Fellows

Yulei Cao

• Residency: University of Pennsylvania
• Research/clinical interests: Yulei is  interested in interstitial lung diseases and quality improvement.
• I'm most excited about: Meeting great mentors and co-fellows
• What I'm looking forward to most about Seattle: The opportunity to do more outdoor rock climbing and visit the North Cascades National Park.

Austin Chen

• Residency: University of Washington
• Chief resident: University of Washington
• Research/clinical interests: Austin is interested in bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, lung transplant, and end of life care. He is also interested in further characterizing/phenotyping diseases to understand why some patients respond to certain treatments and others do not.
• I'm most excited about: Getting to spend more time learning from the people who inspired me to pursue a pulm-crit fellowship!
• What I'm looking forward to most about Seattle: Despite growing up here and then coming back for residency, there's still so much to explore, including all the hobbies that are available around here. I'm hoping to get into clamming and fishing (and cooking)!

Mary Gwin

• Residency: University of Texas, Southwestern
• Research/clinical interests: Mary is interested in lung cancer, precision medicine, and pulmonary toxicities of cancer therapy.
• I'm most excited about: Not having to choose between rigorous clinical training and amazing lung cancer research opportunities at Fred Hutch. Our teaching hospitals are the highest-level referral centers for the whole WWAMI region; we get broad exposure to all the pulmonary subspecialties, and the faculty are so passionate about medical education. Their enthusiasm is infectious (and is what convinced me as a UW med student to pursue PCCM, rather than my original Plan A of becoming an oncologist!)
• What I'm looking forward to most about Seattle: Being reunited with Zoka coffee and Portage Bay Cafe brunch; taking long walks at the Arboretum and around Lake Union; (hopefully) having more success with my home vegetable gardening efforts than I did in Texas; and, living near my family again.

Celia Haering

• Residency: University of Washington
• Chief resident: University of Washington
• Research/clinical interests: Celia is interested in innovative medical education models that create opportunities for training in diverse settings. Much of my prior work has focused on rural residency program development and thinking about how to sustain a workforce in underserved communities. Clinically, she is interested in providing high-quality care across a range of resource settings.
• I'm most excited about: Being a fellow at UW for access to the program's strength in medical education work and broad regional connections. The program's emphasis on mentorship and its partnerships with community and rural sites align closely with my interest in clinician-educator work and in developing sustainable training pathways that build partnerships beyond the academic center.
• What I'm looking forward to most about Seattle: To be staying in Seattle for access to mountains, the ocean, and my community here.

Amanda Kusztos

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research/clinical interests: Amanda has focused on cardiac arrest and resuscitation sciences and has a special interest in the care of rural communities.

Hannah Steinberg

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research/clinical interests: Hannah did her MD/PhD focused on diagnostic testing for infections and hopes to continue with biomarker discovery and minimally invasive diagnostic assay development.
• I'm most excited about: Learning from the program's faculty and caring for the many unique patients in UW's system.
• What I'm looking forward to most about Seattle: The year-round greenery and the endless hiking opportunities.

Rigo Acevedo

• Residency: University of California - Davis
• Research interests: ECMO, lung transplant, and medical education, including integrating point-of-care ultrasound into clinical training
• I’m most excited about: returning to my home community, amongst familiar faces composed of world-class clinicians and educators
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: spending the holidays with family, rock climbing, hiking, basking in the cloudy overcast, and relaxing in the shade of the evergreen trees

Will Brandon

• Residency: UT Southwestern 
• Research interests: health equity across pulmonary medicine, cystic fibrosis and lung transplant
• I’m most excited about: so much - moving to Seattle, being close to nature again, and getting to work with such wonderful fellows and faculty while learning the specialty I'm most passionate about
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: exploring all the nature that Seattle has to offer nearby. I've been missing it quite a bit since I left Colorado

Jason Castaneda

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research interests: I am interested in health services research and am passionate about promoting equitable healthcare delivery.
• I’m most excited about: getting to know my awesome co-fellows and for the broad clinical exposure I’ll have in rotating across UW’s three training hospitals
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: Paddleboarding on the Puget Sound, biking, attending summer concerts, and cooking for friends

Connor Fling

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research interests: Health disparities and critical care outcomes
• I’m most excited about: getting back into the clinical space after taking a year to focus on medical education as a chief. Specifically, I am really excited to expand my knowledge of critical care medicine in units like the TICU, SICU and NCCS where I can gain exposure to pathologies that I have had limited experience with. I am also really looking forward to continuing to work with many folks in the division who I have worked with over the years and look up to tremendously!
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: more of the same! As a native Seattleite, I am biased, but this place is really well suited for all of my hobbies. Mountain biking, skiing, gardening, golfing, and beach days with the dogs. I also recently welcomed my daughter into this world and very much look forward to getting her involved in all of these activities in the coming years.

Hasan Nadeem

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research interests: health policy and health economics, particularly how payment and delivery system reforms influence provider behavior and health equity. I'm hoping to study the real-world impacts of policies on healthcare quality, cost, and access—especially for historically underserved populations. More broadly, I’m drawn to questions that sit at the intersection of policy design, clinical practice, and social determinants of health
• I’m most excited about: building relationships with mentors whose work I've long admired. Getting to learn pulmonary and critical care from clinicians who push the frontier of the field forward is an incredible opportunity
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: Staying Active! Getting to stay in Seattle for fellowship will allow me to take my landscape-photography game to the next level! Also I'll be trying to get more involved in Seattle's maritime activities, so outside of work you may catch me exploring tidepools or learning squidding/crabbing

Vanessa Woodard

• Residency: Virginia Mason
• Research interests: medical education, particularly curriculum development and simulation, and healthcare disparities in the ICU
• I’m most excited about: the breadth of clinical exposure and working with a group of people who are as excited about PCCM as I am
• What I’m most looking forward to about Seattle: my favorite Seattle pastimes are hiking, especially to alpine lakes, and enjoying the amazing Seattle food scene

Allan Fonseca

• Residency: University of Washington
• Research: Tobacco cessation and lung cancer screening in indigenous populations, sleep apnea
• Research mentor: Matthew Triplette, MD

Matthew Haley

• Residency: University of Rochester/Strong Memorial Hospital
• Fellowship: Sleep Medicine, University of Washington
• Research: Medical education with focus on physical exam and bedside teaching
• Research mentors: Rosemary Adamson, MB BS and Tyler Albert, MD

Megan Mayer

• Residency: University of Colorado
• Research: Cost-effective healthcare delivery strategies for lung transplant
• Research mentors: Eric Morrell, MD and Kathy Ramos, MD
• Favorite thing to do in Seattle: I can't wait to backpack and explore the outdoors in this beautiful, lush state and I'm so happy to be back home

Brooke McDonald, Chief Fellow

• Residency: Hennepin Healthcare
• Research: Post-discharge functional and cognitive outcomes after ICU hospitalization for ARDS
• Research mentors: Pavan Bhatraju, MD and Tessa Steel, MD 
• Hobbies: I am a complete bookworm, an amateur beer brewer and love to hike and travel

Lauren Muñoz Tremblay

• Residency: Cleveland Clinic Foundation South Pointe Hospital
• Research: Biomarkers in sepsis
• Research mentor: Pavan Bhatraju, MD

Daniel To

• Residency: University of Wisconsin Madison
• Research: Cardiac arrest and post-cardiac arrest outcomes
• Research mentors: Nick Johnson, MD and Majid Afshar, MD
• Hobbies: I enjoy comedy, cooking/baking, binge watching TV, and swimming

Mark Chee

• Residency: Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Research interests: health services research, outcomes and development