People

Peter Chuanyi Hou, MD

Harvard Medical School

I am dual-boarded in emergency medicine and critical care. My clinical interest is the care of the critically ill ED patients who require resuscitation and critical care. I am a clinical expert, innovator, educator, and researcher. I have contributed to sepsis, ARDS, and COVID-19 research which synergistically aligned with my clinical interest in sepsis and ARDS management. I have participated in many multi-centered trials and studies and co-authored 5 articles in New England Journal of Medicine and 2 articles in the Journal of American Medical Association. I led the formation of the Brigham Critical Care Research Collaborative and Consortium (BCCRCC). I was a Co-Lead Investigator for the Acute Lung Injury Group of New England Clinical Center (ALIGNE CC) and a Steering Committee member of the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung injury (PETAL) Network.

I was a key member to the creation of the Division of Emergency Critical Care Medicine in 2016. With the establishment of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine fellowship, BCCRCC, and ED and ICU clinical and research operations portfolios, I have greatly contributed to elevating our division within our department, hospital, and Mass General Brigham.

Giles N. Cattermole, FRCEM

Kings College Hospital NHS Trust

Giles Cattermole FRCEM DTM&H is a Consultant Emergency Physician at King's College Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK. He holds honorary associate professorships at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Rwanda. His interests include global emergency care, research ethics in the global south, and has been part of emergency medicine education in several countries in Africa and SE Asia.

Al'ai Alvarez, MD

Stanford Emergency Medicine

Al'ai Alvarez, MD (@alvarezzzy) is a national leader and educator on wellness, diversity, equity, and Inclusion. He is a clinical associate professor of Emergency Medicine (EM) and Well-Being Director at Stanford Emergency Medicine. He co-leads the Human Potential Team and serves as the Stanford EM Physician Wellness Fellowship Director. He is the Chair of the Stanford WellMD's Physician Wellness Forum and Director of the Physician Resource Network (PRN) Support Program. His work focuses on humanizing physician roles as individuals and teams by harnessing the individual human potential in the context of high-performance teams. This includes optimizing the interconnectedness between Process Improvement (Quality and Clinical Operations), Recruitment (Diversity and Representation), and Well-being (Inclusion and Belonging). He is one of the 2021-2022 Faculty Fellows at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign.

Paul Kivela, MD, MBA

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Paul Kivela, MD, MBA, FACEP is a residency trained and board certified emergency physician and Clinical Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Kivela was elected and served as President of the American College of Emergency Physicians from 2017-2018. He represented the diverse membership and served as spokesperson for the over 38,000 members. As Past President of ACEP, he has served as an international representative for the College. He was named the 2018 Napa County Physician of the Year, received the 2018 DFW Airport Hero Award and the International Gold Medal at the 2018 Intercontinental Emergency Medicine Congress, and recognized for his leadership as the recipient of the 2023 ACEP Wiegenstein Award.

Besides being a practicing emergency physician, he is a recognized expert in the areas of risk and error reduction, strategy and the economics of medical practice. He is known for his innovative and collaborative approach to finding solutions, bringing together disparate parties, and fostering future leadership.

He is frequently invited nationally and internationally to speak on his research, leadership and the future of medicine. He works diligently to keep up on medical advances that affect his patients. He has designed software and has twice been acknowledged to have one of SAEM's annual innovations in academic emergency medicine.

Bory Kea, MD, MCR

Oregon Health Sciences University

Margaret E. Samuels-Kalow, MD, MPhil, MSHP

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Samuels-Kalow is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS), an attending physician in emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at MGB. Her work focuses on developing interventions to reduce disparities in emergency care, and designing strategies to use the ED visit to address adverse social determinants of health. Current projects include work to examine the role of individual and hospital factors in quality and equity of care for children in general emergency departments and understanding how to best address unmet oral health and social needs in the ED.

Dowin H. Boatright, MD, MBA, MHS

New York University

Dr. Boatright is a graduate of Morehouse College, receiving his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, and a Master in Business Administration from Rice University. Dr. Boatright is the Vice Chair of Research for the department of Emergency Medicine at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. His research interests include diversity in the health care workforce and bias and discrimination in medical education. Dr. Boatright’s work has been funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Dina Wallin, MD

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Dina Wallin is an associate clinical professor of emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine at UCSF-San Francisco General Hospital, where she is the Director of Didactics for the EM residency. Her interest in bioethics began during her undergraduate studies at Stanford University, and she continued to participate in the field throughout residency and fellowship. Currently, she sits on the UCSF Medical Ethics Committee, the Benioff Children's Hospital Pediatric Bioethics interest group, and the SAEM and ACEP Ethics Committees.

Nancy S. Onisko, DO

UT Southwestern

Nancy Onisko, D.O., FACEP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UT Southwestern. She is also the co-director of the Perinatal Intervention Program at Parkland Hospital and Health System. Her areas of interest include addiction medicine, general toxicology, toxinology (the study of venomous animals and poisonous plants), new drugs of abuse as well as DEI and Social Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Onisko earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Michigan State University. After college, she spent five years working as a Clinical Research Associate at the University of California at San Diego before pursuing her dream of becoming a physician. She graduated from Midwestern University, Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine in Phoenix, Ariz., in 2003. She then completed her internship at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, Calif., in 2004 and her residency in Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University and Detroit Receiving Hospital in Detroit, Mich., in 2007.

Dr. Onisko is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine and spent five years practicing community-based emergency medicine in California before returning to academia to pursue a fellowship in toxicology. She enjoyed the cerebral atmosphere of academia so much that she then completed a second fellowship in Global Health and Disaster Medicine and stayed on as an attending physician and Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at UTSW. Her passions outside of medicine include international travel, tennis, music, photography, social justice issues, and animal rescue.

Edgardo Ordonez, MD, MPH

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. Ordoñez is an Associate Professor of Emergency and Internal Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). He received his medical and public health degrees from Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School and School of Public Health. He completed a combined emergency and internal medicine residency at Christiana Care in Newark, Delaware. Dr. Ordoñez has been an Inclusion and Equity Ambassador at BCM since 2016. His advanced training includes being a Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Research, and Training Junior Faculty Scholar from 2019-2020 and a fellow in the inaugural Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) DEI Leadership Fellowship in 2022. He was also a participant in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Leadership for Health Equity Program. He is the Director of Health Equity and Community Engagement for the Henry JN Taub Department of Emergency Medicine and the Health Equity Curriculum Thread Director for BCM’s School of Medicine. Nationally, he serves as Immediate Past President of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine’s (SAEM) Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine, the SAEM Equity & Inclusion Committee, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and the Council of Residency Director’s in Emergency Medicine (CORD) Diversity and Inclusion Committee. His interests include workforce diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, healthcare delivery, health equity, social determinants of health, and mentorship.

Marc A. Probst, MD, MS

New York–Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Probst is the Director of General Emergency Medicine Research at Columbia University Medical Center. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree and medical degree (MD) from McGill University in Montreal, Canada before moving to Los Angeles to pursue residency training at LA-County USC Medical Center. He then went on to complete a research fellowship at the UCLA Medical Center obtaining a Master of Science degree in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Probst joined the Columbia faculty in 2021 and is currently funded through an R01 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study syncope risk-stratification. His research focuses on shared decision-making and syncope in the Emergency Department.

Amber K. Sabbatini, MD, MPH

University of Washington

Dr. Sabbatini is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington. She is a federally-funded health services researcher who studies how the delivery of hospital care affects patient outcomes, resource utilization, and quality. Her work has been funded by the NIA, NIMH, AHRQ, Washington Department of Health, and several foundations. Her current research revolves around evaluating the impact of payment policies and delivery system reforms on health outcomes and costs, especially as it pertains to mental heath delivery and outcomes for Medicaid enrollees.

Eva Tovar Hirashima, MD, MPH

University of California, Riverside

Dr. Eva Tovar Hirashima is an Assistant Clinical Professor at University of California Riverside and the Ultrasound Fellowship Director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Riverside Community Hospital. Dr Tovar was born and raised in Mexico City. She went to medical school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and did an internal medicine residency before her journey up north. In Boston, she completed an emergency medicine residency at Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency, and did an ultrasound fellowship at University of Maryland. In 2017, she moved to Southern California. Since then, Dr. Tovar has participated-in and spear-headed cross-border medical education initiatives in areas such as street medicine, prehospital care and POCUS. She currently serves as the EMS director of the Mexican Red Cross in Tijuana, and is a visiting professor at the Autonomous University of Baja California School of Medicine where she organizes monthly POCUS workshops for residents from different specialties, EMTs, medical students and midwives. She is also the co-founder of UPAndo Latinoamerica, a FOAMed POCUS resource in Spanish created and curated by a collective of female EM physicians working in Mexico.

Sara Crager, MD

University of California Los Angeles

Dr. Sara Crager received her medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine. She did her Emergency Medicine residency training at UCLA, and went on to complete a Critical Care fellowship at Stanford. Dr. Crager is currently an Assistant Professor at the UCLA-David Geffen School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Departments of Anesthesia and Emergency Medicine. She works clinically in the Cardiothoracic and Surgical ICUs at UCLA, as well as the Medical ICU at Antelope Valley Medical Center. She is the creator of the EM:RAP ICU Fundamentals series, as well as the emergency critical care FOAMed website ICUedu.org and the ICUedu podcast. Dr. Crager also works with the NGO EM:RAP Global Outreach on improving access to medical education, and is core faculty with the EM:RAP Access+Innovation in Medical Education (AIME) fellowship. She has won multiple teaching awards and lectures nationally and internationally.

Ryan McKillip, MD

Advocate Health Care/Advocate Christ Medical Center, University of Illinois Chicago

Dr. McKillip is clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, and the co-director of research and publication for the department of emergency medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center. Dr. McKillip’s work focuses on the integration of technology and artificial intelligence with medical education and practice. Dr. McKillip received a BS from Pepperdine University and an MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed residency in Emergency Medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center.

Rebekah J. Richards, MD, MPH

The Ohio State University

Rebekah J. Richards MD MPH is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University. Her academic focus is translational science with an emphasis on system-based interventions to support clinical decision making and improve health care quality.

Jessica Pelletier, DO

Washington University in St. Louis

Jessica Pelletier, DO, is an Emergency Medicine Education Fellow and Adjunct Residency APD at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Dr. Pelletier attended medical school at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine and residency at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. She serves as the African Medical Advisor with Techies Without Borders, a global nonprofit that delivers continuing medical education to resource-constrained regions. Her research interests involve procedural and simulation education, and the human factors of the high-acuity applications of this teaching. Dr. Pelletier's interests include simulation-based undergraduate and graduate medical education, cognitive load theory, the use of osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) in the emergency department, and expanding emergency medicine to regions where it is not fully developed as a specialty.

Aalap Shah, MD

Medical University of South Carolina

Aalap Shah, MD is currently an Assistant Professor at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC. He curently serves as the Director of the Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship and as Core Faculty for the Emergency Medicine Residency. He also serves on the SAEM-AEUS digital/social media committee, as well as SAEM Education and Virtual Presence committees. He is editor-in-chief of the ultrasound education website HolyCitySono.com and has been a regular contributor to FOAMed previously via ACEP, and various other independent websites. He previously completed his Emergency Ultrasound fellowship at MUSC, his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati, and completed Medical School at SUNY-Downstate.

James H. Paxton, MD MBA

Wayne State University School of Medicine (Detroit, MI)

James H. Paxton MD MBA is an Associate Professor and the Director of Clinical Research for Detroit Receiving Hospital / Wayne State University (WSU) Department of Emergency Medicine, in Detroit, Michigan. He currently serves as Chairman of the SAEM Research Committee (2021-2024). He received both his MD and MBA degrees from the University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH), and completed EM residency training at Henry Ford Hospital (Detroit, MI). Dr. Paxton has served as core academic faculty for the EM residencies at both Sinai-Grace Hospital and Detroit Receiving Hospital since 2011, and is a past Chair of the WSU institutional review board. He is an active clinical researcher and has served as PI for numerous industry- and publically-funded trials.

Ali Raja, MD, MBA, MPH, FACHE

Massachusetts General Hospital

Ali S. Raja, MD, DBA, MPH, FACHE is the Deputy Chair and the Mooney-Reed Endowed Chair in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Raja received his MPH from Harvard, MD and MBA degrees from Duke, and DBA from Case Western. After training in emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati, he completed a research fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is board-certified in both emergency medicine and clinical informatics.

A practicing emergency physician and author of over 250 publications, his research focuses on improving the appropriateness of resource utilization in emergency medicine. He serves as President-Elect of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and also sits on the boards of both Boston MedFlight and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network.

Dr. Raja is also an expert on the management of critically ill patients in the emergency department and prehospital arenas. He has served as a critical care air transport team commander for the US Air Force, a civilian flight physician, a tactical physician for a number of local, state, and federal agencies, and a physician with MA-1 DMAT.