Alumni

PAST PRIMARY MENTEES

Zoé Kibbelaar, AB (2018-2020): Zoé graduated from Harvard College and joined the Waikar Lab in 2018 as a Clinical Research Coordinator. She is currently enrolled at Harvard Medical School.

Anand Srivastava, MD, MPH (2014-present): Dr. Srivastava was supported by our institutional T32 and applied for F32 funding. He received an MPH from HSPH . He has co-authored one paper with me as senior author. He is interested in biomarkers of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease and has focused on uric acid as a novel risk factor and potential therapeutic target in critical illness. Dr. Srivastava is a fellow in nephrology at BWH and is currently with Northwestern University.

Ragnar Palsson, MD (Fellow): Dr. Palsson studied medicine at the University of Iceland. After moving to the US, he completed his internal medicine residency training at Duke University and subsequently joined the nephrology fellowship program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. He has a broad range of interest in clinical and translational research, with projects focusing on associations of cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease (CKD) and on development of novel biomarkers for prediction of CKD progression. In his free time, he enjoys classical music, piano playing, reading and traveling.

Polly A. Palacios, MSPH (Project Manager): Polly grew up in Florida and attended The University of Miami for her undergraduate degree. Polly went on to attain an MSPH with a concentration in Biostatistician from the University of South Florida and has have spent the past 14 years working in the fields of social behavioral and medical research. Polly excels in developing and maintaining the upmost standards in regulatory, operational, scientific, and administrative domains. She enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, exploring the New England area, and compulsively indulges in reading mysteries, science-fiction, romances, and pretty much everything that tickles her fancy.

Samuel Short (Clinical Research Coordinator, 2017-2019): Sam grew up near Seattle, Washington, and recently graduated from Amherst College where he double majored in Music and Neuroscience. While at Amherst, he completed an honors thesis investigating hair cell sensory adaptation and signal transduction in larval zebrafish. He joined the Waikar lab in 2017 as a Clinical Research Coordinator and hopes to apply to medical school using the clinical experience he has gained. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, cooking, playing the upright bass, and watching sports (go Seahawks!).

Emily Boerger (Laboratory Coordinator, 2016-2018)

Kate Freedberg (Clinical Research Coordinator, 2016-2018)

Kirolos Jacob, MD (2015): Dr. Jacob was awarded funding from the Department of Anesthesiology at University Medical Utrecht (The Netherlands) to spend two months with Dr. Waikar as a research trainee during his final year of medical school. They began a collaboration prior to his arrival involving a post-hoc analysis of a large randomized placebo-controlled trial of dexamethasone in cardiac surgery. He published this first-author paper with Dr. Waikar as the senior author in JASN in 2015. Dr. Waikar and Dr. Jacob are now performing biomarker analyses of a subset of patients enrolled in the trial. Dr. Jacob is in his final year as an MD/PhD student and will pursue training in anesthesiology or cardiac surgery. He expects to continue in patient-oriented research.

Elizabeth Hunt, MD (2012-2015): Dr. Hunt is a pediatric nephrologist and chose to work with Dr. Waikar during her pediatric nephrology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). She performed a large database analysis of children hospitalized at BCH that she is finalizing now and preparing for submission. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Clinical Scholarly Pathway at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.

Shilpa Sharma, MD (2010-2014): Dr. Sharma was supported on an institutional T32 grant and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the LAC and USC Hospitals, Keck School of Medicine. She studied continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (CVVH) with Dr. Waikar me and published two first-author papers with Dr. Waikar as senior author. The papers focus on unintended solute losses as overlooked adverse consequences of CVVH. Dr. Sharma is transitioning between institutions and seeking to apply in the next two years for a K23 award, with Dr. Waikar me serving likely as a secondary co-mentor with a primary mentor at her home institution.

Xiaoxi Zeng, MD (2011-2012): Dr. Zeng was awarded a China Research Council Scholarship to support one year of research with Dr. Waikar at BWH to study the epidemiology of acute kidney injury. At the time, she had just finished the equivalent of medical residency in China and was planning nephrology fellowship training there. During her 12 months in Boston, Dr. Waikar encouraged her to obtain didactic training in epidemiology and biostatistics through Harvard Catalyst to complement the one-on-one training. In just one year she analyzed a large BWH database of nearly 32,000 hospitalizations and applied three different definitions of acute kidney injury to investigate their comparative performances. She performed all biostatistical analyses and wrote a first-author paper published in CJASN which has been cited 44 times. Dr. Zeng is now chief resident in nephrology at West China Hospital and plans to incorporate clinical research into her career. She may return to the United States for a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Waikar.

CURRENT AND FORMER SECONDARY MENTEES

Arnaud Kaze Djou, MD (2016-2017): Dr. Djou holds a medical degree from University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon. After receiving his Masters of Public Health from Harvard University, he joined Dr. Waikar’s group in June 2016 to further his research interests for chronic noncommunicable diseases and kidney diseases.

Melissa Wachterman, MD (2011-present): Dr. Waikar served on the K23 advisory committee for Dr. Wachterman, a faculty member at BWH in the Division of General Internal Medicine. She was investigating end of life preferences in patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Dr. Waikar was a co-author on her first author JAMA Internal Medicine paper in 2013 on prognostic expectations in ESRD.

Lipika Samal, MD (2012-present): Dr. Waikar served on the K23 advisory committee for Dr. Samal, a faculty member at BWH in the Division of General Internal Medicine. She applies health information technology to improve the care of patients with chronic kidney disease. Dr. Waikar was a co-author on her first author BMC Nephrology paper in 2015 on nephrology co-management versus primary care solo management in early chronic kidney disease.

Michael Ferguson, MD (2008-2012): Dr. Ferguson is a pediatric nephrologist and chose to work with Dr. Waikar and Dr. Joseph Bonventre (Renal Division chief at BWH) during his pediatric nephrology fellowship at BCH. He has written two first-author papers, one with Dr. Waikar as the senior author and the other with Dr. Bonventre. Dr. Ferguson is currently the Director of the Hypertension Program and co-Director of the Fellowship Program in Pediatric Nephrology at BCH, and is an Instructor in Pediatrics at HMS.