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 fall 2025:

• Nelson Ivan Barrera Figueroa, MD, Medicine (Cardiology): Barrera, a clinical fellow and instructor of medicine, is a board-certified internist with particular expertise in cardiac amyloidosis. His research focuses on the early diagnosis and treatment of patients with transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CM), with special emphasis on addressing disparities in this disease and other infiltrative cardiomyopathies.
• Pilar Dies Suárez, MD, Radiology: Dies Suárez’s clinical and academic interests include comprehensive pediatric imaging across all modalities and a strong interest in academic teaching and resident education. Her research focuses on pediatric neuroimaging, with particular emphasis on MRI-based studies of neurodevelopment.
• Sanjeev M. Gupta, MD, Pediatrics: Gupta is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology, specializing in congenital heart disease, pediatric echocardiography, and pulmonary hypertension. His clinical and research interests are focused on pediatric echocardiography and pulmonary hypertension.
• Erin D. Heinz, PsyD, OB-GYN and Psychiatry: Heinz is a clinical psychologist in women's mental health whose work focuses on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and perinatal loss and grief. 
• Jinsy Anne Jacob, MD, Pediatrics: Jacob is an emergency medicine physician with a focus on pediatric emergency medicine. Jacob was recently selected by the American Academy of Pediatrics to participate in the Young Physician Leaders Alliance program.
• Isaac N. Johnson, MD, Psychiatry
• Kristina Jones, MD, Psychiatry: Jones is a board-certified psychiatrist with fellowship training in consultation-liaison psychiatry. Her work focuses on psychiatric dimensions of medical illness. Areas of interest are Parkinson's disease psychosis, delirium, and HIV/AIDS psychiatry. 
• Odelya Hartung Kaufman, MD, PhD, Pediatrics: Kaufman is a clinical geneticist with expertise in the diagnosis and management of children with birth defects, developmental disabilities, and pediatric hearing loss or blindness. Her research interests are in rare disease and implementation of genomic medicine.
• Melanie Krongold, MD, Medicine (Pulmonary & Critical Care): Krongold’s professional interests include comprehensive management of chronic pulmonary disease; improving equity in asthma care; lung cancer; and integrating bronchoscopic interventions as a tool for early detection, staging, and treatment.
• Braden Kuo, MD, Medicine (Digestive & Liver Diseases): Kuo is chief of the Division of Digestive & Liver Diseases and an adult gastroenterologist specializing in neurogastroenterology. He has several on-going NIH-funded projects in gastroparesis and brain-gut interactions in Parkinson’s disease. His clinical expertise is in GI motility and visceral pain syndromes such as GERD, achalasia, gastroparesis, functional dyspepsia, cyclic vomiting syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, and fecal incontinence.
• Jane Y Lee, MD, Neurology:Lee is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology with fellowship training in headache medicine. She focuses on treating primary headache disorders and offers comprehensive care to treat various conditions within headache and facial pain.
• Allan Migirov, MD, Anesthesiology: Migirov specializes in cardiothoracic anesthesiology. His clinical and research interests focus on adult cardiothoracic anesthesia and the optimization of perioperative care for cardiac surgical patients.
• Stijn Mintjens, MD, PhD, Pediatrics: Mintjens is a pediatric cardiac critical care hospitalist with interests in long-term cardiovascular health and sedation optimization. He is also deeply interested in medical education. 
• Donna O’Donohue, AuD, Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery: O'Donohue is an audiologist with a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Her clinical interests lie in diagnostic testing, vestibular testing, and adult amplification.
• Shital Patel, MD, Neurology: Patel is a neurologist with subspecialty experience in vascular neurology. Her clinical focus is on acute management of neurologic emergencies and inpatient management of neurological diseases. 
• Luke A Quehl, MD, Neurology: Quehl is a neonatal neurologist whose clinical focus includes seizures, newborn brain injury, early developmental concerns, and long-term neurodevelopmental follow-up. His research focuses on improving seizure detection in newborns and identifying early predictors of neurodevelopmental outcomes after brain injury.
• Liora M. Schultz, MD, Pediatrics: Schultz is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology. At Columbia, she directs the Pediatric Cellular Immunotherapy Program and serves as founding director of the Pediatric Real-World CAR Consortium. Through her leadership in clinical innovation and collaborative research, Schultz aims to expand access to and improve outcomes of cellular therapies in the pediatric population.
• Suzanna Shermon, DO, Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine: Shermon is a double board-certified physician in physical medicine & rehabilitation and in pain medicine. She specializes in interventional pain medicine, with clinical interests in spine and joint disorders, neuropathic pain, and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Her research interests focus on CRPS and advancing treatment options for interventional pain.
• Xinghua Shi, PhD, Systems Biology, visiting associate professor
• Akanksha Thawani, PhD, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics: Thawani is a visiting assistant professor and a molecular and structural biologist interested in mobile genetic elements. Her group focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of transposon propagation and how these mechanisms can be harnessed to develop next-generation technologies for genome engineering and gene therapy.
• Jessica Tsao, MD, Orthopedic Surgery: Tsao is a sports medicine physician specializing in the non-operative management of acute and chronic musculoskeletal injuries in adolescent and adult athletes of all levels. She has a particular interest in injury prevention, minimally invasive procedures, and return-to-play.
• German E. Velez Florez, MD, Psychiatry
• Lexie Wille, PhD, Psychiatry: Wille is a counseling psychologist with clinical interests in working with LGBTQ+ adolescents, adults, and families. Her research work focuses on improving LGBTQ+ health care experiences and reducing health disparities.