Associate Junior Faculty Scholars

Dr. Abid Khan joined The University of Chicago Medicine in 2022 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery and an Acute Care Surgeon at UChicago Medicine’s Level 1 Trauma Center.

Dr. Khan earned his Medical Doctorate from Wayne State University School of Medicine. Following his medical education, he completed a Residency in General Surgery at the John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois along with a Fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois.

Before joining UChicago Medicine, Dr. Khan served as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Associate Program Director and Residency Site Director at the University of Colorado General Surgery Residency Program. As a clinician, he has practiced at UCHealth Memorial Hospital, UCHealth Grandview Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs.

Dr. Khan’s commitment to excellence is recognized by his peers and the medical community as he was honored with the Top Doctor Colorado Springs award by Colorado Springs Magazine in 2021.

Dr. Khan’s scholarly contributions include many authored or co-authored publications on various topics related to trauma and acute care surgery. Some of his notable publications include “Indicators of Survival and Favorable Functional Outcomes After Decompressive Craniectomy: A Multi-Institutional Retrospective Study,” “Clearing the Cervical Spine in Patients with Distracting Injuries: An AAST Multi-Institutional Trial,” and “Utilization of Percentage of Predicted Forced Vital Capacity to Stratify Rib Fracture Patients: An Updated Clinical Practice Guideline.”

In addition to his academic and clinical pursuits, Dr. Khan is an enthusiastic educator. He has delivered numerous presentations as part of grand rounds at various medical institutions, including Rush University Medical Center, Loyola University Medical Center, UCHealth Memorial Hospital, and UChicago Medicine. He has also been invited to speak at conferences and workshops on topics such as acute pancreatitis, surgical emergencies, and traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Kiragu is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Internal Medicine. He received his medical training at Northwestern University and was a medicine resident and chief resident at The University of Chicago at NorthShore. He provides comprehensive primary care to adults and is passionate about preventive health. He currently sits on the committee of the Kidney Transplant Program and provides both evaluation and care for the transplant candidates. He is also interested in systems improvements by identifying factors predictive of poor outcomes among kidney transplant patients. Dr. Kiragu is also involved in training medicine residents and medical students.

In 2015, Dr. Kiragu joined Wilson Medical Group in Wilson, NC.

Ram Krishnamoorthi, MD, MPH, is an Internal Medicine physician in the Comprehensive Care Program at the University of Chicago. His clinical work focuses on care for people with complex medical and social problems and behavioral health in primary care. His academic interests include medical education, health services research, and health policy. As Illinois state director for Doctors for America, a non-profit organization of physicians who advocate for improved access to quality health care for all Americans, he has given talks and written on the topic of health care reform. At the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, he co-directs a course for medical students on the American health care system.

Yousuf Kyeso is a clinical transplant nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. He earned his medical degree from the University of Jordan in 2011 then completed his internal medicine residency at Rochester Regional Health/University of Rochester in 2017. Soon after, he joined the Johns Hopkins Hospital where he finished his fellowship training in nephrology and kidney transplantation. His academic work has been focused on studying noninvasive methods of detecting kidney transplant rejection and predicting long-term survival. His clinical interests include evaluation of multi organ transplant recipients and management of incompatible kidney transplant recipients. 

He has presented his research at several national meetings including the American Society of Nephrology, the National Kidney Foundation, and the American Transplant Congress. He has published several peer reviewed papers . Dr. Kyeso is heavily involved in the teaching program of his fellows at the University of Chicago and he was awarded by his department for his excellence in education.

Dr. James LaBelle is an Associate Professor Pediatrics in the Section of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Stem Cell Transplantation. Dr. LaBelle received his undergraduate degree from Lawrence University and completed a combined MD/PhD program at the Medical College of Wisconsin where his graduate work centered on anti-tumor immunology and stem cell transplantation. He completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at the Boston Children’s Hospital/Boston Medical Center combined residency program followed by pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship and post-doctoral training in cancer chemical biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. LaBelle’s research focuses on manipulating the immune system using peptide-based therapeutics against T cell-intrinsic proteins and small molecules targeting the BCL-2 family of apoptotic proteins with a particular focus on reactivating anti-tumor immune responses. He also works closely with nanotechnologists and chemical engineers at the Institute of Molecular Engineering to overcome physiological barriers to efficient and clinically effective intracellular delivery of peptide therapeutics. In addition to his efforts in the laboratory, Dr. LaBelle is the Director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Program at Comer Children’s Hospital where he focuses on the treatment of graft-versus-host disease and works collaboratively with scientists, clinicians, and patients to make inroads in treating children suffering from refractory malignancies.

Dr. Landon Mawdsley’s research is focused on improving care, specifically reducing the risk of healthcare-associated infection and optimizing antimicrobial utilization. She seeks to study interventions to reduce risk for HAI including use of the novel electronic hand hygiene monitoring system to evaluate the impact of direct, individual-level feedback on hand hygiene behavior compared with currently employed aggregate feedback based on limited human observations as a strategy to improve compliance with hand hygiene policies and prevent HAI. Additional opportunities exist in contributing to the rational and appropriate prescription of antimicrobials.

2013 Pilot Grant Project: Quality Improvement vs. Research: Controversies and Confusion

Dr. Ricardo Lastra is an Assistant Professor of Pathology. He completed with medical training at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and subsequently completed his residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Pennsylvania Hospital. This was followed by Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology Fellowships, both at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Advanced Specialty Training Program in Gynecologic Pathology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr. Lastra joined the University of Chicago in 2015, and participates in the gynecologic pathology and cytopathology services in the Department of Pathology. He is actively involved in medical student, resident, and fellow education, and is currently section co-coordinator for the Obstetrics and Gynecology Section of the Clinical Pathophysiology and Therapeutics Course at the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago. Additionally, he is the program director for the recently approved Gynecologic and Breast Pathology Fellowship at the University of Chicago.

His primary research interest is in the fields of gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and he has focused on evaluating the use of distinctive morphologic, immunohistochemical, and molecular features in the characterization of gynecologic tract lesions.

Dr. Michelle Lemelman is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a renowned expert in pediatric endocrinology. As an outstanding pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Lemelman emphasizes the importance of the doctor-patient relationship in providing optimal care for pediatric patients. Her nomination as a Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute Associate Junior Faculty Scholar reflects her dedication to advancing research and studying the impact of effective physician-patient communication on clinical care. Dr. Lemelman’s leadership and expertise make her a deserving candidate for this prestigious recognition.

Dr. Leung brings a unique global health perspective, informed by her work on co-creation methods and adolescent mental health interventions in Ghana. Her expertise in human-centered design and implementation science enables her to develop solutions tailored to the needs of underserved populations. Dr. Leung’s focus on reciprocal innovation—adapting strategies from resource-limited settings to high-resource settings—aligns with the center’s mission to address systemic inequities in healthcare delivery.

Ali Mansour, MD, is a highly skilled neurologist specializing in neurocritical care, excelling at quickly diagnosing and treating life-threatening brain conditions. Dr. Mansour delivers comprehensive care to patients with traumatic brain injury (blunt and penetrating), ischemic (low blood flow) and hemorrhagic (blood vessel rupture) stroke, brain aneurysms and vascular malformations, cerebral edema, status epilepticus and neuroprognostication following cardiac arrest.

As a physician-scientist, Dr. Mansour uses research to improve care for patients with neurological disorders. His work has been published in several widely respected, peer-reviewed journals, including Neurocritical Care, Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Nature Scientific Reports, PLoS One and Brain.

Currently, Dr. Mansour’s research emphasizes the management and prognosis following penetrating brain injury (gunshot wounds to the head). He is also evaluating the role of neuroimaging in prognosis following neurocritical illness and cardiac arrest. Dr. Mansour is also interested in neuroinformatics; he and a multidisciplinary team of experts aim to optimize data capture and analysis in neurological and neurocritical illness to improve patient outcomes.