Pictured below, Omar, Mian (who received an additional travel award), and Sadik went to the 2025 AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting, the premier meeting dedicated to Physician-Scientists, in Chicago this April. Likewise, Caroline presented at the 2025 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) where she also won an AACR Cancer Research Award at the meeting. Travel to these conferences was generously supported by our Office of Physician-Scientist Career Development (OPSCD), which is an additional funding source available to our MD-PhD Students.

The UConn MD-PhD Program is pleased to announce that Clement Ojo and Sadik Karma have been
selected by the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to participate in the 2025 ASH Graduate
Hematology Award (AGHA), part of ASH’s investment in hematology research and the next generation of hematology physicians and scientists.

Through this award, Clement and Sadik will receive funding to conduct hematology research over a two-year period.

We would like to congratulate UConn MD-PhD graduate in the Class of 2017 (in the Immunology AoC) Sonali Bracken, MD, PhD who became an endowed faculty at Duke University Medical Center! As a physician-scientists specializing in Rheumatology, we wish Dr. Bracken the very best as a triple Husky (BS, MD, PhD).

Huge congrats to both of our graduating students in the Class of 2025, Joseph (Joe) Masison, MD, PhD and Marc Benoit, MD, PhD! Joe matched UConn for Dermatology and Marc matched to the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) / Harvard for Pathology – Anatomic and Clinical. Very impressive and well deserved!

Keaven Caro from Dr. David Martinelli’s lab recently received the NIH F30 Award! Huge congrats to Keaven!

Congratulations to our newly matched students!

Patrick McMullan, MD, PhD – Dermatology at UConn Health

Bruce Rheaume, MD, PhD – Internal Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Lauren Marazzi Hinson, MD, PhD – Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University

Prakhar Bansal, MD, PhD – Psychiatry at UT Southwestern

Kristin Tokarski Kinstler, MD, PhD – Pediatric Physician-Scientist Training Program (PPSTP) at the University of Michigan

Nathan Leclair, MD, PhD – Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center

Brandon Byrd, MD, PhD – OB/GYN at University of Buffalo

Justin King (Dr. Archana Sanjay’s lab) was appointed to a PhD position supported by the UConn-NIDCR T90/R90 Research Training Program for skeletal, craniofacial and oral biology research. Cullen Clairmont (Dr. Ching Lau’s lab) was appointed as a trainee supported by the UConn/JAX-GM Training Program in Genomic Sciences T32.

UConn’s MD/PhD Program would like to congratulate our program director Dr. Kimberly Dodge-Kafka for her recent NIH grant award. This funding expands upon Dr. Dodge-Kafka’s prestigious work examining cardiac cell signaling networks with the ultimate goal of developing new therapies for heart disease. For more on her accomplishments please read her spotlight article in “UConn Today” Here

We send our congratulations to the graduating MD-PhD students! Their dedication and hard work are remarkable, and we are grateful for their contributions to our program. While we will miss them, we await their future achievements as they become leaders in medicine and beyond!

Jennifer Chen: Nassau University Medical Center, NY (transitional year), University of Connecticut School of Medicine – Dermatology

Katherine DiScipio: Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX – Anatomic and Clinical Pathology

Alexandra Goetjen: New Hanover Regional Medical Center, NC – Family Medicine

Feria Ladha: Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics, Boston, MA – Pediatrics (Physician-Scientist Research Track)

Peter Larson: University of Cincinnati Medical Center, OH – Otolaryngology

Anthony Pettinato: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA – Internal Medicine (Physician-Scientist Research Track)

Victor Wang: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD – Pediatrics/Medical Genetics.

Keaton Karlinsey, of Dr. Beiyan Zhou’s lab, has been awarded the prestigious NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein F30 Award! This highly competitive honor recognizes Keaton’s outstanding qualities as a future physician-scientist and the merits of his project, “Predicting Cardiovascular Outcomes Using Diabetes-Induced Transcriptomic Networks.” We’re proud of Keaton and can’t wait to see all the incredible things he will accomplish in the future!