Program Leadership

Pediatrics Residency Program Director

Carrie Rassbach, MD, MA Ed
Clinical Professor
Pediatric Hospital Medicine

Carrie Rassbach, MD, MA(Ed) is the Program Director for the Pediatrics and Combined Pediatrics-Anesthesiology Residency Program. She is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine. Her research interests include coaching, assessment, learning environment and professional development for both learners and faculty. She is the past founding Fellowship Director for the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship at Stanford and past founding Director of the Pediatrics Residency's Coaching Program.  More Nationally, she is the past Chair of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors' Assessment Learning Community and the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship Directors' Executive Council. Dr. Rassbach received her Master of Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and is a graduate of the Stanford School of Medicine's Rathmann Fellowship for Medical Education Research and the Academic Pediatrics Association's Educational Scholars' Program. In addition to working at Stanford, she loves spending time with her husband, four kids, two guinea pigs, family and friends.

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Associate Program Director, Advising

Lahia Yemane, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
General Pediatrics

Lahia Yemane, MD  (Associate Program Director, Advising, Recruitment, Diversity, and Inclusion) is the advising APD for the class of 2025 and combined Pediatrics-Medical Genetics Track. She is a Clinical Associate Professor in General Pediatrics, and her educational interests focus on building and evaluating innovative diversity programs and studying barriers and facilitators for inclusion and retention of underrepresented in medicine (UIM) trainees. She is the inaugural Assistant Dean of Diversity for GME within the Office of Diversity in Medical Education and co-director of the Stanford Medicine LEAD More (Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity) Program. Nationally, she is the past chair of the URM in Pediatric GME learning community and founder of the Advancing Inclusiveness in Medical Education Scholars (AIMS) Program within the Association of Pediatric Program Directors. 

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Associate Program Director, Advising

Kim Hoang, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
Pediatric Hospital Medicine

Kim Hoang, MD (Associate Program Director for Advising and Career Development) is the advising APD for the class of 2024. She is a Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatric Hospital Medicine and the Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Residency Coaching Program. Her educational interests include coaching in graduate medical education, promoting learner autonomy in clinical settings, and health equity. Dr. Hoang recently completed the Rathmann Foundation E4C Medical Education Fellowship in Patient-Centered Care and has served as the Pediatric Specialty Career Advisor for the Stanford School of Medicine.

Associate Program Director, Advising

Sara Kibrom, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Nephrology

Sara Kibrom, MD (Associate Program Director for Advising and Wellness) is the advising APD for the class of 2026. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Pediatric Nephrology with research interests in healthcare disparities and social determinants of health, specifically by assessing for potential barriers to optimal care in children with kidney disease. She also has an interest in increasing representation in pediatric subspecialities and serves as the Associate Director of Promoting Resident Experiences in the Subspecialities at Stanford (PRESS) program.

Associate Program Director, Curriculum

Sarah Hilgenberg, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
Pediatric Hospital Medicine

Sarah Hilgenberg, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatric Hospital Medicine, and Co-Leader for the Medical Education Scholarly Concentration. She is an Associate Program Director (APD) of Curriculum in Stanford’s Pediatric Residency Program, Rising Chair of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors APD Executive Committee and Associate Chair of the APA’s Educational Scholars Program Curriculum Committee. Her research interests include advancing healthcare practitioner communication skills, curricular needs identification, and autonomy.

Associate Program Director, Curriculum

Kevin Kuo, MD, MHPE
Clinical Associate Professor
Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

Kevin Kuo, MD, MHPE (Associate Program Director for Curriculum, Subspecialties) is a Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. He also serves as the program director for the Pediatric Critical Care fellowship. He leads the rotational reviews for the subspecialty rotations and his educational interests include curriculum design and learner assessment.

Associate Program Director, Primary Care and Continuity Clinic

Geoffrey Hart-Cooper, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
General Pediatrics

Geoffrey Hart-Cooper, MD (Associate Program Director, Primary Care and Continuity Clinic) is a Clinical Associate Professor in General Pediatrics. He leads the continuity clinic experience and primary care education for our program – spanning a wide variety of clinical experiences including federally qualified health centers, private practices and HMOs. In addition to his medical education role, he also leads as the Digital Health Physician Advisor for Packard Children’s Health Alliance and Founder of the Stanford Virtual PrEP Program for Adolescents and Young Adults.

Director, Scholarly Concentrations

Clea Sarnquist, DrPH, MPH
Clinical Associate Professor
Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Clea Sarnquist, DrPH, MPH ( Program Director for Scholarly Concentrations) is a Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She focuses on applied teaching and research on the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to decrease gender-based violence, prevent HIV infection, and improve family planning access and uptake, especially among adolescents and children.  More She is particularly interested in rights-based approaches that tackle the complex interplay of factors that lead to poor health for many children and families. All of her work is applied, with direct links health practice and policy, and usually performed in conjunction with non-governmental organization and government partners. She works both globally and in the U.S., with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Less 

Associate Director, Scholarly Concentrations

Rasika Behl, MPH 
Program Manager
Stanford Global Child Health

Rasika Behl, MPH, is a Program Manager in the Stanford Global Child Health program and the Associate Director of the Scholarly Concentrations as well as a co-leader of the Global Health Scholarly Concentration.  Much of her work, past and present, centers around evaluating programs that aim to improve population health, focusing on maternal and child health. More She has experience working globally (in India, Kenya and DRC) as well as in the US on a variety of research projects, including evaluating health/nutrition programs for children <5, access and uptake to family planning services, and evaluation of sexual assault prevention programs on college campuses.

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Director, Residency Quality Improvement

Lauren Destino, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
Pediatric Hospital Medicine

Lauren Destino, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University, Medical Director of the Acute Care Units, and pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH).  She is a co-Investigator for IPASS at LPCH, a participant in the CHCA handoff collaborative and is actively involved in improving handoffs throughout the institution. More  Lauren is the director for the resident quality improvement rotation leading residents in analysis of events that have affected or have the potential to affect patient safety and guides the residents through quality improvement projects. She has training in Lean methodology, quality improvement, and helps direct process improvement on the acute care floors. Less 

Pediatrics Chief Residents

Angelina Seffens, MD
Cristal Suarez, MD
Lakshmee Malladi, MD
Chris Chow-Parmer, MD

 The chief residents' scholarly project this year is a novel evidence-based curriculum to increase evidence-based clinical reasoning for residents.  

 

Pediatrics Residency Education Manager

Carrie Johnson, MBA
Pediatrics Residency Education Manager
 

Carrie Johnson is our incredible Pediatrics Residency Education Manager, who helps oversee program accreditation, office administration as well as our recruitment and program development.

Pediatrics Residency Coordinator

Michelle Brooks, C-TAGME
Pediatrics Residency Coordinator

Michelle Brooks is one of our incredible Pediatric Residency Coordinators, who helps oversee our advising and humanism initiatives, learner assessments in addition to professional development and alumni management.

Pediatrics Residency Coordinator

Carrie McGaughey, BS, RN
Pediatrics Residency Coordinator
 

Carrie McGaughey is our amazing Pediatric Residency Coordinator. She is an integral part of our team, assisting with recruitment, curriculum development, and coaching initiatives.

Pediatrics Residency Associate Coordinator

Katherine Jackman, BA
Pediatrics Residency Associate Coordinator

Katherine Jackman is our amazing Associate Program Coordinator, who helps with daily office maintenance and programmatic needs.

Associate Chair of Education

Becky Blankenburg, MD, MPH
Clinical Professor
Pediatric Hospital Medicine

Becky Blankenburg, MD, MPH is the Associate Chair for Education for the Dept of Pediatrics. Previously an Associate Program Director and then Residency Program Director, she is a national leader in Graduate Medical Education and Pediatric Hospital Medicine.  More Becky is the President Elect of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors, and her educational interests include how to optimize learning opportunities in the clinical environment, helping learners improve through longitudinal coaching, how to improve diversity and inclusion in academic medicine, helping learners communicate with patients and families, to improve patient understanding, patient satisfaction, and patient safety, and teaching learners how to teach. Prior studies have included the National Nighttime Curriculum Study, IPASS Handoff Study, and Patient and Family-Centered IPASS Study.

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Chair, Department of Pediatrics

Mary Leonard, MD, MSCE
Professor, Pediatric Nephrology
Adalyn Jay Physician in Chief, LPCH

Mary Leonard, MD, MSCE is chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Adalyn Jay Physician in Chief at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. She assumed these positions on July 1, 2016.  More 

Energetic and collaborative, Dr. Leonard is a compassionate clinician and researcher who cares deeply about improving the health and well-being of children everywhere.  A graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Mary returned to Stanford Medicine in 2014 after spending 25 years at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.

At Stanford, her multi-disciplinary research program is focused on the impact of chronic diseases on bone metabolism and nutrition across the life span. Mary directs the innovative and trans-disciplinary child and maternal health research and training initiatives of the Stanford Child Health Research Institute.

Mary is a distinguished investigator, an expert clinician, and a respected mentor who embodies the academic and integrated mission of Stanford Medicine. A member of the Precision Health Committee, she is committed to Stanford Medicine’s vision of proactive and personalized health care and has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate Precision Health approaches and skills into our training programs.

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