Alumni Scholars

Matt Present graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in American History. He taught English for a year in a Japanese fishing village. Upon his return stateside, he wrote advertising and managed a creative team at Groupon for two years before leaving to become the founding editor of Grid, the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday business magazine. He has also worked as a ghostwriter, with work appearing Forbes and USA Today. Matt completed his post-baccalaureate education at Goucher College. At Pritzker, Matt is an executive board member of the Health Professions Recruitment and Exposure Program, works as a mentor in the Chicago Youth Partnership, teaches science to third-graders, and counsels students on human anatomy and healthy living. He also serves on the Pritzker Editorial Committee and the Service of Gratitude Planning Committee. Matt participated in Pritzker’s annual REMEDY medical service trip to Peru. Currently, he is conducting research with Dr. Neda Laiteerapong on individualization of glycemic control goals in patients with Type-II Diabetes Mellitus.

Dr. Present is a Pediatric Resident at the University of Rochester, Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, NY.

Liese graduated from Stanford University in 2010 with a BA in anthropology and a BS in biology. She received numerous honors as an undergraduate, including graduation with distinction in biology and anthropology, departmental honors for her senior thesis, and election to Phi Beta Kappa.

As a medical student, under the mentorship of Funmi Olopade, MD, director of the Cancer Risk Clinic and professor of medical and human genetics, Liese has conducted qualitative research on cultural and social barriers to effective breast cancer care in southern Nigeria.

Liese also was selected to serve as a Teaching Assistant for The Human Body course. She is a member of the Pritzker School of Medicine student board and a translator at the Community Health Clinic, a volunteer-run free clinic on Chicago’s west side. Liese also is one of the co-chairs of the International Medicine Interest Group at Pritzker.

Liese received a Doris Duke Clinical Research Mentorship Grant and spent the 2013-14 academic year abroad where she conducted a breast cancer knowledge assessment of healthcare workers near Ibadan, Nigeria.

Dr. Pruitt is a Surgery Resident at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT.

Dr. Patrick Reavey is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his general surgery residency at Columbia University Medical Center. During general surgery residency he also completed a two-year Outcomes Research Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and obtained a Masters in Biostatistics. He subsequently went on to complete a residency in plastic surgery at New York University and an orthopedic hand fellowship at the University of California-Irvine. Dr. Reavey joined the University of Chicago after completing his training. His clinical focus is on hand surgery and lower extremity reconstruction, including diabetic limb salvage. He is committed to providing patient-centered care and involving patients in shared-medical decision-making to tailor the best treatment plan for each patient. His research interests include the development and utilization of patient-reported outcome measures to evaluate and guide patient care. Dr. Reavey is respected clinical educator, and is actively involved in both resident and medical student training. He is the director of the plastic surgery medical student student clinical clerkship and the Associate Residency Program Director for Plastic Surgery.

In 2012, Dr. Reavey joined the faculty at the University of Rochester in New York.

Elizabeth graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 2005 with an AB in Economics, a Certificate in Health Policy and election to Phi Beta Kappa. Following her graduation, Elizabeth worked as an associate consultant at Bain & Company and in the Emergency Department of the University of Virginia Health Center.

As a medical student, under the mentorship of William Meadow, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Co-Section Chief of Neonatology, and Neethi Pinto, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Elizabeth has conducted research on the accuracy of care team prognoses regarding patient outcomes after hospitalization in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Elizabeth has served as the co-coordinator of the Washington Park Children’s Free Clinic, a student-run clinic for underserved children. She also serves as a member of the Pre-Clinical Curricular Review Committee, charged with reviewing the first two years of the medical school curriculum.

Dr. Rhinesmith is a pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Lainie Friedman Ross, MD, PhD, is the Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum Professor of Clinical Medical Ethics; Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, Surgery and the College; Co-Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine, and Associate Director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Clinically, Dr. Ross is a primary care pediatrician at The University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital and provides inpatient care of newborns in the Mother-Baby Unit.

Dr. Ross earned her undergraduate degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and her doctorate in philosophy from Yale University. She trained in Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Ross’ research portfolio concentrates on ethical and policy issues in pediatrics, organ transplantation, genetics, and human subjects protections. She has published four books and over 200 articles in the peer-reviewed literature. Her fifth book, The Living Donor as Patient was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Award in Health Policy and will be published by Oxford University Press in 2021. She is currently writing a 6th book examining the ethical issues related to siblings in health care that is funded by the National Library of Medicine. She is a frequent lecturer both nationally and internationally and actively involved in teaching ethics to trainees and staff at the University of Chicago Medicine.

Dr. Ross has served on a wide range of professional organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Ethics Committee, the International Pediatric Transplantation Association Ethics Committee, the HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) and the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC).

Dr. Ross was a 2014 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a 2015 recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics William G. Bartholome Award for Ethical Excellence.

As of January 2023, Dr. Ross is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics at The University of Rochester.

Dr. Rossi-Foulkes is an experienced general internist and pediatrician with expertise in transition care and medical education. She has extensive experience with student and resident curricular development and evaluation, inter-professional education and collaboration, practice management and quality improvement in primary care training. Since 2006, Dr. Rossi-Foulkes has been the Program Director of the University of Chicago Med-Peds Residency program. Her excellence in quality improvement was recognized in 2007 with the Department of Medicine Excellence Award in Clinical Care and Education. She was inducted into the UCM Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators in 2009. In 2017 Dr. Rossi-Foulkes was awarded the UCM inaugural Program Director of the Year award from the Graduate Medical Education Committee. She was an advisor to the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in developing their training courses for the Illinois Healthcare Transition Project and has also been on the Illinois Department of Public Health Immunization Advisory Committee since 2005. Nationally, Dr. Rossi-Foulkes is on the Transition Care Committee for the Med-Peds Program Director’s Association, and she was elected to serve four years as the national Secretary-Treasurer for that organization. Dr. Rossi-Foulkes has conducted workshops and been invited to lecture on medical education, quality improvement, and transition care for local, regional and national conferences.

As of November 2022, Dr. Rossi-Foulkes is Director of the Primary Care Track at Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles, CA.

Alex graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2009 with an ScB in Neuroscience. Following his graduation, Alex coordinated the construction of a community clinic in Bamako, Mali.

As a medical student, Alex researched the extent of false fluency in the health care setting as part of the Health Care Disparities course, and he has continued to explore potential solutions related to the lack of translation services. He also has conducted research with Benjamin Van Voorhees, MD, MPH, on the economic feasibility of an online adolescent depression prevention intervention.

Over the course of his first year, Alex helped conceive of a children’s illustrated book — combining information on the flu with artistic illustrations — to expand health literacy for children. He and his fellow students received a grant from the University of Chicago’s Arts/Science Initiative to fund the book’s initial publication and distribution.

Alex spent the 2013-14 academic year abroad in London where he completed a masters of science in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Alex conducted research on the effectiveness of interventions during humanitarian crises.

Dr. Ruby is an Emergency Medicine physician in El Segundo, CA.

Yasmin Sacro is an outstanding junior clinician-educator who’s been named as a Core Faculty member for the University of Chicago Internal Medicine residency program, based on her superior clinical skills and teaching abilities. She sees a high volume of adult primary care patients and is known by patients as an outstanding clinician. Yasmin teaches residents in the Primary Care Group and also at Community Health — the community-based free clinic, where she’s taking the lead on developing curriculum for residents about providing care in this underserved and very challenging setting.

As of 2015, Dr. Sacro is a physician at Denver Health in Colorado.

Robert graduated from Yale University with a BA in the History of Science, History of Medicine. Following his graduation, he was selected as a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellow in Washington, D.C., where he served in the U.S. Senate in the office of Senator Barack Obama and in the health policy office of Senator Ted Kennedy. After completing the fellowship, he began work as a health policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

As a medical student, Robert is the co-coordinator of Community Health Clinic, a volunteer-run clinic on Chicago’s west side. He also serves as the Admissions Chair for the Student National Medical Association, and sits on the Pritzker Dean’s Council as class representative to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Under the mentorship of Monica Peek, MD, MPH, he completed his research paper “Shared Decision-Making Preferences and Behaviors of Hispanic and non-Hispanic White Patients with Diabetes,” which earned Honorable Mention for Excellence in the Pritzker Summer Research Program.

Dr. Sanchez is an attending physician at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

Dr. Sargis is an Assistant Professor in the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He completed his MD/PhD at Rush University before coming to the University of Chicago for his Internal Medicine and Endocrinology training. Rob’s clinical interests focus on diabetes, obesity, and lipid disorders, and in taking care of these patients, he places a strong emphasis on patient empowerment in effecting lifestyle change. In addition to seeing patients, Rob has an active research lab that studies the connections between environmental pollutants and metabolic diseases in hopes of generating sound scientific support for the development of public policy aimed at mitigating the deleterious effects of environmental contaminants on human health.

As of 2016, Dr. Sargis joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in Chicago.