11 Faculty Members Join 8 Medical School Departments

By Dirk Hoffman

Steven J. Foulis, MD, is a clinical assistant professor of family medicine.

He completed his residency in family medicine and earned his medical degree from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Foulis also earned a certificate in the Jacobs Educator Excellence Program.

Erik C. Freeland, DO, is a clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics.

He completed a fellowship in orthopaedic foot and ankle surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.

Freeland completed a residency in orthopaedic surgery at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He also completed an internship at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

Freeland earned his doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Yolanda Hue Huang, PhD, is an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology.

Her lab uses multidisciplinary approaches including functional genomics, genetics, biochemistry, and bioinformatics to study new pathways encoded in gut bacteria and phages.

The overarching goal in the lab is to advance the fundamental knowledge of molecular mechanisms underlying host-microbe-phage interactions to help better understand and predict the composition and functions of microbial communities under constant selections from microbial, host and environmental factors.

Huang comes to the Jacobs School from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where she worked in the group of Adam Arkin, PhD, as an Astellas Pharma awardee of the Life Sciences Research Foundation postdoctoral fellowship.

The laboratory is a U.S Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory managed by the University of California. There, she developed a novel high-throughput functional genomic approach to study gut bacteria.

Huang earned her doctoral degree in chemical biology from Harvard University. Her thesis work uncovered a new radical enzyme responsible for anaerobic amino acid metabolism.

Huang grew up in Canada and completed her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Ryan C. Hunter, PhD, is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology.

His research has focused on the in vivo physiology of bacterial pathogens and how they obtain nutrients from the host.

Hunter has a particular interest in mucus-microbe interactions, and manipulating those interactions to shape our microbiota in many disease contexts (cystic fibrosis, chronic sinusitis, periodontal disease, and GI complications including colorectal cancer).

He was awarded a Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation postdoctoral fellowship for studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was named a HHMI postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology.

His graduate work focused on the microbial adaptation to their growth environments, their role in metal redox transformations, and their broader impacts on global elemental cycling. 

After receiving his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Guelph in Canada, Hunter went on to pursue postbaccalaureate research at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory prior to earning his doctoral degree in microbiology at the University of Guelph.

Amanda H. Klein, PhD, is an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology.

Her research lab focuses on the mechanisms of chronic pain and opioid signaling using in vitro and in vivo methods. 

A major priority of her research program is the development of novel therapeutics to treat pain and opioid-induced tolerance and withdrawal.

Klein’s previous research training covered the fields of rodent behavior, metabolomics, spinal cord electrophysiology, cation imaging, histology, immunofluorescence, live-cell imaging, rodent and non-human primate nerve fiber recordings, compound action potential electrophysiology and human psychophysics.

She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

Klein earned her doctoral degree in molecular cellular and integrative physiology at the University of California Davis.

Andrew T. Lombardo, PhD, is an assistant professor of biochemistry.

His lab’s research focus in on uncovering the underlying molecular mechanisms governing cell polarity.

Lombardo completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University.

He earned his doctoral degree in molecular physiology and biophysics from the University of Vermont.

Andrew B. Nordin, MD, is a clinical assistant professor of surgery.

He is the trauma medical director at Oishei Children’s Hospital, an ACS-verified Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center; he is also the pediatric ICU surgical director and the pediatric surgery representative of the Vascular Anomalies Center.

Nordin is board certified in general surgery, surgical critical care, and board eligible in pediatric surgery.

His clinical and research interests include pediatric trauma, pediatric burns, pediatric and neonatal critical care including ECMO, minimally invasive surgery and neonatal surgery.

Nordin completed a pediatric surgery fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and a pediatric surgery research fellowship at Oishei Children’s Hospital. 

He completed his general surgery residency training at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Midway through residency, he completed a two-year fellowship in pediatric surgical critical care and pediatric surgery quality improvement research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. 

Nordin earned his medical degree from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Dheeraj Roy, PhD, is an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics.

The long-term mission of his research is to understand the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying higher order cognitive processes. 

Ultimately, his lab aims to identify therapeutic strategies to alleviate disease phenotypes.

He completed a postdoctoral fellowship as a McGovern Fellow at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard.

Roy earned his doctoral degree in neuroscience from MIT.

The biographical information in the faculty profiles of the following new hires was incomplete at the time of publication:

Peter C. Kim, MD, is a professor of surgery.

Fatima Sarwar, MD, is an assistant professor of medicine.

Holly M. Turula, MD, is a lecturer in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.