Alumni News

Progress Notes

1960s

Moritz Ziegler, MD, GME’69, GME’77 was awarded the William E. Ladd Medal, the highest award granted by the Surgical Section, American Academy of Pediatrics, in October 2016. Ziegler retired in 2010 from Children’s Hospital Colorado and now resides in Cincinnati. He was previously a faculty member at Penn, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and Boston Children’s Hospital.

1970s

Yale E. Goldman, MD’75, PhD’75, has been appointed co-director at the newly established Science and Technology Center for Engineering Mechanobiology at Penn, funded by a $24 million grant over a five-year period from the National Science Foundation. Goldman is a professor of Physiology and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine, and a professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in Penn Engineering.

1980s

Robert M. Wachter, BA’79, MD’83, has been appointed chair of the department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He will also become the Holly Smith Distinguished Professor in Science and Medicine. He already holds the Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine.

Andrew A. Ziskind, MD’84, has been named the new senior vice president of academic strategy on the executive team of Premier, a leading healthcare improvement company. He is an interventional cardiologist who, before joining Premier, was the managing director for healthcare transformation at Huron and a partner at Accenture.

Richard Eric Besser, MD’86, moderated a panel of Penn scientists and leaders celebrating the official launch of Penn’s participation in the Sean Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in October 2016. He serves as chief health and medical editor at ABC News.

1990s

Julie A. Gubernick, BA’86, MD’90, has been elected president of the Pennsylvania Radiological Society, a chapter of the American College of Radiology. She serves as chief of Radiology at Einstein Medical Center Montgomery.

Niraj M. Desai, MD’92, GME’02, is leading a pilot study at Johns Hopkins University to test transplanting kidneys from deceased donors with hepatitis C into recipients who don't already have the virus. The research seeks to provide more organs, even infected ones which require the recipient to take hepatitis C medications, to those on the nation’s long transplant waiting list. Desai is an assistant professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins.

Valerie Weil, MD’91, GME’94, has been appointed chief operating officer at University of the Sciences. She previously served as associate dean for Finance, Administration, and Operations at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.

David B. Agus, MD’91, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of CrossChx, a healthcare technology company developing ways for patients to connect and share information about their health. He is a professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine and of Engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.

Harold I. Feldman, MD, GME’91, HOM’99, has been appointed president of the American College of Epidemiology. In addition, he will become editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. He currently serves as the George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and the chair of the department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Perelman School.

Robert John Pignolo, BA’85, MD, PhD’93, has been appointed to lead the new division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology in the Department of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, which will include more than 50 geriatricians. He also will serve as director of the Translation and Pharmacology Program at the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging.

Elizabeth Robinson Henry, MD’94, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of The Raritan Valley Community College Foundation. She is the founder of Dr. Liz Consulting and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She was a partner at the New Brunswick Pediatric Group for 16 years.

Barbara E. Troupin, MD’95, MBA’95, has been appointed chief medical officer and vice president of Clinical Development at Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company discovering and developing targeted therapeutics in disease areas of inflammation and immuno-oncology. She most recently served as senior vice president and chief medical officer at Apricus Bioscience.

Rebecca A. Baum, MD’96, was appointed chief of the division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Baum is associate professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University and assistant professor of Pediatrics at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Marc Gorelick, MD, MSCE’96, will take the role of president and chief operating officer of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics Minnesota in March. Prior to this appointment, Gorelick was chief operating officer and executive vice president of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Adam D. Cohen, MD’98, GME’02, is the lead author of a new study on two new treatments for immunoglobulin light-chain amyloidosis, which were presented at the 58th Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting and Exposition. Cohen is an assistant professor of Medicine in Hematology-Oncology and director of Myeloma Immunotherapy at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

2000s

Sam Jackson, MD’00, MBA’00, was named chief medical officer of Alkahest Inc., a biotechnology company focused on neurodegenerative diseases and other age-related conditions. Jackson will lead the translational and clinical development activities at Alkahest.

Raegan McDonald-Mosley, MD’04, MPH, was selected as one of the “Power 100” most inspiring African-Americans in 2016 by Ebony magazine. McDonald-Mosley is chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and a vocal proponent of reproductive rights.

Jonathan J. Hogan, MD’07, GME’10, has been named a member of the new Scientific Advisory Board for Variant Pharmaceuticals, an emerging specialty pharmaceutical company developing drugs for rare diseases. He is the clinical director of the Penn Glomerular Disease Center and an assistant professor in Nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Caroline A. Banks, MD’08, has joined Massachusetts Eye and Ear, where she specializes in the treatment of facial nerve disorders, aesthetic facial surgery, and facial reconstruction. She is also a member of Massachusetts Eye and ear Facial Nerve Center, where she focuses on the medical and surgical treatment of facial paralysis and Bell’s Palsy.

Dave A. Chokshi, MD’09, was appointed to President Obama’s National Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. Chokshi is a clinical assistant professor of Population Health and Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.

Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP’09, was appointed associate vice president for the University of Pennsylvania Health System and director of Penn’s Center for Digital Health. The newly created center evolved from Penn Medicine’s Social Media Laboratory, led by Merchant since 2013. 

2010s

Eric Ojerholm, MD’12, led a new research effort which has found that neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is not effective in predicting the overall survival of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The study was published in Cancer in October 2016. Ojerholm is a resident physician in Radiation Oncology in the Perelman School.

David C. Fajgenbaum, MD’13, MBA’15, will serve as principal investigator for ACCELERATE, a patient-driven registry dedicated to empowering patients with Castleman Disease to contribute their medical information in order to advance the knowledge of the disease. ACCELERATE was launched by a partnership between Janssen, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, of which Fajgenbaum is co-founder and executive director.

Charlene Wong, MD, MSHP’15, will join Duke University in the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy Research and the Duke Clinical Research Institute. An adolescent medicine physician and health policy researcher, Wong completed a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Fellowship and a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Penn and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Obituaries

1940s

Stanley Spoont, MD’48, Delray Beach, Fla., a retired physician; Nov. 22, 2016. Born in South Philadelphia, he worked as the Philadelphia Flyers’ first team physician from 1966 to 1974. He then moved his practice to Punta Gorda, Florida. In 1980, he became the physician for the Key Largo-based The Ocean Reef Club before retiring in 1986. He served in the Navy as a lieutenant from 1954 through 1956, and was on the faculty of Penn’s School of Medicine.

William Lander, MD’49, Villanova, Pa., a family physician; Jan. 6, 2017. Described as an “old-school family physician” known for his compassion and his signature bow tie, Lander was an internist based at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where he maintained a family practice from 1953 until his death. During the Korean Conflict, Lander served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and was stationed with the First Marine Division on the front line at the Chosin Reservoir.  Lander was active with the Montgomery County Medical Society, and he served as president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society in 1990. For 25 years ending in the 1990s, Lander was the resident physician at Haverford College.

1950s

Peter Nowell, MD’52, GME’56, HON’10. See "Remembering Peter Nowell."

Frank S. Jannotta, MD'55, Tucson, Az., a retired pathologist; May 20, 2016. After graduating cum laude from Williams College he entered Penn's medical school and completed his medical training at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He also served for two years as a medical officer (LT MC USNR) in the U.S. Navy. Initially licensed in Florida, he spent the majority of his 37-year medical career at The George Washington University Medical Center, department of Pathology, in Washington, DC. He was board certified in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, and neuropathology. After retiring in 1993, he spent several years as visiting professor of Pathology at the University Medical Center, University of Arizona.  He was also a life-long student of music, an accomplished pianist, and a would-be linguist, studying Japanese, Italian, Latin, Polish, and German languages in his spare time.

1960s

Charles R. Koch, MD’60, a psychiatrist, Philadelphia; Jan. 11, 2017. Koch was a clinical professor of psychiatry at Penn and associate psychiatrist-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for many years. He joined Penn as a fellow in the division of child psychiatry in 1964 and became an associate professor in 1972. He left in 1995, but returned in 1997 as a clinical associate professor, and held that position until 2005. He also held positions including director of the child and family mental health component for Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health/Mental Retardation Center in Philadelphia and medical director of the Delaware Guidance Service in Wilmington, De.

Norig “Skip” Ellison, MD’61, GME’70, West Chester, Pa., retired professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Philadelphia as the youngest of four siblings, Ellison earned a full scholarship to Lafayette College, where he played football and earned a degree in chemistry. He completed his medical internship at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu, undertook a general practice residency at Walson Army Hospital at Fort Dix, N.J., and was deployed by the US Army to Vietnam. He earned the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious achievement in ground operations against hostile forces, the highest honor bestowed on a medical military officer. He retired from the military as a Major in in 1967. Ellison began his nearly 40-year career at Penn that year, when he began his residency in anesthesia under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Dripps, a legend in the field. Ellison rose through the ranks to full professor and ran the department of Anesthesia as acting chair in 1987-88, then served as vice chair from 1989-2001. He was a prolific researcher and writer, in addition to his full-time practice and teaching. He has published text books and scholarly medical writings and served as the editor of numerous prestigious medical journals. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Society of Anesthesiologists in 1982-83 and the American Society of Anesthesiologists in 1995-96.

Allen D. Roses, MD’67, a clinical neurologist; Sept. 30, 2016. He was the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine, chief of the division of Neurology at Duke University Medical Center, and founding director of the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. He served as senior vice president of research and development at GlaxoWellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) and owned Zinfandel Pharmaceuticals. He is world-renowned for his work on identifying two genes that put people over 65 at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease. He served as a doctor, and later captain, in the Air Force in Vietnam.

1970s

Mark Josephson, MD, GME’75, a renowned cardiologist recognized internationally as the “father of cardiac electrophysiology;” Jan. 11, 2017. He was the Herman Dana Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and previously chief of Cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine from 1981-1992. During his tenure at Penn beginning in 1978, Josephson pioneered intracardiac recording techniques that enabled a series of landmark studies defining the physiology and mechanism of supraventricular tachycardia and ventricular tachycardia and development of successful interventions. Josephson is recognized as an inspirational teacher and mentor who stressed the lifelong need to contribute to advancements in the field of cardiac electrophysiology. He contributed over 400 original scientific manuscripts and 200 book chapters and reviews and is the sole author of the “bible” of electrophysiology, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology: Techniques and Interpretations; the fifth edition was published in 2015. Josephson took enormous pride in his fellows, with whom he shared his expansive technical knowledge as well as ethical insights in the field of medicine. Over the course of his career at BIDMC and Penn, he trained more than 250 cardiac electrophysiology fellows to become clinical and research leaders in their field.

2010s

Ari Frosch, M’19, a second-year student at the Perelman School of Medicine, Sept. 22, 2016. He completed his undergraduate degree at Colorado College in 2012, before completing post-baccalaureate work at Bryn Mawr and working at the National Cancer Institute. He volunteered at Puentes de Salud, a Philadelphia healthcare nonprofit. He was the son of James P. Frosch, MD’76 and brother of Zach Frosch, MD’14.

FACULTY

Peter Berman, MD, emeritus professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and senior neurologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Sept. 1, 2016. Berman was born in Vienna, Austria and fled the Nazi regime to London before emigrating to the Upper West Side of New York City. He earned his medical degree at New York University College of Medicine and completed an internship in pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, followed by a residency in pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Hospital, Minneapolis. Berman’s work focused on clinical child neurology and pediatric epilepsy. He joined Penn in 1969 as an associate professor of pediatrics and neurology. He then became a professor of pediatrics and neurology in 1979 and held that role until 2011, when he retired and became professor emeritus of neurology. He continued to work at CHOP until his death. Berman served as president of the Child Neurology Society from 1991-1993 and received the society’s highest honor, the Hower Award, in 2003.

Constantin “Stan” Cope, MD, emeritus professor, inventor, and a founding father of interventional radiology. Born in Paris to Polish Jewish parents before moving to England, Cope grew up during the London Blitz, then later moved to the U.S. to earn his medical degree from New York Medical College. Upon gaining citizenship, he served in the U.S. Army as a medical officer in the Korean War. While working at Albert Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, he was the only non-radiologist in the Philadelphia Angio Club, a core group of pioneers of the earliest interventional procedures in radiology. Catheters and other tools for interventional radiology were not widely available at the time because the field was so new, so the inventive Cope made them using materials he purchased at hardware stores and the Army/Navy supply shop. He joined the Radiology faculty at Penn in 1986. His numerous inventions include the locking Cope loop catheter and thoracic duct embolization, a novel procedure that laid the groundwork for modern lymphatic interventions.

Norig “Skip” Ellison, MD. See Class of 1961.

Charles R. Koch, MD. See Class of 1960.

Mark Josephson, MD. See Class of 1975.

Peter Nowell, MD. See "Remembering Peter Nowell." 

Stanley Spoont, MD. See Class of 1948.