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 a faculty affiliate 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 Clinic where she performs forensic medical evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States and teaches learners and clinicians. She serves as the Director of Education & Training for 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
