiatives to promote professional development, workforce diversity and wellness for students, trainees, staff and faculty within biomedical institutions.
In addition to her clinical expertise, she has developed curricula and published in the areas of social determinants of health, diversity and wellness. Dr. Harris has received grant funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration to establish Baylor’s Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Training and Research (COE). The COE enables Baylor to promote diversity in medicine by focusing on programs aimed at increasing the number of diverse and highly qualified medical professionals ready to introduce effective and innovative approaches to reduce or eliminate health disparities.
Dr. Harris is a former Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) Holistic Review Admissions Workshop facilitator and leads a multi-site faculty and staff pilot with the AAMC. Currently, she chairs the AAMC’s Group on Women in Medicine and Science.
Dean, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine; Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine; Professor, Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine
Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology and serves as the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He also is co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) Center for Vaccine Development and holds the Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics at TCH. He is a vaccine scientist who has led the development of vaccines to prevent and treat neglected tropical diseases and coronavirus infections. His efforts include a new COVID-19 vaccine developed at TCH and currently undergoing accelerated clinical testing in India.
Dr. Hotez obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University, his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College and his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University. He is the author of more than 550 scientific articles, indexed on PubMed, and he has written four single-author books. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hotez has been honored for his work by Research!America, B’nai B’rith, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Pan American Health Organization, which serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization, and other organizations. He appears frequently on major news outlets to counter antivaccine and antiscience movements and to promote global health, vaccines and immunizations.
Author of "Carrying the Black Bag: A Neurologist's Bedside Tales," retired neurologist
Tom Hutton, M.D., Ph.D., ’72, and his wife, Trudy, currently live on their cattle ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas. In 2016, Dr. Hutton published “Carrying The Black Bag: A Neurologist’s Bedside Tales”, which won both excellent reviews and multiple literary awards.
Dr. Hutton received his bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech University in 1968 and his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1972. He then interned at Hennepin County General Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, served a neurology residency and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. From 1974 to 1975, Dr. Hutton pursued his fellowship in neuropsychology to the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Health Exchange Program at the University of Moscow, under the renowned Soviet neuropsychologist and eminent academician A. R. Luria.
Dr. Hutton served as vice chair of the Department of Medical and Surgical Neurology, rising to a tenured professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine. He received the President’s Academic Achievement Award, the highest academic award given, as well as numerous teaching awards. In 2008, Dr. Hutton received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Neurological Society, of which he is a past president.
In 1991, he established the private Neurology Research and Education Center at what is now Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas. He also established Neurology Associates of Lubbock. He led one of the largest clinical Parkinson’s disease centers in the country, carried out ongoing clinical research studies and provided support for over a dozen Parkinson’s disease support groups throughout West Texas and New Mexico.
Other achievements include serving as an Advisor on Aging to the State of Texas, gaining funding for and establishing the Texas Tech University Alzheimer’s Disease Institute and greatly expanding the Tarbox Parkinson’s Disease Institute at TTUHSC. His efforts culminated in his being recognized by the Texas State Senate with a resolution acknowledging his contributions to improved care and services for aging Texans.
Assistant professor, Geriatrics, Baylor College of Medicine
Leanne Jackson, M.D., is an assistant professor in the Section of Geriatrics and Palliative Care in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. She joined the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in 2015. There Dr. Jackson started the outpatient Palliative Care program, which grew rapidly into a full-time clinic. She completed her medical school, residency and fellowship training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Jackson is board-certified in internal medicine, oncology and palliative medicine. Her interests lie with the intersection of symptom burden and outcomes due to cancer therapy and the incorporation of telemedicine into the practice of palliative care.
President, CEO and Executive Dean, Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Paul Klotman began serving as president, CEO and Executive Dean of Baylor College of Medicine on Sept. 1, 2010. He received his B.S. degree in 1972 from the University of Michigan and his M.D. from Indiana University in 1976. He completed his medicine and nephrology training at Duke University Medical Center. He stayed at Duke as a faculty member before moving to the National Institutes of Health in 1988, where he became chief of the Molecular Medicine Section in the Laboratory of Developmental Biology. In 1993, he became chief of the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory in the NIDR/NIH. In 1994, he moved to Mount Sinai School of Medicine as Chief of the Division of Nephrology. In 2001, he was selected to be the chair of the Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Dr. Klotman's research has been a blend of both basic and clinical research in molecular virology and AIDS pathogenesis. He is the author of more than 200 publications, and he has been a visiting professor and lecturer internationally in the field of HIV pathogenesis. He has been elected to both the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He is on the editorial boards of journals both in the United States and in Europe, and he has served on and chaired numerous study sections including those from the NIH, the American Heart Association, the National Kidney Foundation, and the VA research service.
In addition to his laboratory efforts, Dr. Klotman has been an active clinician, teacher, and mentor. Students from his laboratory have won prestigious scientific competitions. He has trained over 50 clinical fellows, postdoctoral fellows, and students in his laboratory since 1984, most of whom are independently funded. His mentees now include several Deans and many Chairs, Division Chiefs and Center Directors.
Dr. Klotman serves on the scientific advisory boards of biotech, pharmaceutical, and health care companies. He also serves on the board of several companies including those with interests in natural resources and conservation.
At Baylor College of Medicine, he oversees the only private health sciences university in the Greater Southwest United States, with total research funding of more than $500 million. The medical school is ranked among the top 25 institutions for research and the top 5 for primary care by U.S. News & World Report. The School of Health Professions is among the best in the nation as is the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. As the CEO of Baylor College of Medicine, he oversees approximately 15,000 employees, 3,500 students, residents and fellows, and is responsible for the Baylor medical staff at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Texas Children’s Hospital, the DeBakey VA Medical Center, Ben Taub Hospital and its affiliated clinics, the Menninger Clinic and the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. He serves on the Board of Directors of St. Luke’s Health System and the Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, the College’s jointly owned and governed private adult hospital. The enterprise revenue is over $2 billion dollars with net assets of approximately $2 billion.
Assistant professor, Center for Medical Ethics & Health Policy
Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.E., is an assistant professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz combines his background in neuroscience, law and bioethics to examine the implications of emerging biomedical technologies in neuroscience and genomics. He is the principal investigator for several grants from the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative and the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz studies translational psychiatric genomics research and the integration of psychiatric genomics into clinical care. He also investigates neuroethics issues related to the development of neurotechnologies, such as adaptive deep brain stimulation systems, and the use of deep brain stimulation in pediatric populations. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from New York University, his J.D. and Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico.
Distinguished Service Professor, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine
Kenneth L. Mattox, M.D., ’64, is the Distinguished Service Professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He also served as Chief of Staff and Surgeon-in-Chief at Ben Taub Hospital for 31 years. Over his medical career, Dr. Mattox has applied his considerable expertise in the emergency center, operating room, intensive care unit, conference room and political arena.
Dr. Mattox helped develop the internationally renowned Ben Taub General Hospital Emergency Center and its respected Trauma Center. He has made significant, original contributions in the field of trauma care with his research in preoperative fluid restriction for penetrating trauma, which solidified his global reputation for innovation. As a visiting professor and consultant, he has advised medical schools, hospitals, healthcare systems, political leaders and legislative bodies nationally and internationally.
Dr. Mattox has contributed to more than 600 articles and 1,000 abstracts and has served as an editor for numerous journals. He authored the textbook, “Trauma,” and co-authored a surgical guide, “Top Knife,” both of which are international best-sellers. Dr. Mattox also served as President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, Secretary-Treasurer of the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society and President of both the Houston Surgical Society and Texas Surgical Society.
He has received numerous accolades, including the 2013 Platinum Award for Excellence in Academic Medicine from the Texas Medical Association and the 2013 Benjamin Rush Award for Citizenship and Community Service from the American Medical Association.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Baylor awarded him the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999; the Barbara and Corbin J. Robertson, Jr., Award for Excellence in Education in June 2003; the Master Clinician Award in 2013; the Distinguished Service Professor from the Department of Surgery in 2010; and the Alumni Association’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Effective April 1, 2021, Dr. Mattox stepped down from his longtime position as Chief of Staff at Ben Taub. He continues his work at Baylor as associate vice chair for Education in the Department of Surgery and as special advisor to Dr. Paul Klotman, President, CEO and Executive Dean of Baylor.
Senior vice president and dean of Clinical Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine
James McDeavitt, M.D., serves as senior vice president and dean of Clinical Affairs at Baylor College of Medicine. In that role, he is responsible for Baylor’s clinical mission, including the leadership of the Baylor Medicine academic practice. Additionally, it is his responsibility to create linkages between physicians and affiliated hospitals, between Baylor educational programs and healthcare providers and between cutting-edge research programs and the bedside. These linkages help Baylor College of Medicine and its world-class affiliate institutions deliver patient-focused, high-quality care to the people of Houston and the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also served as Baylor’s Incident Command Center Commander.
Dr. McDeavitt came to Baylor from the Carolinas HealthCare System (now Atrium Health), one of the largest and most comprehensive systems in the country, where he served as chief academic officer and senior vice president for education and research. During his nine-year tenure there, he led a substantial expansion of the academic mission of that organization. His responsibilities included all aspects of the academic enterprise, including undergraduate and graduate medical education, continuing medical education, research from bench to clinical implementation and allied health education. Dr. McDeavitt also served as the founding associate dean for the Charlotte Campus of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Prior to his role at the Carolinas HealthCare System, Dr. McDeavitt was the founding chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Carolinas Medical Center. As chair, he worked with a team that built nationally recognized education and research programs while simultaneously expanding inpatient and outpatient programs regionally.
Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and director, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine
Amy McGuire, J.D., Ph.D., is the Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and the director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. She researches ethical and policy issues related to emerging technologies, with a particular focus on genomic research, personalized medicine and the clinical integration of novel brain implant devices. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. Dr. McGuire has received numerous teaching awards at Baylor, was recognized in 2016 by Texas Executive Women as a “Woman on the Move” and was invited in 2014 to give a TEDMED talk titled, “There is no genome for the human spirit.” She has served as a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and as an advisor to the X Prize Foundation for the X Prize for Genomics. Currently, Dr. McGuire is a member of the Program Committee for The Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics. She also is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Geisinger Research, the Morgridge Institute for Research and Danaher Life Sciences.
Provost, Baylor College of Medicine; Senior vice president, Academic and Faculty Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine
Alicia Monroe, M.D., serves as provost and senior vice president of Academic and Faculty Affairs and professor of Family Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Monroe oversees Academic Affairs, Faculty Development, Faculty Affairs, Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Center for Professionalism. Currently, she chairs the Advancing Holistic Principles Advisory Committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Dr. Monroe also is a member of the Baylor University Board of Regents and Indiana University Health Board of Directors.
She formerly served as the chief academic officer, vice dean for Educational Affairs and professor of Family Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, Florida, from 2008 to 2014. At USF, Dr. Monroe provided oversight for undergraduate medical education, the Physical Therapy Program and the Master’s programs in graduate studies. She also developed innovative educational programs focused on leadership, professional identity formation and interdisciplinary teamwork.
Dr. Monroe spent her early career at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, serving as the associate dean for Minority Affairs and professor of Family Medicine.
Dr. Monroe earned her medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine, pursued a psychiatry internship at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and completed a family medicine residency at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Her scholarly interests include physician-patient communication, cross-cultural communication, diversity, equity and inclusion, leadership development and mentoring training for students and faculty.
Assistant professor, General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Baylor College of Medicine; Medical director, General Internal Medicine Clinic, Baylor College of Medicine
Daniel R. Murphy, M.D., M.B.A., ’11, is a board-certified internal medicine physician and assistant professor in the Section of General Internal Medicine and the Section of Health Services Research in the Alkek Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Murphy also serves as medical director in the General Internal Medicine clinic at Baylor and chairs Baylor Medicine’s Quality and Safety Committee. Dr. Murphy is a health services researcher at the Houston Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety, where he studies workflows related to electronic communication and identifies ways to detect and reduce miscommunication-related delays in diagnosis and treatment. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, he helped lead Baylor Medicine’s Telehealth Committee, which was responsible for rapidly developing and implementing a telehealth infrastructure in Baylor Medicine’s clinic system.
Chair, Geriatric Medicine, Huffington Center on Aging, Baylor College of Medicine
Aanand D. Naik, M.D., is a professor in and chief of the section of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine in the Alkek Department of Medicine and holds the Robert J. Luchi, M.D., Chair in Geriatric Medicine in the Huffington Center on Aging at Baylor College of Medicine. As Section Chief, Dr. Naik leads 30 interprofessional faculty and staff in the clinical, education and research missions of the Department of Medicine. He also serves as chief of the Implementation Science and Innovations program at the Houston Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety (IQuESt) at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (MEDVAMC) and Baylor. His federally-funded research program develops and tests decision-making interventions to improve the outcomes of older adults with multiple morbid conditions. He mentors clinical and research fellows and provides geriatrics care at MEDVAMC and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Professor and chief, Global Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine
Jed G. Nuchtern, M.D., ’95, is chief of the Pediatric General Surgery Service at Texas Children's Hospital and the William J. Pokorny, M.D., professor of Pediatric Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor. In 2007, Dr. Nuchtern was named program director for the Pediatric Surgery Residency Program, where he mentored medical students interested in the surgery and residency programs.
Regarding his clinical work, Dr. Nuchtern has been dedicated to the care of pediatric patients at Texas Children’s since 1993. He is recognized nationally as a leader in pediatric surgery and was named one of the Best Doctors in America from 2007-2018, a Top Doctor in U.S. News & World Report from 2012-2018 and one of America’s Top Doctors from 2007-2018.
Dr. Nuchtern’s basic research has been devoted to identifying molecular targets in the treatment of neuroblastoma. This research has led to improvements around the world in the care of children with this dreaded disease.
Associate professor, General Internal Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine
Ricardo Nuila, M.D., ’06, is an associate professor in the Section of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He also is an internationally recognized medical journalist and fiction author whose work illuminates the health disparities and policy challenges inherent within the healthcare system. As a teaching attending and hospitalist at Ben Taub Hospital, Dr. Nuila utilizes his personal experience with patients as a foundation for his journalistic and creative works. His teaching to students and residents focuses on communication and decision making, as well as on the connection between literature and medicine. He is the founder and director of the Narrative Medicine Program in Baylor’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy.
He has received multiple nationally recognized awards for his literary works, including selection into the anthology “Best American Short Stories,” an emerging writer’s award by a highly reputed literary magazine, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship awarded by the Texas Institute of Letters and a Fellowship at the MacDowell, the nation’s leading artist colony. Dr. Nuila received one of the highest honors when he was invited by The New York Times to write an op-ed during the national debate on Obamacare repeal. His opinion piece was published as the lead story in the Sunday Review, the week before the Senate vote on repeal. Other articles of his have appeared in online editions of The New Yorker and The Atlantic, in Texas Monthly and in The New England Journal of Medicine. He is the Principal Investigator for a grant earned from the Association of American Medical Colleges to implement medical humanities instruction at Baylor. His first book, “The People's Hospital: Stories and Lessons from Healthcare System in Crisis,” will be published by Scribner in 2021.
Professor and Chair, Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine; Director, Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research, Baylor College of Medicine
Joseph F. Petrosino, Ph.D., is professor and interim chair of the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He also leads the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research (Alkek CMMR) and holds joint appointments in Baylor’s renowned Human Genome Sequencing Center, Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Ophthalmology. Dr. Petrosino was hired as a faculty member in 2006 after completing his postdoctoral fellowship in genetics and genomics at Baylor along with his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology. By studying humans and pre-clinical models, his lab investigates how microbially encoded functions influence host health and disease with the goal of introducing new methods to diagnose and treat a variety of human diseases. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 original papers, an achievement that underscores his standing as a foremost expert.
In 2007, Dr. Petrosino and his colleagues secured Baylor’s participation in the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) as a large-scale sequencing center. He served as principal investigator for Baylor’s activities and helped lead consortium efforts for standardized clinical sample preparation, sequencing and analysis. To build on his research program, Baylor established the Alkek CMMR in January 2011 and appointed him director. Under his leadership, the center has expanded to include 10 primary faculty and dozens of associate members, with recruitment underway for another three principal faculty members.
In addition to his responsibilities in the Alkek CMMR, Dr. Petrosino launched Diversigen in 2015, a Baylor startup that provides microbiome analytics services and diagnostic insights to pharmaceutical companies. He also sits on the scientific advisory board for Baylor’s microbiome-based startup, Anizome, which launched in 2018 with the goal of delivering microbiome-based therapies to companion animals. His service includes membership on the scientific advisory boards of several other microbiome and nutrition companies.
Assistant professor, Pediatrics Emergency Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine
Elyse Portillo, M.D., M.P.H., ’13, is an assistant professor in the Section of Emergency Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Portillo also is a pediatric emergency medicine physician and a health equity and quality improvement early career investigator committed to improving healthcare access for underserved and marginalized populations. In her training and early career to date, she has integrated the threads of clinical care, research, advocacy and medical education to improve the quality of care for all children. Dr. Portillo has a specific focus on decreasing barriers to high-quality care for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).
Doctor of Medicine Candidate, 2021
Ryan Richardson is a fourth-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine. He received his Bachelor of Science in biology from Texas A&M University. He plans to attend an emergency medicine residency program after graduating from medical school.
Professor and vice chair, Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine
Eric Storch, Ph.D., is a professor and holds the McIngvale Presidential Endowed Chair in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. He serves as vice chair and head of Psychology, and he co-directs the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) program at Baylor. Dr. Storch specializes in the nature and treatment of childhood and adult OCD, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder and anxiety among youth with autism. He has published over 700 articles and chapters. Dr. Storch has received multiple federal grants to investigate treatment efficacy, mechanisms of action and how to enhance outcomes for those struggling with these conditions.
Professor and chair, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine
Theodore G. Wensel, Ph.D., is a professor in and the Chair of the Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry of Baylor College of Medicine. He also holds the Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry at Baylor. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Davis and was a postdoctoral fellow under Dr. Lubert Stryer at Stanford University. He joined Baylor in 1988 as an assistant professor, became a full professor in 1997, was awarded the Welch Chair in 2003 and assumed the chair of Biochemistry in 2012. Dr. Wensel also holds appointments in the Department of Neuroscience, the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology and the Department of Ophthalmology. Additionally, Dr. Wensel serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biosciences at Rice University, where he teaches molecular biophysics.
His research focuses on molecular mechanisms of sensory signaling, including sensory neurons in the retina and G-protein-coupled pathways throughout the body. In recent years, his laboratory has led the way in applying the latest superresolution imaging techniques of fluorescence and electron microscopy to these problems. His work has been funded by the National Eye Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His vision research has been recognized by the awarding of the Proctor Medal from the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and by the Alcon Research Institute Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Wensel is active in training and education. He has trained 30 graduate students and 23 postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory. He has served since 2002 as program director for the National Institutes of Health-funded Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Program.
Senior vice president, Institutional Advancement and Alumni Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine
Stephanie Young joined Baylor College of Medicine in July 2020 as the senior vice president for Institutional Advancement and president of Baylor Medical Foundation. As a member of the institution’s executive team, she reports directly to Dr. Paul Klotman, President, CEO and Executive Dean of BCM. In her new role, Stephanie oversees philanthropy, alumni affairs, corporate alliances, external relations, special programs and the Baylor Medical Foundation.
Stephanie brings to the Baylor community over 25 years of experience as a successful and highly sought-after healthcare strategist and fundraising executive. Her diverse background includes advising family foundations and philanthropists, building collaborative partnerships, marketing communications, developing and implementing capital and annual giving campaigns, strategic and business planning, stakeholder engagement on global and community healthcare initiatives, and more than 20 years of academic and hospital fundraising experience.
For the last four years, Stephanie served as the founder and president of SLY Consulting whose local, national and international clients included private foundations, biotech companies, philanthropists, and global healthcare leaders. In several of these engagements, it allowed Stephanie to interact with local and federal government elected officials and policy makers as well as national health agency executives. During this timeframe Stephanie co-founded and currently serves as a director of Opa Health, a new global disease prevention organization.
Prior to starting her own firm, Stephanie spent 16 years in fundraising with MD Anderson Cancer Center with progressive responsibilities that culminated in her promotion to Associate Vice President for Development. Earlier in her career, she worked for National Instruments, a Fortune 100 company in Austin, TX where she led the international marketing communications program for the Americas and she worked in special events at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Stephanie is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, a Rotary Club International Ambassadorial Scholar recipient, and fluent in Spanish. Stephanie and her husband along with two sons make their home in Houston where they have resided for the last 25 years. She serves on several boards and advisory councils and is an active volunteer supporting various health-related causes.
Senior director of Gift and Estate Planning, Institutional Advancement and Alumni Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine
Anne Kathryn Zamkovsky, J.D., is the senior director of Gift and Estate Planning at Baylor College of Medicine. She focuses on helping Baylor alumni, staff and friends support the institution’s mission through legacy and long-term gifts. She also works with individuals and families to help ensure that Baylor continues to provide state-of-the-art research, clinical care and quality education through personal and thoughtful philanthropic gifts. A native of Louisiana and graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University, she has embraced Houston as her home.
Professor, Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine
Lynn Zechiedrich, Ph.D., holds the Kyle and Josephine Morrow Chair and is a professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Zechiedrich has a long history of doing rigorous work that is multidisciplinary and team-driven, involving collaborators from diverse fields such as medicine, mathematics, statistics, physics, structural biology and computer science. A faculty member since 1997, her background is in the study of DNA topoisomerases and the antibiotics and anticancer drugs that target them. Because the drugs that target topoisomerases also target the ternary complex of supercoiled DNA-topoisomerase-drug, Dr. Zechiedrich invented methods to generate and purify biophysically tractable, tiny, supercoiled circles of DNA to study how topoisomerases recognize DNA supercoiling and how drugs inhibit topoisomerases. These DNAs (minivectors) turned out to be highly efficient gene therapy vectors. This new offshoot has now become a major focus of the ongoing research in her laboratory and the basis for starting a new biotech company, Twister Biotech, Inc., to develop new therapies. Dr. Zechiedrich holds several U.S. patents with several more patent applications submitted. She also is an elected Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors.
Dr. Zechiedrich co-directs the inter-institutional Quantitative and Computational Biosciences Graduate Program and co-directs the National Institutes of Health T32-funded Texas Medical Center Training Program in Antimicrobial Resistance. She has published and lectured nationally on mentoring and was Baylor’s BRASS Mentor of the Year in 2013. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Barbara and Corbin J. Robertson, Jr., Presidential Award for Excellence in Education.
Committed to an environment of inclusive excellence, Dr. Zechiedrich serves as an Ambassador for Excellence in Inclusion and Diversity for Baylor. For her work in this capacity, she was named a Woman of Excellence Awardee in 2017.
Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, Neurology and Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine
Huda Zoghbi is professor of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, Neurology, and Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the founding Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Zoghbi’s interests range from neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. Her discovery (with Harry Orr) that Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 1 is caused by expansion of a polyglutamine tract and her subsequent studies that such expansion leads to accumulation of the mutant protein in neurons has had profound ramifications since many late-onset neurological disorders involve similar accumulations of disease-driving proteins. Zoghbi’s work in neurodevelopment led to the discovery of the gene Math1/Atoh1 and to showing that it governs the development of several components of the proprioceptive, balance, hearing, vestibular, and breathing pathways. Zoghbi’s group also discovered that mutations in MECP2 cause the postnatal neurological disorder Rett syndrome and revealed the importance of this gene for various neuropsychiatric features. Zoghbi trained over 90 scientists and physician-scientists and is a member of several professional organizations and boards. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among Dr. Zoghbi’s honors are the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from Rockefeller University, the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Canada Gairdner International Prize, and Honorary degrees from Yale University, Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the Victor A. McKusick Leadership Award, American Society of Human Genetics, and most recently the 2020 Brain Prize, Lundbeck Foundation and the Citation Laureate by Web of Science.
