Nine DOM faculty win title upgrades via promotion

Nine faculty members in the Department of Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson will receive new titles with the start of the 2024-25 academic year on July 1 due to promotions approved within the college.

"My heartiest congratulations to our outstanding DOM faculty on their well-deserved promotions. I am extremely proud of their achievements and look forward to greater things to come from each of them," said DOM Chair James K. Liao, MD, FACP, FACC. Dr. Liao also is the Robert S. and Irene Flinn Endowed Professor in Medicine, and a member of the Sarver Heart Center and Graduate Faculty.

Joseph Alpert, MD, vice chair for appointments and promotion, and a past department chair (1992-2006), added, "I am delighted by these highly warranted advancements for nine of our outstanding faculty members. Bear Down, internal medicine wildcats!"

Among those recognized were three faculty members from the Division of Cardiology and two from the Division of Infectious Diseases.

They include, with their new titles come end of June:

• Mohanad Al-Obaidi, MD, MPH – Associate Clinical Professor | Currently an assistant clinical professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Al Obaidi joined UArizona’s faculty in 2018. After earning his medical doctorate from the University of Baghdad, he completed his internal medicine residency at Texas Tech University in Amarillo (2015) and fellowships in infectious diseases (2017) and transplant infectious diseases (2018) at Houston’s University of Texas Health Sciences Center. His research includes multiple projects studying invasive fungal infections and Cytomegalovirus infection in solid organ transplant patients.
• Tara F. Carr, MD – Professor, Clinical Scholar | Currently an associate clinical professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Dr. Carr has a dual appointment in the Department of Otolaryngology. She’s director of the Adulty Allergy Program as well as the Allergy & Immunology Fellowship Program, and she’s the current chair of the UArizona Academy of Medical Education Scholars (AMES) Chapter. She’s also past president of the Tucson Asthma Society and past secretary-treasurer of the Arizona Allergy & Asthma Society. She’s been on faculty with the UArizona since 2011.
• Michel T. Corban, MD – Associate Professor, Clinical Scholar | An interventional cardiologist, Dr. Corban is currently an assistant clinical professor in the Division of Cardiology and a member of the Sarver Heart Center. His medical doctorate is from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, after which he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in interventional cardiology (2011-13) and his internal medicine residency training at Emory University (2013-16) in Atlanta. Following that, he did a cardiovascular disease fellowship (2016-19), interventional cardiology fellowship (2020), and advanced fellowship in structural heart disease interventions (2021) at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. That same year, he was an American College of Cardiology Clinical Trials Young Investigator Award finalist and joined the UArizona faculty.
• Sima Ehsani, MD – Associate Clinical Professor | An oncologist, Dr. Ehsani is currently an assistant clinical professor in the Division of Hematology & Oncology and is the Breast Clinical Research Team leader at the UArizona Cancer Center, through which she is involved in multiple clinical trials to help find better and safer treatment options for patients. She also is a member of the City of Hope Clinical Cancer Genomics Community of Practice and sees women in a high-risk clinic for counseling and management of their increased chance for breast cancer. Dr. Ehsani completed medical school at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, did her internal medicine residency at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, and her hematology-oncology fellowship at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in Madison. She joined UArizona’s faculty in 2016.
• Justin F. Hayes, MD – Associate Clinical Professor | Currently a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Hayes is co-director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, which is a focus of his research along with optimizing management of bloodstream infections. He represents Banner – University Medicine/UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson as a principal investigator on the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Research Network and participates in the Mycoses Study Group and Education Consortium, which participates in clinical trials related to fungal infections. Dr. Hayes went to medical school at New Orleans’ Tulane University (2013), completed his internal medicine residency at LSU (2013-16), and did his fellowship training at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (2016-18).
• Olivia Hung, MD, PhD – Associate Clinical Professor | Now a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology and a member of the Sarver Heart Center, Dr. Hung joined UArizona’s faculty in 2018. She is program director for the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship and associate block director for the Clinical Reasoning Course at the College of Medicine – Tucson. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University and completed her PhD in organic chemistry at UC Berkeley before getting her medical doctorate at Emory University (2011) in Atlanta, where she also completed her combined residency and fellowship training in the ABIM Research Pathway via the J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency (2011-13) and Academic Clinical Investigator Pathway in Cardiovascular Diseases (2013-18). She recently graduated as part of the College of Medicine – Tucson’s inaugural Spurring Success for Women in Medicine and Science (or SSWIMS) fellowship class.
• Neha Jaswal, MD – Associate Clinical Professor | A graduate of India’s Delhi University College of Medical Sciences (2010), Dr. Jaswal is a hospitalist who completed her internal medicine training at Chicago’s Cook County Health and Hospitals System (2012-15). She’s currently a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Inpatient Medicine.
• Elizabeth B. Juneman, MD – Professor, Clinical Scholar | Dr. Juneman joined UArizona’s faculty in 2007, working at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System (2007-15) and serving as director of the Heart Failure Program and Echocardiography Lab. She joined Banner – University Medicine Tucson in 2015 and is currently an associate professor in the Division of Cardiology and a member of the Sarver Heart Center, where she’s medical director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation Program for Banner – University Medicine Tucson. A Reynolds Scholar in Applied Geriatrics at the UArizona Center on Aging, she is a key faculty lecturer in the Cardio-Pulmonary-Renal Block for first-year medical students. And Dr. Juneman recently served for nearly two years as interim division chief and interim center director.
• Bijin Thajudeen, MD – Professor, Clinical Scholar | Currently associate professor in the Division of Nephrology, Dr. Thajudeen completed medical school at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College in Kerala, India. He moved to the U.S. in 2008 to complete his internal medicine residency and fellowship training at the University of Arizona. He joined the UArizona faculty in 2013 and also serves as medical director of the DCI Dialysis Center South Tucson. His areas of research interest include critical care nephrology, acute kidney injury and diabetic nephropathy. He served as a principal investigator for the Multicenter EUPHRATES trial and sub-investigator for the MENTOR trial. A fellow of the American Society of Nephrology and the American College of Physicians, Dr. Thajudeen has several peer reviewed publications in national and international journals and serves as an editorial board member and reviewer for several journals.

Please be sure to congratulate all of these faculty members.

For information on how to jumpstart your advancement within the department, faculty should reach out to Terri Buchannan, DOM coordinator for faculty appointments: terrib@arizona.edu or (520) 626-4168.

ALSO SEE:
“Thirteen faculty get promotions, tenure in Department of Medicine” | Posted May 22, 2023
“Eleven Department of Medicine Faculty Approved for Promotion and Tenure Advancement” | Posted May 20, 2019
“Baker’s Dozen Get Promotions among UA Department of Medicine Faculty” | Posted June 19, 2018
“Four from DOM among Promotions Announcements at College of Medicine General Faculty Meeting” | Nov. 14, 2017
“Nine Faculty Physicians Receive Promotions in Department of Medicine” | Posted Aug. 19, 2016