Ana Lucia Fuentes, MD

Ana Lucia was born in Arequipa, Peru, though her family immigrated to the United States early in her life. She grew up in Los Angeles and pursued her undergraduate degree at Loyola Marymount University, where she studied biochemistry. She then decided to move to the East Coast, where she experienced seasons for the first time and earned her medical degree from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Ana Lucia then returned to Southern California to complete her residency at UC San Diego, where she has remained for her Pulmonary and Critical Care fellowship.

Ana Lucia’s research interests include evaluating the complex relationship between delirium and sleep in the intensive care unit (ICU), especially among the Latinx population. She is currently working on evaluating disparities in delirium detection and the implementation of delirium prevention strategies (e.g., sleep interventions) in critically-ill, Spanish-speaking Latino patients. Ultimately, Ana Lucia hopes to identify novel interventions that will help address barriers to equitable delirium care in the ICU.

Allison Ikeda, MD

Allison attended Whitman College and earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology & Economics. She went on to receive her MD from Emory University School of Medicine. Currently, she is amid her residency training at the University of Washington in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (anticipated completion 2025). During her two year NIH T32 research fellowship, she also earned a Master of Science – Epidemiology from the University of Washington School of Public Health (2022). She will be pursuing Sleep Surgery Fellowship after residency training.

Allison’s primary research projects aim 1) to examine shared decision-making among patients considering sleep surgery research aims and 2) to develop and validate a proxy measure for CPAP use, with the overarching goal to evaluate CPAP dose-response effect on short- and long-term outcomes in administrative datasets. Her overall career goal is to become an independently funded surgeon-scientist focusing on improving patient outcomes

Dipan Karmali, MD

Dipan Karmali grew up in Atlanta, GA and stayed for college at Emory University, completing a double major in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and Chemistry. Attending the Introduction to Global Health class here ignited his passion for global health and social medicine began. After college, he attended Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, followed by University of Louisville to complete Internal Medicine Residency. He then traveled to the sunshine and beaches of Miami, Florida where he is currently a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship and a T32 Postdoctorate Research Fellow.

Dipan’s current research expands broadly across pulmonary, critical care, and sleep in the context of global health. His work is primarily in Kampala, Uganda, where he is building capacity for diagnostics and treatment in Ugandans with chronic respiratory illnesses. This includes understanding biomass fuel and other aspects of air pollution and its influence in developing small airway disease and obstructive sleep apnea. He also looks at lung and cardiac POCUS findings and the role they play in acute respiratory disease and sepsis, respectively. And he researches new and innovative imaging modalities to help understand ventilation heterogeneity in people living with chronic respiratory illnesses.

Avnee Kumar, MD

Avnee Kumar earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics at Rice University followed by her medical degree at the University of Texas Southwestern. She then went on to complete Internal Medicine residency training at the University of Maryland. During residency, she received the Chief Residents Association of Baltimore’s Provider in Excellence award and the Excellence in Resident Research award. She then went to complete fellowship at the University of Michigan medical center where she served as Chief Fellow. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine & Physiology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and a Staff Physician at the VA San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS).

Avnee’s research interests include obesity and sleep deprivation, with a focus on the impact on mitochondrial health. She plans to utilize murine models of sleep disruption and diet induced obesity to understand mitochondrial function. She hopes to specifically leverage her expertise in quantifying cell free mitochondrial DNA via droplet digital PCR.

Aristotle Leonhard, MD

Aristotle (Ari) Leonhard earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2014 and completed medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2018. He then pursued further training at the University of Chicago, where he completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Sleep Medicine. He is currently a Pulmonary and Critical Care fellow at the University of Washington.

Ari’s research interests focus on the delivery of care to patients with pulmonary and sleep related disorders. He is currently working with his mentor, Dr. Lucas Donovan, on investigating the delivery of weight management interventions to patients with OSA and obesity. Ari is specifically interested in the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists among patients with OSA and obesity living in rural areas. His long-term goal is to identify actionable health systems barriers and challenges to the delivery of these interventions in order to improve the access and reach of weight management car

Linda Magaña, MD

Linda C. Magaña has studied the intersection of health, disease, peoples, and institutions since pursuing her undergraduate degree at Columbia University. She then received her master’s and doctorate in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford. Her research focused on institutional and policy formation related to epidemic disease in Puerto Rico in the 20th century. She completed her MD at Thomas Jefferson University where she continued her efforts to reduce inequities in medical education and health care and demonstrated leadership efforts in addressing educational, societal, and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States.

Throughout her residency in otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh, this passion translated to similar lines of inquiry within the study of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and its diagnosis and management. She has explored inequities and barriers to care for those seeking hypoglossal nerve stimulation for CPAP-resistant OSA. In her upcoming clinical research fellowship with the Penn Sleep Surgery lab at the University of Pennsylvania, she will explore the physiologic and structural mechanisms at play in the diagnosis and treatment of OSA. Linda looks forward to exploring the vibrant Philadelphia area with her husband, and 11 year old American bulldog.

Elizabeth Sanchez, MD

Elizabeth completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida and obtained Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Cell Science. She later pursued her medical degree at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, Colombia. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center. Elizabeth is currently a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Leopoldo Segal and Dr. Rashmi “Nisha” Aurora, Elizabeth’s research will focus on understanding the impact of sleep disordered breathing has on the lower airway microbiome and its relationship to lung cancer pathogenesis. She will work on studying the microbiome and host genomics of patients with sleep disordered breathing and lung cancer

Catharine Tarantine, MD, MSc

Catherine obtained her B.A. in epidemiology from University of Rochester in 2013 and her Master of Science from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2014. She earned her M.D. from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in 2019, where she was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA). Catherine completed internal medicine residency at University of Michigan. Currently, she is a fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Catherine’s current research focuses on improving healthcare delivery to veterans with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Working in the fields of health services research and implementation science, Catherine plans to identify risk factors associated with high-quality ALS care at the Veterans Affairs. She is particularly focused on identifying risk factors associated with non-invasive ventilation. Catherine’s long-term research goals include implementing interventions to improve healthcare delivery to patients with ALS.