Associate Junior Faculty Scholars

Dr. Sharma is a medical oncologist and clinical pharmacologist who focuses on the development of novel therapies for patients with all types of cancer, and gastrointestinal cancers in particular. His research involves computer-based modeling and simulation using data (including patient-reported outcomes) from oncology clinical trials. The broad objective of this research is to improve the development (by informing clinical trial design) and use of anticancer therapies. He has designed and conducted clinical trials that involve genotype-guided dosing of chemotherapy and repurposing of old drugs (such as sirolimus and metformin) as potential anticancer therapies. He is also using model-based phenotypes to develop genomic prediction tools for response to anticancer therapies. In an educational capacity, Dr. Sharma has an interest in improving doctor-patient communication with respect to informed consent for phase I cancer clinical trials.

Dr. Sharma is now a physician at the Cancer and Hematology Centers of Western Michigan.

Dr. Holly Shiao is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Emergency Psychiatry. She has a special focus on Psycho-Oncology, providing care to cancer patients both in hospital and clinical settings. She is also an attending on the Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry service.

Dr. Shiao attended medical school at John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Medical School at the University Health Science Center at Houston. She then completed a General Psychiatry residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, followed by a Consultation/Liaison fellowship at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Shiao is interested in the benefits of mindfulness and supportive psychotherapy for patients. She also teaches and serves as a mentor for the residents.

In 2020, Dr. Shiao joined the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.

Dr. Silva is an Assistant Professor in the Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. She trained at the University of Chicago for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and completed an additional Reconstructive Microsurgery Fellowship at New York University.

Her research interests include improving the patient experience and outcomes in head and neck reconstruction. She is specifically interested in long-term outcomes, quality of life, and investigating how reconstructive details such as flap choice, design, and inset can improve outcomes. She is also interested in the benefits of collaboration amongst specialties who overlap in scope of practice and investigating avenues and barriers to collaboration.

Clinically, she focuses on complex reconstruction from head to toe and has a particular interest in head and neck and facial reconstruction for cancer and traumatic defects including facial nerve surgery.

Dr. Silva is the Quality and Patient Safety Improvement committee member for the division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and is a member of the new formed Department of Surgery Wellness Taskforce.

In 2020, Dr. Silva joined the faculty at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY.

Ruchi Singla, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the section of Allergy/Immunology. She is board certified in providing care to both pediatric and adult populations with allergic diseases and congenital immune deficiencies.

She received her undergraduate education at The Ohio State University and attended medical school at Northeast Ohio Medical University. She completed pediatrics residency at the University of Michigan and specialized in allergy/immunology at The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago.

She is actively involved in resident and medical student education and serves as the director of trainee elective rotations to provide exposure to the field of allergy/immunology. She is currently working to establish the first ever allergy/immunology fellowship training program at the University of Chicago.

She has special interest in removing penicillin allergy labels, which have been shown to lead to inferior treatments and increased healthcare costs and complications. She is dedicated to engaging multiple disciplines across the healthcare system to de-label such allergies and ultimately improve patient care. She is equally passionate about patient education and continually seeks ways to improve provider and patient communication.

Dr. Skondra, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the University of Chicago. Dr. Skondra is the Director of the J. Terry Ernest Ocular Imaging Center who focuses on the medical and surgical treatment of vitreoretinal diseases. She in an expert in delivering care for diabetic eye disease, age-related macular degeneration, retinal detachment, retinal vein occlusions, eye trauma, proliferative vitreoretinopathy and intraocular infections, with advanced training and expertise in surgical repair of complex diabetic retinal detachments.

As a physician-scientist, Dr. Skondra is dedicated to investigating methods to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies for retinal conditions with special focus on the role of microbiome in age related macular degeneration and retinal disorders. Throughout her career, Dr. Skondra has received several prestigious awards for her translational research on diabetic retinopathy, ocular angiogenesis and age related macular degeneration, including the Retina Society Raymond Margherio Award, Harvard /Alcon Clinical Scholar Award, AUPO Research Award, ARVO/Alcon Early Career Clinician Scientist Award, Joslin/Tonseth Research Fellowship Award and the Knights Templar Award. She trained at Weill Cornell Medical College (residency) and Harvard Medical School (postdoctoral research fellowship and vitreoretinal surgical fellowship).

Dr. Mark Slidell is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Section of Pediatric Surgery at The University of Chicago. He earned his medical degree from Brown University School of Medicine and went on to complete his general surgery residency at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. During his residency, Dr. Slidell completed a Master’s in Public Health at The Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He subsequently went on to complete a fellowship in Pediatric Surgery at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. Following that, Dr. Slidell joined the faculty at The University of Chicago Medicine.

Dr. Slidell has specific expertise in advanced minimally invasive surgery in children and newborns, and he applies these skills to the treatment of children with a broad range of diseases such as pediatric pancreatic, liver and bile duct diseases, aerodigestive diseases such as GERD, and to chest wall reconstruction for patients with pectus excavatum and carinatum deformities. Dr. Slidell frequently collaborates with other surgeons and clinicians across disciplines to enhance the care we can provide to pediatric patients. He is a co-founder of The Chest Wall Deformity Program at the University of Chicago, and the Pediatric Aerodigestive Center at The University of Chicago. Dr. Slidell also partners with adult general and transplant surgeons to offer total pancreatectomy with islet cell autotransplantation (TP-IAT) for children with genetic forms of chronic pancreatitis.

Dr. Slidell is also the Director of Pediatric Trauma at Comer Children’s Hospital, which is a high acuity Level One Pediatric Trauma Center. He is currently involved in conducting patient safety, quality improvement and clinical outcomes research to improve the quality of trauma care provided to injured children. He is also an active member of the Outcomes and Evidence Based Practice Committee, of the American Pediatric Surgical Association.

Dr. Slidell is a dedicated educator and mentor, and is passionate about educating and training the next generation of physicians, surgeons and scientists. He has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards throughout his academic career.

Dr. Stanford is an Assistant Professor in the Section of Emergency Medicine and the Director of ED HIV and STI Screening at the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE). Dr. Stanford received her Doctor of Medicine at Columbia University, followed by a residency in emergency medicine at Harvard MGH/Brigham & Women’s, and then a Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Stanford is active in social emergency medicine, chairing both state and national Social EM committees. She runs a robust ED HIV screening program and developed an innovative universal syphilis screening program. Her research focuses on the use of the emergency department visit to address the social determinants of health, including infectious diseases, sexual and reproductive health, homelessness, and human trafficking. Utilizing implementation science methods to inform program development, implementation, and expansion, Dr. Stanford hopes to improve early diagnosis and access to care through innovative ED screening and referral programs.

After completing her undergraduate degree at the University of California at Davis and her master’s in biomedical sciences at Tufts University, Dr. Stark obtained her medical degree from Georgetown University and completed both her pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship at Duke University. During her fellowship, she was awarded the Thrasher Research Foundation Early Career Award and completed a research fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

Dr. Stark has been an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Chicago since 2024. Her areas of research interest include screening methodologies and clinical outcomes of cytomegalovirus, particularly in preterm infants.

Dr. Stepan is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hand and upper extremity surgery. He has specific clinical expertise in treating in brachial plexus and complex nerve injuries. For patients with these life altering injuries, he has started a multi-disciplinary brachial plexus and complex nerve injury clinic at the University of Chicago.

His research interests include understanding how social determinants of health affect outcomes in hand surgery and creating a better understanding and treatment pathway for ballistic upper extremity trauma, specifically nerve injury. He also has partnered with Community Health to provide hand care and surgery for uninsured patients.

Prior to arriving in Chicago, Dr. Stepan graduated from St. John’s University where he played Division I soccer. He then earned an MD and Masters of Science in Clinical Investigation while completing his NIH TL1 Pre-doctoral grant at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. After medical school he completed an orthopedic surgery residency at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York followed by a hand and microvascular surgery fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Robert Steppacher, MD FACS and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Steppacher specializes in the medical, surgical, and endovascular management of aortic, carotid, and peripheral vascular disease. His interests also include treatment of venous disease and dialysis access. In addition to his clinical pursuits, Dr. Steppacher is also a Medical Director of Informatics at the University of Chicago. He has extensive expertise and interest in improving the electronic health record at UCM. Dr. Steppacher serves on numerous committees and taskforces at the local, regional, and national level. He is the director of arterial quality for the Mid-America Vascular Study Group and the chair of the medication optimization and EHR integration committees for the Society for Vascular Surgery. Dr. Steppacher research interests include using large data sets to foster improvement in vascular care and increasing the usability of the EHR.

In 2016, Dr. Steppacher joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.