New VP&S Faculty

The VP&S Office of Faculty Affairs has provided this list of full-time faculty who joined the medical school in February and March 2025:

• Gokhan L. Akfirat, MD, Neurology: Akfirat is a board-certified neurologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Medical Group Westchester specializing in dementia, epilepsy, and headache.
• Jorge Delgado, MD, Radiology: Delgado is a board-certified radiologist who works with pediatricians and pediatric specialists to provide a full range of diagnostic imaging services attuned to the needs of children. His research interests include diffusion tensor imaging of the developing physis in children, optimized pediatric radiology education techniques, and management of intussusception in pediatric radiology. 
• Harsha K. Garg, MD, Radiology: Garg is a board-certified radiologist with subspecialty expertise in pediatric imaging. His research interests include advanced pediatric abdominal imaging techniques with a focus on magnetic resonance urography (MRU) for evaluating urinary tract disorders.
• Cheng Qian, MD, Anesthesiology
• Amna Rana, MD, Medicine
• Jennifer Posey, MD, PhD, Pediatrics: Posey is the inaugural chief genomics officer of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and chief of the Division of Clinical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. Posey is developing a new vision for medical genetics and genomics and coordinating these services with Columbia’s Precision Medicine Initiative, the electronic health record infrastructure, and the clinical genomics laboratories and Genomic Data Infrastructure at CUIMC/NewYork-Presbyterian.
• Emily K. Fountain, DPT, Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine: Fountain is a physical therapist at ColumbiaDoctors in Tarrytown.
• Gene Y. Im, MD, Medicine: Im is a transplant hepatologist and the director of the Alcohol-associated Liver Disease Program at Columbia (ADAPT), an innovative patient-centered, integrated care and research program for patients with alcohol-associated liver disease.
• Christine Austin, PhD, Pediatrics: Austin is an analytical chemist with expertise in tissue imaging techniques. Her work involves developing biomarkers of environmental exposures (e.g. metals) and biological response (e.g. inflammation) in tissues, particularly in tissues like teeth and hair that grow incrementally. 
• Ritu R. Gill, MBBS, Radiology: Gill is chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Imaging and a physician-scientist who is recognized as one of the world’s top pleural tumor experts. Her pioneering work on the staging and evaluation of pleural mesothelioma has led to the recent international adoption of size criteria for the ninth edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer TNM staging system.
• Naomi R. Latorraca, PhD, Biochemisty & Molecular Biophysics: Latorraca employs biophysical and simulation-based methods to capture the atomic-level mechanisms that underlie the functions of membrane-bound biological assemblies. Her research aims to exploit these molecular details to discover new ligands that tune receptor function, improving their therapeutic efficacy while reducing side effects.
• Jessica Tu, MD, Emergency Medicine: Tu is board-certified in emergency medicine and in hospice/palliative medicine. Her clinical interests include increasing palliative care presence in the emergency department, including providing early palliative care involvement and skills teaching to medical students, residents, and fellow faculty. She is involved in projects that improve palliative care consultation from the emergency department, improve rapid goals of care conversations, and provide goal-concordant care to patients with life-limiting illness.