PIHPS: The Professionals In Health Podcast Series

Dr. Yuri Agrawal, otologist, neruo-otologist, focuses on surgical and medical management of conditions of the ear, hearing loss, impairments in balance function, and inner ear tumors.

Dr. Agrawal's research is directed at studying age-related changes in vestibular function. She employs a combination of vestibular physiologic testing and epidemiologic methods. Dr.  Agrawal's long-term research goals are: 1) to understand the changes in vestibular function that occur with aging, 2) to evaluate the association between changes in vestibular function and clinically significant outcomes in older individuals such as falls, frailty and disability and 3) to apply these insights towards the development of strategies to screen for, prevent and treat vestibular dysfunction and reduce associated adverse outcomes in older individuals.

LaShyra Nolen is a first year medical student and the 2023 class president of Harvard Medical School. LaShyra was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in Spain and served as an AmeriCorps Health Educator in Chicago before entering HMS. Compton born-and-raised, LaShyra is a passionate advocate for equity and social justice and intends on obtaining a Master’s of Public Policy in addition to her M.D.

Dr. Adam Milam is a 4th year Resident in Anesthesiology at Los Angeles Cedar-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Milam serves as Faculty Associate in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research focuses on the environmental factors linked to children’s mental and behavioral health. Dr. Milam is recognized for his passionate hard work, through awards such as the Marjorie Edwards Prize for Scholarship and Community Service; and Dean’s Distinguished Leadership Award by Wayne State University.

Dr. Jonathan Forsberg is a orthopaedic oncologist and clinician scientist within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Johns Hopkins.  He specializes in the treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas, as well as metastatic bone disease.  His research interests are geared toward applying machine learning in healthcare and developing next-generation osseointegration techniques for patients living with major limb amputations.    

Dr. Luis Garza MD-PhD is an Associate Professor of Dermatology with secondary appointments in Cell Biology and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He did his undergraduate work at Cornell University, followed by an MD-PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his dermatology residency at the University of Michigan, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of George Cotsarelis at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Garza’s current research focuses on wound healing and regenerative medicine. His lab is funded by the NIH/NIAMS, the DoD, and Maryland State Stem Cell Fund.

His lab explores regeneration using the skin as their model system. They are inspired by the limb regeneration of a salamander as a clue to therapeutic interventions for fibrosis, one of the larges sources of human morbidity. They focus on two areas. In the first, if mammals cannot regrow an entire appendage, can they regrow a hair follicle mini-appendage? On this they focus on the mechanisms of how dsRNA sensing is a damage-repair response and robustly stimulates regeneration. For the second, they ask-- if they cannot regrow an entire limb in mammals-- can they regrow the pressure-responsive type of skin found at the palms and soles at the stump site of an amputee? For this project they focus on how cell-cell interactions modify tissue identity, and the mechanisms of how cell therapy might modify skin identity in mouse models and FDA approved human trials.”

Dr. Henderson is an Assistant Professor in Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended medical school at Emory University, completed a Residency in Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Georgia, and completed a Fellowship in Neuro-Ophthalmology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. In addition to her work as a clinician, she is involved in clinical and translational research, with particular interests in optic neuropathies, specifically non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, and in ophthalmic and neuro-imaging. She has presented nationally and internationally and published in these areas. She also has a particular interest in education, serving as the Neuro-Ophthalmology Fellowship Director and the Education Champion for the Division of Neuro-Ophthalmology at Wilmer and on education-related committees in the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society (NANOS), and is the recipient of the Helen Iliff Scholar Fund to support the development of resident education.

Max is a Staff Physical Therapist and Athletic Trainer at Mamba Sports Academy. He works in the Integrated Sports Medicine Department treating patients with a variety of orthopedic and sports related diagnoses.

Max graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Athletic training from Northeastern University in Boston. He went on to attend the University of Southern California’s Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy program where he received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. During his pursuit of his Doctorate of Physical Therapy degree, Max had the opportunity to work in various settings including Neurological rehabilitation, working with patients who had a traumatic brain injury or stroke, outpatient orthopedics and sports medicine. It was his last clinical internship that really sparked a passion to pursue orthopedics and sports medicine physical therapy, when he worked with the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team on their rehabilitation staff during spring training of the 2016 season. It was there he developed a passion for treating athletes, an evidence based approach to treatment and the understanding of what it takes to be great at the highest level of sport.

After graduation and prior to working at Mamba Sports Academy Max worked at Primary Care Sports Medicine in Tarzana for 3 years where he treated high school, college and USA track and field Athletes. Max’s background as a Certified Athletic Trainer includes working with high school and college athletes and was on the medical staff for Team USA which competed in the Maccabiah Games in Israel in 2013 and in the Pan American Maccabiah Games in Santiago, Chile in 2015-16. Max is continually attending physical therapy conferences and continuing education courses related to manual therapy techniques, blood flow restriction and the treatment of orthopedic and sports medicine diagnoses.

Max is from Saint Paul, MN where he played basketball, baseball and soccer through high school and went on to play club baseball at Northeastern University where he won a national championship. Max currently lives in West Los Angeles and enjoys spending time with family and friends, playing and watching sports, traveling and enjoying all that LA has to offer.

Dr. Curtiland Deville is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He serves as Clinical Director and Chair of Sibley Radiation Oncology and the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins National Proton Therapy Center.

He is a graduate of Brown University’s combined undergraduate and graduate Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) and a past Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow at the Yale Cancer Center. He completed his transitional year internship in internal medicine at Harbor Hospital Center in Baltimore, Maryland, and residency in radiation oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he joined the junior faculty as an Assistant Professor and served as clinical Chief of the Genitourinary (GU) and Sarcoma Services in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Roberts Proton Therapy Center.

Dr. Deville’s clinical expertise is in treating patients with soft tissue sarcoma and GU malignancies. His research interests include improving tumor targeting and assessing the toxicity profiles using modern radiation techniques such as proton and photon therapy. He has evaluated the implementation of proton therapy for novel indications such as post-prostatectomy therapy, pencil beam scanning, and plan robustness evaluations. He has co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications, including the first paper ever on the clinical use of post-prostatectomy proton therapy and textbook chapters on the use of proton therapy for soft tissue sarcoma and prostate cancer. He is on the research investigative team for the largest national trial comparing proton and photon therapy (COMPPARE), and serves as a Senior GU editor for the journal, Advances in Radiation Oncology.

Dr. Deville also has a research interest in physician workforce diversity in specialties that are disproportionately underrepresented by women and minorities. He serves as the Immediate Past Chair of the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO) Committee on Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and as the Chair of the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) Diversity in Oncology Subcommittee.

Dr. Haris Sair is an Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, and the Director of the Division of Neuroradiology. His areas of clinical expertise include functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the brain. He also has a faculty appointment in the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare at The Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, investigating the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in imaging.

Dr. Sair earned his M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine. He completed his residency at Temple University Medical Center and performed a fellowship in neuroradiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.

Dr. Jacqueline Kikuchi is from Santa Clarita, CA and went to Lafayette College, where she majored in Neuroscience. She then went to Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth on an Army scholarship through the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) and then completed residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In July 2019, she came to Johns Hopkins for fellowship in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. In her free time, she loves hiking, long distance running, cooking, reading, watching movies, and hanging out with her awesome husband (who she met in med school).