AMTI Leadership

Triveni DeFries, MD, MPH

AMTI Co-lead, Steering Committee Member

Triveni DeFries, MD, MPH is an expert clinician and trainer on medical evaluations of asylum seekers and survivors of torture and ill-treatment. She is an Assistant Professor at University of California, San Francisco Department (UCSF) in the Division of General Internal Medicine and core faculty in the Institute of Global Health Sciences. She is a physician who is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. She completed medical school, residency and fellowship training at UCSF. She practices primary care and addiction medicine at San Francisco General Hospital. She co-directs the UCSF Human Rights Collaborative where she performs forensic medical evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States and teaches learners and clinicians. She serves as the Executive Director of the UCSF Human Rights Initiative. She co-founded the Asylum Medicine Training Initiative and has collaborated with Physician for Human Rights, Synergy and other experts to increase the capacity of clinicians to perform documentation of human rights abuses using trauma-informed care and the Istanbul Protocol. Her special interests are in immigrant health, human rights and addiction medicine.

Eleanor Emery, MD

AMTI Co-lead, Steering Committee Member

Eleanor (Ellie) Emery is an internist with the Department of Internal Medicine at Northern Navajo Medical Center and an Instructor of Medicine, Part-Time at Harvard Medical School. Her work includes clinical, advocacy, and research efforts focused on improving access to high quality, trauma-informed care for underserved communities, including on Navajo Nation where she lives and practices clinically. Ellie has expertise in conducting forensic medical evaluations for people seeking asylum in the U.S. and has founded and led asylum clinics at Weill Cornell Medical College, Massachusetts General Hospital, UCLA, the University of New Mexico, and Cambridge Health Alliance. She co-leads the Asylum Medicine Training Initiative, a national working group of 80 experts from over 40 institutions that developed a virtual, peer-reviewed introductory curriculum featuring best practices in asylum medicine based on international standards. Ellie also serves as the Program Director of Asylum Medicine Education at the Cambridge Health Alliance’s Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy, and in this capacity developed and co-leads an interdisciplinary, year-long elective course in asylum medicine for CHA residents.

C. Nicholas Cuneo, MD, MPH

AMTI Co-lead, Steering Committee Member

C. Nicholas (Nick) Cuneo, MD, MPH is an assistant professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he is affiliated with the Center for Public Health and Human Rights and the Center for Humanitarian Health. In addition to his work as the Medical Director of the HEAL Refugee Health and Asylum Collaborative, which he co-founded, he works as an academic hospitalist for children and adults at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Nick has extensive global health research and program management experience, particularly in Haiti, where he was a Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellow, and South Africa, where he was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Public Health. He is a graduate of the Harvard Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Boston Children’s Hospital Medicine-Pediatric Residency and served as chief resident for the Doris and Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. He earned his B.S. in biology and anthropology at Duke University, his M.D. at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his M.P.H. in clinical effectiveness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Katherine C McKenzie, MD, FACP

Steering Committee Member

Katherine is the director of Yale Center for Asylum Medicine and a faculty member at Yale School of Medicine. She has practiced asylum medicine for almost 20 years and co-founded and co-leads the Society of Asylum Medicine.

Ranit Mishori, MD, MHS

Steering Committee Member

Dr. Ranit Mishori is the Senior Medical Advisor at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and provides in-house medical expertise on asylum issues, torture, and conflict-related sexual violence. She is also the medical lead for the multiple award-winning MediCapt App. She is widely recognized for her research, programmatic work, teaching, curriculum development, advocacy, and organizational strategy related to COVID-19, health and detention, torture, and global multi-sectoral training initiatives to document atrocities, among others. As a physician and advocate, she brings a social justice and human rights lens to all her professional pursuits.

Dr. Mishori’s training includes an MSc in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University; an MD from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and a residency in family medicine, also at Georgetown; an MHS in International Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Rebecca Xu

AMTI Program Assistant

Rebecca Xu is currently an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a minor in Entrepreneurship and Management. She is passionate about rare diseases and has a commitment to social justice and health equity. Rebecca is from New Jersey and enjoys Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, and spending time with friends and family.

Emilie Folsom, MPH

AMTI Program Manager

Emilie is a public health professional with specialization in refugee health and humanitarian crisis settings. She currently works at the HEAL Refugee Health & Asylum Collaborative as the Forensic Evaluation Clinic Program Coordinator. Emilie has served as a program manager and project coordinator in supporting recently resettled refugees and asylum-seeking families along the U.S.-Mexico border. Emilie is originally from San Diego, California and received her Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

AMTI Contributors

Brandon Chu, MPH

AMTI Web Designer

Brandon Chu is a medical student at UCSF. He grew up in the Bay Area and studied public health at UC Berkeley, where he received a BA in Public Health and an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Emily Mei

Previous AMTI Project Coordinator

Emily is currently a medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. In her gap year between college and medical school, she was involved with AMTI and the asylum medicine program at Physicians for Human Rights.

Introductory AMTI Curriculum Contributors

Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith, City University of New York

Alexander Blum, Johns Hopkins University

Alexandra Norton, Johns Hopkins University

Alice Lu, University of California, San Francisco

Alisa R. Gutman, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania

Altaf Saadi, MD, MSc, Harvard University

Amanda Maase, BA, Tufts University

Amy Zeidan, MD, Emory University

Anisa Bughal, MD, Creighton University

Anita Mathews, MD, Cambridge Health Alliance

Anum Hussain, Cornell University

Ariana Traub, Emory University

Ariel Shidlo, PhD,  Research Institute Without Walls

Arno Vosk, MD,  Society of Asylum Medicine

Beselot Birhanu, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Braden Hexom, MD, Rush University Medical Center

Cameron Dietiker, MD, University of California, San Fransisco

Chanelle Diaz, MD, MPH, Montefiore Medical Center

Christeen Samuel, Johns Hopkins University

C. Nicholas Cuneo, MD, MPH, Johns Hopkins University

Coleen Kivlahan, MD, MSPH, University of California, San Fransisco

Deborah Ottenheimer, MD, FACOG, Ottenheimer Health

Diya Kallivayalil, PhD, Cambridge Health Alliance

Douglas Stephens, JD, Catholic Charities San Francisco

Eleanor Emery, MD, Cambridge Health Alliance

Eléna Jimenez Gutiérrez, MD, University of Virginia

Elora Mukherjee, JD, Colombia University

Farah Chammaa, Chicago Medical School

Federico Palacardo, Cornell University

Gabrielle Milner, Johns Hopkins University

Gretchen A. Heinrichs, University of Colorado, Denver

Hannah Janeway, MD, MS,  Refugee Health Alliance

Homero Lopez,  Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy

Jacob Blum, Johns Hopkins University

Jar-Yee Liu, University of California, San Fransisco

Jaylee Caruso, University of New Mexico

Jenny Wen, MD, MPH, Cambridge Health Alliance

Jill Jones, Harvard University

Joanne Ahola, MD, Physicians for Human Rights

Joseph Shin, MD, Cornell University

Karen Musalo, JD, UC Hastings

Karina Anaya, MD, Refugee Health Alliance

Katherine Blanton, BA, Harvard University

Katherine McKenzie, MD, Yale University

Kathryn Hampton, Mst, MA, Rainbow Railroad

Katherine Peeler, MD, Harvard University

Kelsie Avants, DO, University of Illinois at Chicago

Kennji Kizuka, JD, MPA, Human Rights First

Lynn Midani, BS, University of New Mexico

Madelyn Perez, MD, MPH, University of Illinois at Chicago

Malini Ramaiyer, Johns Hopkins University

Marguerite Changala, MD, University of California, San Diego

Mathhew Gartland, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital

Megan Berthold, PhD, LCSW, University of Connecticut

Mehar Maju, MPH, University of Washington

Michawl Khoury, MD, Emory University

Minal Giri, MD, Midwest Human Rights Consortium

Priyanka Narayan, Cornell University

Ranit Mishori, MD, MHS, FAAFP, Georgetown University

Reine-Marcelle Wendy Ibala, MPH, Cornell University

Rose L. Molina, MD, MPH, Harvard University

Sabi Ardalan, JD, Harvard University

Sara A. Snyder, PsyD, MPH, MA, Cambridge Heallth Alliance

Sarah Messmer, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago

Shawn Singh Sidhu, MD, University of California, San Diego

Shruti Anat, Johns Hopkins University

Stephanie Bousleiman, Harvard Univeristy

Stuart Lustig, MD, MPH, Cigna

Sural Shah, MD, MPH, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

Taylor Kuhn, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles

Tim Treinin, Johns Hopkins University

Triveni Defries, MD, MPH, University of California San Francisco

Victoria Fonzi, Emory University

Uzoamaka Emeka Nzelibe, Northwestern University

Vidya Ramanthan, MD, MPH, University of Michigan

Vikrant Garg, MA, MPH, University of Illinois at Chicago

Yenys Castillo, PhD, Physicians for Human Rights

 

Sponsoring Organizations