Who's Who
July 2020
Say hello to these new hires!
As the Stanford Department of Ophthalmology continues to grow, you may have noticed some new faces around. These monthly Who's Who will serve as a way to get to know these new colleagues, who continue to make this department a great place to work.
CLINICAL FELLOWS & ADVANCED TRAINEES: CLASS OF 2021
Bethlehem Mekonnen, MD
Cornea Fellow
Bethy obtained a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry and B.A. in Biology from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She attended Yale School of Medicine and went on to complete a surgical internship and an Ophthalmology residency at the University of California San Francisco. She enjoys dancing, traveling, and hiking.
Philip Garza, MD, MSc
Glaucoma Fellow
Philip Garza is a native of Miami, Florida and attended the University of Miami, where he received his bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. After college, he served as a clinical research coordinator in interventional neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He then attended Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he graduated from the combined M.D./M.S. in Clinical Research. He went on to residency in Michigan, first completing his intern year at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor and then completing ophthalmology residency training at the University of Michigan’s W. K. Kellogg Eye Center. He is an electronic music aficionado, Peloton devotee, and ever-improving golfer. After fellowship, he will be returning to Atlanta with his wife Nina to pursue a career in academically-oriented private practice.
David Rooney, MD
Global Ophthalmology Fellow
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, David Rooney graduated from Wake Forest University with a BA in History. He went on to work as an AmeriCorps VISTA member for the non-profit organization Impact America, where he conducted vision screenings throughout low-income areas of Alabama. After graduating from medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, he completed his ophthalmology residency at William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit, Michigan and glaucoma fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh (UPMC). In his free time, David enjoys documentaries, backpacking, and singing.
Michael Mbagwu, MD
Innovation Fellow
Dr. Mbagwu completed his ophthalmology residency at Northwestern University and a transitional year internship at Presence Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago. He completed his MD from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. During that time, he had the opportunity to complete a grant-supported research year serving as Lead Project Coordinator for a National Eye Institute-funded study. He helped develop clinical data mining tools to characterize disparities in eye care using an assembly of electronic health records from several health care institutions in the Chicagoland area. This also gave him an interest in further exploring the intersection of technology, innovation, and healthcare delivery. Dr. Mbagwu attended The Ohio State University for his undergraduate studies, where he developed his deep interest in Big Data/informatics, working at several institutions including the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Harvard/Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Stanford University on a variety of data-driven research projects. In his free time, Dr. Mbagwu enjoys running, travel, and watching college football.
Susiani Intan, MD
Neuro-Ophthalmology Fellow
Susiani is originally from Indonesia, but moved a lot since middle school. She was in Malaysia for middle school and high school. Then, she moved to China for medical school and attended Sun Yat-Sen University in Canton. Susiani completed her neurology residency at Medical college of Wisconsin and first neuro-ophthalmology fellowship at University of Chicago at Illinois. Soon after that, she accepted a general neurology job in a small town called Wenatchee, Washington state. She enjoys watching movies, especially ancient/medieval movies or comedies and is in the process of teaching herself how to cook.
Solin Saleh, MD
Pediatrics Fellow
Solin Saleh attended the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, where she majored in physiology and went on to complete medical school. Prior to pursuing residency, she did a one-year research fellowship in ophthalmic pathology at the University of Ottawa followed by ophthalmology residency at the University of Ottawa Eye Institute. Apart from having a passion for pediatrics, she also has a special interest in global ophthalmology and hopes to continue participating in outreach throughout her career. In her spare time she enjoys hiking, camping and reading.
CLINICAL FELLOWS & ADVANCED TRAINEES: CLASS OF 2022
Gala Beykin, MD
Glaucoma Fellow
Gala Beykin’s hometown is Jerusalem, Israel. She attended medical school at Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School and completed an internship at Bikur Cholim Hospital. She then completed her residency at Hadassah Medical Center.
Clara Men, MD
Oculoplastics Fellow
Clara Men is the 2020-2022 oculoplastics fellow. She completed her ophthalmology residency at the University of California, San Diego. Before that, she attended Harvard Medical School for her M.D. studies and Yale University for her undergraduate studies, where she graduated with a B.S. in Molecular Biology and Biophysics. She is interested in basketball, hiking, reading and spending time at the beach with her husband, David.
Edward Korot, MD
Vitreoretinal Fellow
Eddie Korot, born in the Ukraine, immigrated to Michigan in 1994, where he has remained for most of his training. He's guided by the goal of maximally scaling improvements in patients’ lives through technology. Last year, he completed a clinical research fellowship at UCL/Moorfields supported by a grant for applied automated machine learning. Simultaneously, he worked at Google Health, with a focus on the global validation of ophthalmic deep learning algorithms for clinical use. His work involves medical AI safety, quantifying model uncertainty, AI-driven pharmaceutical trial recruitment, partner management, and UX research. He also initiated a spin-out company to create purpose-built head mounted surgical displays. His hobbies include tennis and drone photography.
Kapil Mishra, MD
Vitreoretinal Fellow
Kapil Mishra grew up in Riverside, CA and attended Brown University where he double-majored in Neuroscience and Modern Culture & Media (Film). He went on to study at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed a preliminary internship at University of California, Irvine, and ophthalmology residency at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. He enjoys classic movies, tennis/basketball, and exploring museums, hikes, and cultures around the world. He is a novice chef and an okay dancer. He looks forward to meeting and learning from the whole Byers community.
PGY-2 RESIDENTS, CLASS OF 2023
Alejandro Arboleda, MD
PGY-2 Resident
Alejandro is from Miami, FL. He attended the University of Miami where he received his BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship which allowed him to lead a research project in Paris before returning to the University of Miami for his medical degree. His research has focused on using photodynamic antimicrobial therapy for treatment of infectious keratitis. He completed his internship year at the Ocala Regional Medical Center. Alejandro enjoys sports, traveling, and giving back to the community.
Lucie Guo, MD, PhD
PGY-2 and SOAR Resident
Lucie Guo is from Chapel Hill, NC. She attended undergrad at Harvard University. She graduated from Penn MD/PhD program in 2018, where she studied chromatin epigenetics in Dr. Ben Black's lab and obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. She completed her internship year at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. At Stanford she is working in Dr. Stanley Qi's lab in Bioengineering/ChEM-H, collaboration with labs of Dr. Yang Hu and Dr. Sui Wang in Ophthalmology, to develop new genome engineering technologies for ocular gene therapy.
Muhammad Hassan, MD
PGY-2 Resident
Muhammad Hassan is from Pakistan and completed his medical education at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. His Journey in clinical ophthalmology research under the supervision of Drs. Nguyen and Do expand between Johns Hopkins University, as a visiting medical student, to chief research fellow at Nguyen Eye Lab, Stanford University. His research interests include the identification of biomarkers for ocular diseases with a special interest in ophthalmic imaging. He completed his transitional year at St. Mary Mercy Hospital, Livonia. Outside ophthalmology, Hassan enjoys photography, traveling, and sports including squash, ping pong, badminton, and soccer. P.S. He prefers to be called "Hassan" amongst the sea of Muhammads from Pakistan.
Tracy Lu, MD
PGY-2 Resident
Tracy Lu grew up in rural Texas and got her MD/MBA from Harvard. She is interested in healthcare technology innovations and improving healthcare efficiency. Before residency she worked on projects involving clinic scheduling systems and value-based decision making in neuro-ophthalmology. She enjoys yoga and dogs in her free time.
Michael Yu, MD
PGY-2 Resident
Michael Yu is from Winchester, MA. He attended undergrad at University of Pennsylvania and medical college at Sidney Kimmel Medical College (Jefferson). He completed his internship year at Abington Hospital - Jefferson Health.
STANFORD OPHTHALMOLOGY ADVANCED RESEARCH (SOAR) RESIDENTS
Caity Logan, MD, PhD
SOAR Resident
Caity Logan is starting as a Stanford Byers Eye Institute SOAR Resident in 2020. She has an MD/PhD from Thomas Jefferson University and Sidney Kimmel Medical College, with a PhD thesis in "Impact of the Loss of N-cadherin or Microtubules on Lens Development and Immune Surveillance" and a degree in Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. She is excited to bridge her knowledge of lens immunology and wound healing into corneal wound injury repair. Logan is working in the Myung Lab.
Geoffrey Weiner, MD, PhD
SOAR Resident
Geoff has a BA in Mathematics from Lake Forest College and an MD and PhD in Neurosciences from UCSD. As part of his PhD, he researched interactions between neurons and blood vessels in the retina for the purpose of finding novel disease biomarkers and understanding how angiogenesis and blood-retina barrier signaling is turned on during development. He is now working in the Rubin lab to develop imaging techniques and machine learning tools to better diagnose and treat retinal diseases.