Infectious Diseases Fellowship – Faculty

Carlos Acuña-Villaorduña, MD, Msc
email: carlos.acuna-villaorduna@state.ma.us

Dr. Carlos Acuña-Villaorduña is an infectious disease specialist with an interest in tuberculosis, tropical medicine, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases. He earned his medical degree at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and completed his training in internal medicine at Washington Hospital Center in DC and his infectious diseases fellowship at Boston University Medical Center.

After finishing medical school, he worked as a researcher at the Alexander Von Humboldt Tropical Medicine Institute in Lima, Peru, the largest tropical medicine institute in South America, where he successfully collaborated on several research projects in tuberculosis epidemiology and diagnostics. After moving to the United States to complete his medical training, he earned a master's degree in epidemiology at the University of London. He currently provides medical care for patients at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital and at the Tuberculosis Clinic of Boston.

Dr. Acuña-Villaorduña is interested in understanding the complex mechanisms leading to tuberculosis transmission in developing countries. His research investigates the ability of certain mycobacterial strains to survive in the environment and produce infection and disease.

Genève Allison, MD, MSc, FACP, FIDSA
email: geneve.allison@tuftsmedicine.org

Genève Allison (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Allison is board certified in Infectious Diseases and certified in Hyperbaric Medicine.

Dr. Allison graduated from Harvard College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School and has a Master's Degree in Clinical Translational Science from the School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University. Her internal medicine residency and chief residency were at Alameda County Medical Center, Oakland, CA. She completed an infectious diseases fellowship at Tufts Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

She has a broad clinical and research interest in infectious disease and sees patients in the multidisciplinary Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine Center as well as in the inpatient general ID consult service and ID wards. She is also trained in hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) medicine and advanced wound care. Dr. Allison runs the Wound Care/Hyperbaric ID fellow track, which offers advanced wound training, HBO certification, mentorship, and scholarly activities related to the interface of complex wound healing and infectious diseases. She is the Principal Investigator for several industry studies involving chronic wound healing. She is also the course director for the medical school fourth-year ID consult elective.

Dr. Allison is director emeritus of the Tufts Medical Center Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT) program (2009-2020). Dr. Allison is on two national committees for OPAT with IDSA and is co-author of IDSA’s OPAT guidelines and e-handbook. She is IDSA’s representative to the International Working Group of the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF), and is co-authoring the 2023 diabetic foot infection guidelines with this committee.

Dr. Allison has been awarded “Boston’s Best Doctor” by her peers for more than 10 years. In 2018, Dr. Allison was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha honor medical society for her teaching, research, and clinical care achievements. She is a certified teacher of the “SMART Course” – Stress Management and Resiliency Training, from Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and leads evidence-based small-group stress management courses tailored to physicians and scientists at Tufts Medicine.

Majd Alsoubani, MD
email: majd.alsoubani@tuftsmedicine.org

Dr. Alsoubani is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Alsoubani received her medical degree from the University of Jordan. She then completed her Internal Medicine residency and clinical and transplant fellowships in Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center. During her fellowship, she also earned a master’s degree in Clinical and Translational Science at Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Dr. Alsoubani’s clinical interests include antimicrobial stewardship, diagnostic stewardship, infections in immunocompromised hosts and general infectious diseases. Her research interests focus on antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship in immunocompromised hosts.

Ana Maria Bensaci, MD
email: anamaria.bensaci@tuftsmedicine.org

Ana Maria Bensaci is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She also works at MelroseWakefield Hospital and serves as the Hospital Epidemiologist and Infection Control officer.

Dr. Bensaci received her medical degree from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota. She completed her internal medicine residency at Caritas Carney Hospital, Dorchester, MA. She completed her infectious diseases fellowship at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA. She completed a Master of Public Health at Tufts University.

Dr. Bensaci’s clinical interests include Infection Control and Stewardship. She is passionate about providing excellent patient care in the community setting and has a special interest in general infectious diseases and travel medicine.

José Antonio Caro, MD
email: Jose.Caro@tuftsmedicine.org

José Caro is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Caro is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Caro graduated from UNAM in Mexico City and did his Infectious Disease fellowship at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Caro's clinical interests include HIV, PrEP, Human Papillomavirus infection and prevention, and general infectious diseases. He conducts a weekly clinical session on Human Papillomavirus anal cancer screening for at-risk individuals, including MSM, people living with HIV, and other immunocompromised patients. He provides counseling on HPV infection and performs high-resolution anoscopy for diagnosis and treatment of HPV-related dysplasia. Dr. Caro is also a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Tufts Physicians Organization and Assistant Dean for Multicultural Affairs at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Daniel A. Caroff, MD, MPH
daniel.caroff@lahey.org

Daniel A. Caroff, MD, MPH, is a staff physician in Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiologist at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, MA, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is also a Research Associate in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dan received his BA and MD from the University of Pennsylvania. He did his internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and spent one year as a staff physician in the medical intensive care unit at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia. He completed his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital and received his MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard University. He spent 3 years as a senior research fellow at the Department of Population Medicine of Harvard Medical School studying the epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections. His clinical interests include general ID, diagnostic stewardship, and infection control/prevention.

Jennifer K. Chow, MD, MS, FIDSA, FAST
email: jennifer.chow@tuftsmedicine.org

Jennifer Chow is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Chow is board certified in infectious diseases.

Dr. Chow graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. She then moved to Boston where she completed her residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center followed by an infectious diseases fellowship at Tufts Medical Center. During that time, she earned her M.S. in Clinical & Translational Science at the School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences of Tufts University.

Dr. Chow graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. She then moved to Boston where she completed her residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center followed by an infectious diseases fellowship at Tufts Medical Center. During that time, she earned her M.S. in Clinical & Translational Science at the School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences of Tufts University.

Her research focuses on the prevention, early detection and management of infections in non-HIV immunocompromised hosts. As junior faculty, she was awarded a K23 NIH Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award to study the complex relationship between host iron metabolism and infections in orthotopic liver transplant (OLT) recipients under the mentorship of Dr. David Snydman and Dr. Tomas Ganz (of UCLA). She is a member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences of Tufts University and is a member of their Clinical and Translational Science Program Advisory Committee. She has mentored multiple ID fellows through this degree program in their thesis work. Other areas of research interest include risk factors and empiric treatment of candidemia in the ICU, immunological risk factors for infection in OLT and orthotopic heart transplant recipients, and prevention and treatment of CMV disease. Her clinical expertise concentrates on transplant infectious diseases (in both solid organ and stem cell transplant recipients). She is a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) and cardiac transplant infectious diseases team member and develops ID protocols relating to this patient population. At the national level, she is involved in the ID Community of Practice of the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and the ID Professional Community of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT).

Shira I. Doron, MD, MS, FIDSA, FSHEA
email: shira.doron@tuftsmedicine.org

Shira Doron is the Chief Infection Control Officer for the Tufts Medicine Health System and the Hospital Epidemiologist for Tufts Medical Center.  She is a Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Doron is board certified in infectious diseases.

Dr. Doron is a George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences graduate. She completed an internship in internal medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and a residency at the George Washington University Hospital. She completed her fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, along with a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research at the School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University. Her research interests include antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship and hospital-acquired infections.

Dr. Doron is known locally and nationally for her antimicrobial stewardship and infection control expertise. She has held contracts with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to support healthcare facilities throughout the region in their efforts to improve their stewardship and infection control initiatives. She is chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Centers of Excellence subcommittee. Dr. Doron is an expert in COVID-19 with a strong media presence. She sits on the Massachusetts Governor’s medical advisory board and has authored numerous op-eds related to COVID-19 policy.

Kap Sum Foong, MD
Email: kapsum.foong@tuftsmedicine.org

Dr. Foong is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Foong received his medical degree from Universiti Sains Malaysia School of Medical Sciences. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Crozer Chester Medical Center, PA, followed by an Infectious Diseases fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine / Barnes-Jewish Hospital, MO. Prior to joining Tufts Medical Center, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria and the chair for the Antimicrobial Stewardship program for OSF HealthCare, an integrated 14-hospital healthcare system from 2019-2022.

Dr. Foong specializes in antimicrobial stewardship, diagnostic stewardship, infection control/prevention, and clinical research. His research interests include antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship, focusing on penicillin allergy in long-term care populations. IDSA awarded him the 2023-24 Leaders in Epidemiology, Antimicrobial Stewardship, and Public Health (LEAP) Fellowship. He attends an inpatient general Infectious Disease consultation service and inpatient Infectious Diseases ward service and teaches fellows, residents, and students.

J. Morgan Freiman, MD, MSc
email: julie.m.freiman@lahey.org

J. Morgan Freiman is a Staff Physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health - Lahey Hospital & Medical Center (LHMC). Dr. Freiman is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Freiman completed her residency and fellowship training at Boston University Medical Center in 2015. The following year, she completed a postdoctoral Master's program in Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health. She joined the staff at LHMC in 2019 as the Medical Director for the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program.

Dr. Freiman is interested in Antibiotic-Resistant Infections, Antibiotic Use and Resistance, Hepatitis C Virus, HIV/AIDS, and general infectious diseases.

Yoav Golan, MD, MS, FIDSA
email: ygolan@tuftsmedicalcenter.org

Yoav Golan is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Dr. Golan received his M.D. from the Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School in Israel. He was trained in Internal Medicine at Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv University and Infectious diseases at Tufts New England Medical Center. His field of professional expertise includes healthcare-acquired infections, antibiotic resistance and its impact on patient outcomes, patient risk stratification, and C. difficile infections. He is also trained in clinical research with a focus on epidemiology, statistics, and modeling. In addition, he completed a drug-development course. He has completed multiple research projects as a PI and co-PI. Dr. Golan has been capable of producing large collaborations to explore various issues related to healthcare-related infections.

Over the past 15 years, Dr. Golan has been involved in several antibiotics' pre-clinical and clinical development. Over the past 12 years, he became particularly interested in infections by C. difficile. He has been involved in multiple clinical trials as a PI- most notably- the trials that led to the approval of fidaxomicin for the treatment of C. difficile infections. Dr. Golan has a comprehensive understanding of clinical research methodologies and, as a clinician and researcher, he is familiar first-hand with the unmet need. In summary, he has the required knowledge of the field, the ability to conduct large research projects through collaborations, and a proven track record in drug development.

Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD, MPH & TM, CTropMed
email: Jeffrey.griffiths@tufts.edu

Attending Physician; Professor of Public Health and of Medicine, Departments of Public Health and Community Medicine, and Medicine; Tufts University School of Medicine. Adjunct Professor of Environmental Engineering, Veterinary Medicine, and Nutrition, Tufts University. Former Chair, US EPA Drinking Water Committee, Science Advisory Board of US EPA

Clinical Focus Areas: Infectious diseases, Cryptosporidiosis and other diarrheal diseases, tropical and parasitic diseases.

Research Focus Areas: Environmental determinants of health, nutrition of women and children, and the prevention of zoonotic spillover events in Africa and Southeast Asia. Treatment of COVID-19.

Steven Y. Hong, MD, MPH, MAR
email: Steven.Hong@tuftsmedicine.org

Steven Y. Hong is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. His primary appointment is as a Medical Officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, where he is in the HIV Care & Treatment Branch within the Division of Global HIV and TB. In this capacity, he works within the Viral Load Suppression Team to optimize the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-limited settings. He also serves as the subject matter expert for HIV Care & Treatment in Zambia, India, and West Africa. 

Dr. Hong is board certified in Infectious Diseases. Dr. Hong graduated with a B.S. and M.P.H. from Columbia University, an M.D. from New York Medical College and an M.A.R. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

From 2021-2023, Dr. Hong served as the CDC Country Director in Botswana, where he established a National Mentorship Program and worked to strengthen patient-centered service in public health facilities for sustainable HIV epidemic control. From 2018-2021, Dr. Hong served as CDC's Clinical Services Branch Chief in Namibia, where he led efforts in HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment, Maternal and Child Health, Laboratory, and Health Systems and Sustainability. Dr. Hong also served as CDC Namibia’s Acting Country Director in 2021 and as the CDC and US Embassy Lead for the COVID-19 response.

During his time at Tufts, Dr. Hong led the establishment of a strong research collaboration between Tufts University School of Medicine, the University of Namibia School of Medicine and the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services. His research in Namibia focused on achieving the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets to end HIV. He conducted studies on the optimization of adherence and retention of patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART), assessment and prevention of HIV drug resistance (HIVDR), implementation of community adherence clubs, increasing HIV testing for men, assessment of food insecurity among ART patients, and decreasing hazardous alcohol consumption among ART patients. Dr. Hong also worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization in their HIVDR assessment and prevention strategy in resource-limited settings. In this context he helped to implement Early Warning Indicators of HIVDR and implemented surveys of HIVDR in Namibia and other resource-limited settings. He has also worked as Deputy Chief of the Party, Clinical Director of the Society for Family Health in Namibia, where he led the Key Population Program, spearheading the establishment of pre-exposure prophylaxis, HIV self-testing, and index-case testing.
 

Linden Hu, MD, FIDSA
email: linden.hu@tufts.edu

Linden Hu is the Elaine and Paul Chervinsky Professor of Immunology, Professor of Medicine and Microbiology, and Vice Dean for Research at Tufts University School of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Hu is board certified in infectious diseases.

Dr. Hu graduated from Brown University with both an A.B. and an M.D. degree. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Tufts New England Medical Center. He stayed on as faculty in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, where he is involved in research of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. He is involved in both clinical and bench research and has been awarded over 20 NIH-sponsored grants to date in his career. He is a former Vice-Chairman for Faculty Development in the Department of Medicine at Tufts Medical Center. He has served on numerous NIH study sections and committees and is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America and was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Michael R. Jordan, MD, MPH
email: michael.jordan@tufts.edu

Dr. Michael R. Jordan is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center and is the Executive Medical Director of Tufts University’s Occupational Health Services and the University Infection Control Director. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and is board certified in Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Jordan is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. He is an internationally recognized expert in HIV drug resistance (HIVDR), public health surveillance epidemiology, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) program evaluation and monitoring. A pioneer in transdisciplinary research and its methods, he collaborates widely with colleagues across the University and globally.  Dr Jordan is the founding co-director of Tufts University’s Collaboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases and Response (CEIDR) which develops integrative and transdisciplinary research efforts to study emerging pathogens and design equitable responses to improve health and social outcomes and mitigate the negative impacts of infectious diseases.

Dr. Jordan is the Director of Tufts Medical Center/Tufts University COVID-19 Biorepository and Comprehensive COVID-19 Database, which is designed to accelerate research efforts in basic pathophysiology, diagnostics, vaccines, treatments, and clinical determinants and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Dr. Jordan is the author of over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts, numerous World Health Organization (WHO) publications, and scientific abstracts. He has recently been appointed to the Scientific Committee of the International Workshop on HIV Drug Resistance and Treatment Strategies and represents Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University on the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR) Accelerator Committee and the Greater Boston COVID Recovery Cohort (BCRC).

Since 2005, Dr. Jordan has worked with WHO supporting Ministries of Health from over 60 countries to develop and implement HIVDR surveillance, monitoring, and response strategies and to develop laboratory quality assurance/quality control and capacity for viral load and HIVDR testing.

Laura Kogelman, MD, FIDSA
email: laura.kogelman@tuftsmedicine.org

Laura Kogelman is Director of the Traveler’s Health Service, Director of the Respiratory Infection Clinic and Medical Director for the Tufts Collegiate Covid Partnership. She is also the Director of Outpatient Services for the Department of Medicine. She is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Kogelman is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Kogelman has been involved in caring for patients living with HIV since completing fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital Combined Infectious Disease fellowship program, with the second year focused specifically and exclusively on HIV. She brought that expertise to Tufts Medical Center when she joined the division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease in 2002. She has established a busy HIV practice and became the Director of the Infectious Disease clinic in 2008. Our clinic provides services to more than 600 people living with HIV in the greater Boston area. In addition, she runs the Post-Exposure Prophylaxis program at Tufts, working closely with the ID Fellows, Employee Health and the Emergency Room to care for both Employees and Non-Employees who have had potential exposure to HIV. This care includes victims of sexual assault and those with high risk sexual exposure histories. As an expansion of this, she also provides Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis services to at-risk individuals. Her other major area of clinical interest is Travel and Tropical Medicine. She has been director of the Traveler’s Health Service at Tufts since 2004 and completed additional training through the Gorgas course, based in Lima, Peru. She supervises all the fellows as they rotate through the travel clinic.

In the midst of the Covid epidemic, she took on the role of medical director overseeing Covid testing for students at the Tufts Boston Campus, Emerson College and Berklee College of Music as part of the Tufts Covid Collegiate Partnership. She also developed the Respiratory Infection Clinic where care is provided to these students as well as TMC patients with Covid infection or with symptoms suggestive of Covid.

In addition to her clinical duties, she is responsible for multiple didactic lectures for medical students, residents, and fellows at Tufts and has lectured on HIV and Travel Medicine at multiple institutions throughout Massachusetts. She has been a site PI for several multinational multi-center HIV clinical trials and has collaborated on several clinical HIV and Travel Medicine studies, including NIH- and NIMH-funded projects.

Rakhi Kohli, MD, MS
email: Rakhi.Kohli@tuftsmedicine.org

Rakhi Kohli is attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.  Dr. Kohli is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Kohli attended Cornell University for her undergraduate studies and the University of Rochester for medical school.  She completed her internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, and her infectious disease fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. During her fellowship, she studied mortality trends in HIV-infected drug users in the early HAART era and earned a Master of Science with a focus in Clinical Research Methods. 

In 2005 Dr. Kohli joined the faculty at Tufts Medical Center. Her current research focuses on metabolic complications of antiretroviral therapy.  Dr. Kohli has published on the effect of metformin on insulin resistance and abdominal fat in HIV-infected persons and received an NIH K23 award to examine insulin resistance and body fat changes in HIV-infected persons.  Her clinical interests include general infectious diseases, transplant infectious diseases, and HIV.  Dr. Kohli regularly attends on the transplant infectious disease consult service and maintains an outpatient continuity clinic where she follows patients with chronic infections.  She co-directs the 2n year medical school Microbiology and Infectious Disease Course at Tufts University School of Medicine. 

Daniel P. McQuillen, MD, FIDSA, FACP
email: Daniel.p.mcquillen@lahey.org

Daniel McQuillen is a Senior Staff Physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health - Lahey Hospital & Medical Center (LHMC) and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. McQuillen is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. McQuillen completed his residency at The Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals in 1988 and his Infectious Diseases Fellowship at The Maxwell Finland Laboratory for Infectious Diseases, Boston University School of Medicine in 1991. He is a former Chair of the Clinical Affairs Committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA, 2008-2011), past member (2012-2016) and IDSA Chair of the IDWeek Program Committee (2016) and current IDSA President. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Infectious Disease Society. He has been active in IDSA efforts to document and advocate for the value of Infectious Disease physicians on a national level.

He directs the Solid Organ Transplant Infectious Disease service at LHMC and is interested in antimicrobial stewardship, tick-associated infections, management of Clostridioides difficile infection, HIV medicine, and general infectious disease.

Babar Memon, MD, MSc
email: babar.memon@mass.gov

Dr. Babar Memon is currently an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and serves as the Chair of Infection Prevention and Control at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. He has been appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine st Tufts University School of Medicine and is board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Memon earned his medical degree at Dow Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan, and obtained a Master's Degree in Infection Control from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He completed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at Carney Hospital in Boston, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at Boston University Medical Center.

Dr. Memon’s clinical interests include general infectious diseases and working with underserved patient populations, with a primary focus on infection control. As chair of Infection Prevention and Control at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, he led the development of institutional policies and guidelines in hospital infection control during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also participated in statewide committees to manage the detection and spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the hospital setting.

Elisabeth (Elise) Merchant, MD
email: Elisabeth.Merchant@tuftsmedicine.org

Elisabeth (Elise) Merchant, MD is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine and an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is part of the leadership team for the Infectious Diseases fellowship and core faculty for the Internal Medicine residency programs. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease.

Dr. Merchant grew up in Montana and attended Brown University, where she double-concentrated in Anthropology and Biology. She then attended Tufts University School of Medicine and stayed on at Tufts Medical Center for her Internal Medicine residency, including an additional year spent as a chief resident. She completed her Infectious Diseases fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center prior to returning to Tufts as a faculty member in 2021.

Her clinical practice involves general Infectious Diseases in inpatient and outpatient care, with a focus on sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Additionally, Dr. Merchant is involved in medical education as a faculty coach to medical students and a content director for the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases first-year medical school course. Her research interests are primarily in medical education, including projects on gamification in the classroom and improving antibiotic counseling by providers. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her cats, reading fantasy novels and gaming.
 

E. Zachary Nussbaum, MD
email: eliezer.nussbaum@tuftsmedicine.org

E. Zachary Nussbaum is an attending physician in the division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease at Tufts Medical Center and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is also an assistant laboratory director of the clinical microbiology lab and an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Dr. Nussbaum graduated from Boston University School of Medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital. He subsequently completed a fellowship in infectious disease at the joint Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital fellowship program. He completed an additional fellowship in medical microbiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Nussbaum’s clinical interests include medical microbiology, diagnostic stewardship, infections in immunocompromised hosts, general infectious diseases and medical education. He has helped organize educational curricula related to transplant infectious diseases and clinical microbiology. 

Whitney Perry, MD, MS
email: whitney.perry@tuftsmedicine.org

Whitney Perry is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Perry received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. She then completed her Internal Medicine residency and clinical and research fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center. During her fellowship, she also earned a master’s degree in Clinical and Translational Science at Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

She joined the faculty at Tufts Medical Center in 2020 and was awarded a Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) K12 career development award. She is interested in infections in the immunocompromised host and her current research focuses on sex-based differences in immune response following solid organ transplantation. She attends on the inpatient transplant and general ID consult services at TMC.

Husain Poonawala, MBBS, MPH
email: husain.poonawala1@tuftsmedicine.org

Husain Poonawala is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease at Tufts Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is also the Assistant Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomic Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Poonawala is board-certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and clinical microbiology.

Dr. Poonawala is a graduate of Kasturba Medical College in Mangalore, India. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, and a fellowship in medical microbiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven. Following his training, he returned to India to do research in tuberculosis. Prior to joining Tufts Medical Center, he worked as an internal medicine hospitalist at Lowell General Hospital, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He has a master’s in public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Poonawala joined Tufts Medical Center in 2022 as an infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist. His clinical and research interests are in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria. In 2023, he was awarded a K12 career development award through the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute to develop an assay to design drug combination therapy for the multidrug-resistant pathogen Mycobacterium abscessus.

Debra D. Poutsiaka, MD, PhD, FIDSA
email: debra.poutsiaka@tuftsmedicine.org

Debra Poutsiaka was previously Interim Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She previously held the position of Vice Chief for Clinical Affairs. She is currently an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center and a Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is a former program director of the infectious disease fellowship program of Tufts Medical Center. She is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Dr. Poutsiaka received her medical degree and Doctor of Philosophy (microbiology) from Boston University School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency at the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, followed by her fellowship in infectious diseases at Tufts New England Medical Center. Dr. Poutsiaka is a American College of Physicians and the Massachusetts Infectious Disease Society member and a Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America.

Dr. Poutsiaka’s clinical interests center on general infectious diseases and the care of immunocompromised patients with infections. She serves as an attending physician on the transplant infectious disease consultation services, and the infectious disease internal medicine ward service of Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Poutsiaka’s scholarly interests include infections in immunocompromised patients, the relationship between gut microbiota and health and disease, and COVID-19 infections in immunocompromised patients.

Andrew M. Strand, MD
email: Andrew.Strand@tuftsmedicine.org

Andrew Strand is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease.

Dr. Strand graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and fellowship training in infectious disease at Duke University Medical Center. While at Duke, he specialized in the care of patients with solid organ transplants and hematologic transplants. His research interests included fungal prophylaxis in the hematologic malignancy population and novel viral therapy for CMV disease in immunocompromised patients.

He is a clinician educator who works on ID wards, general and transplant consult services, and the outpatient clinic. He is the director of the Heart ID and Abdominal Transplant ID programs. He is passionate about excellent patient care and training the next generation of physicians. 

Ramnath Subbaraman, MD, MSc, FACP
email: ramnath.subbaraman@tufts.edu

Ramnath Subbaraman is an attending physician in the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Subbaraman is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Subbaraman is a graduate of the University of Chicago (BA in Social Anthropology), Yale University School of Medicine (MD), the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (MSc in Epidemiology), the University of California at San Francisco Internal Medicine Residency, and the Massachusetts General Hospital / Brigham and Women’s Hospital Infectious Diseases Fellowship. Before joining the Tufts University School of Medicine, he was an associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

His research focuses on strategies to improve the delivery of tuberculosis (TB) care in India, which has the world’s largest TB epidemic. Specifically, his work focuses on improving linkage to treatment and patient retention across stages of the TB cascade of care. He conducts research on digital adherence technologies that have the potential to improve medication adherence in TB patients. He also conducts research on social determinants of health in urban slums in India, in collaboration with colleagues at PUKAR, an innovative research collective in Mumbai.

Zoe Weiss, MD
email: zoe.weiss@tuftsmedicine.org

Zoe Freeman Weiss is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is also an Assistant Professor and attending physician in the department of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and serves as the Assistant Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology.

Dr Weiss received her medical degree from Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, where she also completed her internal medicine residency. She completed her infectious disease fellowship, focusing on transplant infectious diseases, at Mass General Brigham, Boston, MA. She then completed a medical microbiology fellowship at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, Boston, MA.

Dr. Weiss’s clinical interests focus on the care of transplants and other immunocompromised patients. She attends primarily on the transplant infectious diseases consultation services. She also provides clinical consultation within the microbiology lab and assists in the implementation and validation of new diagnostic tests. Her scholarly interests include the diagnosis of fungal infections in immunocompromised patients and the clinical applications of novel rapid diagnostic testing, such as Next-Generation-Sequencing and mass spectrometry. Dr. Weiss was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (ΑΩΑ). Dr. Weiss is an advisor to Anvil Diagnostics and a reviewer for the CLSI’s Antifungal subcommittee.

Kenneth Wener, MD
email: Kenneth.m.wener@lahey.org

Dr. Wener is Chairman of the Division of Infectious Diseases of Lahey Health and Senior Staff Physician at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Wener is board certified in infectious diseases.

He completed medical school at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology School of Medicine. Afterward, he completed Internal Medicine residency training at Case Western Reserve University Hospitals of Cleveland and subsequent fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Wener joined the Department of Infectious Diseases at Lahey in 2006 and has served as the Associate Hospital Epidemiologist and Co-chair of the Antimicrobial Subcommittee of Pharmacy and Therapeutics.

He is the site coordinator for infectious disease trainee education at Lahey. His interests include infections of the critically ill and the prevention of healthcare-associated infections.