Our Faculty
Our Faculty
Tania Alchalabi (GW SMHS, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine)
Dr. Tania Alchalabi is an Assistant Professor of Medicine who has been with The GW Medical Faculty Associates since 2013. After her residency in Family Medicine she did her Geriatrics Fellowship at GW and later joined the department as a faculty member.
Her particular interests in Geriatrics are memory and post acute/long term care. She co directs the Geriatrics outpatient memory clinic, provides mentor ship to Geriatrics fellows, medical students in outpatient and transitions of care arenas. She also teaches pre clinical courses in the school of medicine. She has published about transitions of care and is an active participant in clinical research about memory disorders.
Richard Allman (GW SMHS, Geriatrics)
Dr. Richard Allman has more than 30 years of experience as a physician leader and mentor for inter-professional research, education, patient care, and public health programs in public and not-for-profit settings. He currently serves as a executive and life coach and as a consultant for health care and other leaders.
Melissa Batchelor (GW Nursing)
Dr. Melissa Batchelor is a tenured associate professor of nursing and geriatric nursing researcher. She is the director of GW's interdisciplinary Center for Aging, Health and Humanities. Dr. Batchelor has worked as an administrative nurse in skilled nursing homes and practiced as a family nurse practitioner (FNP) across long-term care settings. Her research, focusing on patients with dementia, has been supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars program, and the National Institute of Health/National Institute for Nursing Research.
Adam Ciarleglio (GW SMHS, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics)
Dr. Adam Ciarleglio is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. He is broadly interested in integrating functional data analysis, machine learning, and treatment regime estimation methods to address questions in public health and medical research, especially those related to mental health. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine in 2016. Prior to joining GWU, he was a faculty member in the Division of Mental Health Data Science at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Department of Biostatistics at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
Keith Cole (GW SMHS, Rehabilitation Sciences)
Dr. Keith Cole has been a faculty member of George Washington University Doctor of Physical Therapy Program since November of 2017 with the title of Assistant Professor. His primary teaching responsibilities include Clinical Conference II, Movement Science I, and Foundations of Examinations. He serves on the Admissions Committee and the Awards and Graduation Committee. Prior to joining GW, Dr. Cole practiced in the outpatient setting for nearly a decade, earning a board-certified orthopedic specialty (OCS).
Donaldson Conserve (GW MISPH, Prevention & Community Health)
Dr. Donaldson F. Conserve is an Associate Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. His research focuses on implementing and disseminating evidence-based HIV prevention, care, and treatment interventions for scale-up and population impact. As part of his K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health, he developed the Self-Testing Education and Promotion (STEP) Project and contributed to implementation science efforts to promote community-based HIV self-testing (HIVST) distribution in Tanzania. Building on his experience in Tanzania, he has expanded his research on HIVST to his native country of Haiti, and other Sub-Saharan African countries with collaborators from the HIV Self-Testing AfRica (STAR) Initiative, the world’s largest HIVST implementation science project to date. In the US, he is contributing to the upcoming HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 096 protocol, a community-randomized implementation science trial designed to test an integrated, HIV status-neutral, population-level health equity approach to reducing intersectional stigma and increasing rates of HIV testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake, and HIV viral suppression among Black men who have sex with men (MSM). Currently, he is leveraging his HIVST research experience to inform the implementation of COVID-19 self-testing, which was recently authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration.
Loretta DiPietro (GW MISPH, Exercise & Nutrition Sciences)
Dr. Lori DiPietro has recognized that many of today's critical public health problems can be addressed, at least partly, through improved nutrition and physical activity, and has built bridges between population-based public health and the clinical and physiological domains of exercise science. An accomplished and widely published researcher with particular interest in the role of physical activity in the health of older adults, she has been awarded grants from the National Institute on Aging and the American Cancer Society, and has lectured at medical schools, public health schools, and other organizations around the world. Dr. DiPietro joined GW SPH in 2008 from Yale University School of Medicine, where she was associate professor of epidemiology and public health and a fellow at the John B. Pierce Laboratory, which studies how biological systems interact with the built environment and their influence on health.
N. Maritza Dowling (GW Nursing)
Dr. N. Maritza Dowling is an associate professor and biostatistician at The George Washington University School of Nursing. She received a doctorate in quantitative methods with majors in statistics and psychometrics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Dowling’s research focuses on measurement issues in the longitudinal assessment of cognitive decline in older adults and the application of novel statistical approaches to model the complex interplay between risk and protective factors in Alzheimer’s disease-related brain changes and biomarkers for disease prognosis. Her research also aims to optimize cognitive outcome measures for early diagnosis and patient selection in clinical studies of Alzheimer’s disease-modifying therapies.
Leigh Frame (GW SMHS, Clinical Research & Leadership)
Dr. Leigh Frame brings nutrition and immunity together through clinical, translational research. Her T-shaped expertise in health, wellness, science, and medicine was developed through her wide-ranging experience in biomedical research (from wet bench to clinical research) and overseeing research and education programs. Dr. Frame is building a GW Integrative Medicine research program while directing the graduate education programs and the Office of Integrative Medicine and Health. She is also co-founder and Associate Director of the GW Resiliency & Well-being Center. Her interests include the role of the microbiome and nutrition in health, the consequences of malnutrition in obesity, vitamin D as an immune-modulatory hormone, research ethics, and social media. While working at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bariatric Surgery, Dr. Frame earned her PhD in Human Nutrition from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and received a Master of Health Science in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from the same school. Dr. Frame earned Distinction in Biochemistry from Mary Baldwin College (now University).
Mikhail Kogan (GW SMHS, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine)
Dr. Mikhail Kogan is a geriatrician with The GW Medical Faculty Associates and an associate professor of Medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Dr Kogan obtained his medical degree from the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City and a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at The George Washington University Medical Center.
Marilyn Kraus (GW SMHS, Psychiatry)
Dr. Marilyn Kraus has worked in the field of brain injury medicine for over 20 years, both clinically and in research. She currently directs the Concussion Clinic, which provides comprehensive evaluations and treatment planning. Her past positions have included serving as Director of the Concussion Program at Medstar National Rehabilitation Hospital and Director of the Brain Injury Medicine Fellowship Program for Georgetown University-MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. In addition, she is a past medical director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Consult Section as part of the inpatient polytrauma team at The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, working closely with the wounded warriors and their families.
Dale Lupu (GW Nursing)
Dr. Dale Lupu is a national leader in hospice and palliative care. She has more than 35 years experience successfully creating innovative organizations, systems, policies, educational programs and research to improve patients’ access to the care that supports their goals at the end of life. Dr. Lupu has consulted with scores of hospices across the country on a variety of strategic and operational issues, and she has a deep understanding of the dynamics at play in local markets that can inhibit or promote quality hospice care and access.
Trudy Mallinson (GW SMHS, Clinical Research & Leadership)
Dr. Trudy Mallinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership, The George Washington University, Washington DC. She is also a Senior Scientist in the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Policy Research and Director of the Advanced Metrics Lab. Her primary research interest is how better outcomes measurement can improve health care for patients and inform health care policy.
Paul Marvar (GW SMHS, Pharmacology & Physiology)
Dr. Paul Marvar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the George Washington University's School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He also holds a secondary appointment in GWU's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Marvar's current funding and research interests are in anxiety disorders and hypertension risk, with a focus on the brain neurocircuitry and neurohormonal systems involved in the autonomic control of blood pressure and immune system regulation.
Ali Moghtaderi (GW MISPH, Health Policy)
Dr. Ali Moghtaderi is a health economist and and Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. His research primarily focuses on the impact of regulations, market structure, and financial incentives on physicians’ and patients’ behaviors, patient outcomes, and healthcare costs, often using causal research designs.
Zurab Nadareishvili (GW SMHS, Neurology)
Dr. Zurab Nadareishvili's area of clinical interest is stroke and cerebrovascular disorders. His area of research interest is to study the role of inflammation in pathogenesis of stroke. He is currently involved in a study of stroke biomarkers using next generation sequencing technology.
Sabena Passarello (GW SMHS, Neurology)
Sabena Passarello is a board certified Family Nurse Practitioner at The GW Medical Faculty Associates and seeing patients at the Virginia Hospital Center campus. Sabena received dual undergraduate Bachelor of Science degrees in Nursing and Psychology at George Mason University in 2013. Her nursing career began at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, where she worked for years in the Neurosciences and Stroke department. Sabena graduated with her Masters of Science in Nursing from George Washington University in 2018, and is continuing in her studies towards her Doctorate in Nursing Practice.
Melinda Power (GW MISPH, Epidemiology)
Dr. Melinda C. Power is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the George Washington University (GWU) Milken Institute School of Public Health. Dr. Power has expertise in statistical analysis of observational data, and a commitment to improving epidemiologic methods in the study of late-life cognition and dementia. Her current research focuses on the role of environmental pollutants in the development of dementia, translation of epidemiologic research to inform clinical trial development, and projects designed to inform clinical practice and health policy around supporting people living with dementia.
Christina Prather (GW SMHS, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine)
Dr. Christina Prather is an internist and geriatrician with the GW Medical Faculty Associates and an assistant professor of medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. A Maryland native, she earned an engineering degree in biological resources and biomedical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park and completed medical school in Baltimore at the University of Maryland. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Geriatrics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She is a proud recipient of the James Bryan award from the University of North Carolina which is awarded to clinicians who are recognized for their compassion, clinical skills, and bedside manner.
Antonio Puente (GW SMHS, Psychiatry)
Dr. Antonio N. Puente is a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Georgia following the completion of his internship at the Duke University School of Medicine. He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In his current practice, Dr. Puente conducts neuropsychological evaluations of patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, brain tumors, TBI, ADHD) to characterize their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning for diagnosis and treatment optimization. He also provides psychotherapy, and he developed a specialty in treating adult ADHD with cognitive behavioral therapy on internship in the Duke University ADHD Clinic. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Puente has developed a program of research focused on understanding the neural basis of cognition and refinement of neuropsychological methods for improved accuracy in the prediction of behavior.
Emma Stapp (GW MISPH, Epidemiology)
Dr. Emma K. Stapp is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of PublicHealth. She is a psychiatric epidemiologist by training, with her PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and postdoctoral training from the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Stapp is particularly interested is the intersection of brain and bodily health across the life course with the goal of identifying opportunities for prevention. Her prior research has focused on those affected by or at high risk for mood disorders. Currently, she is working with Dr. Melinda Power to expand her focus to include research in brain health and dementia.
Sameera Talegawkar (GW MISPH, Exercise & Nutrition Sciences)
Dr. Sameera Talegawkar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences and is also Affiliated Faculty at the Sumner Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Marinella Temprosa (GW MISPH, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics)
Dr. Ella Temprosa is an Associate Research Professor at the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. Her research projects have focused on Phase 3 NIH-sponsored multi-center clinical trials for more than 25 years at the Biostatistics Center, a research center at the George Washington University. She is the Principal Investigator of the Biostatistics Research and Coordinating Center for the NIDDK-sponsored landmark study, Diabetes Prevention Program and its Outcome Study since 2013 and as biostatistician/ investigator since 1998. Her research interests include various aspects of clinical trial design, conduct and analyses as well as data visualization, longitudinal data analysis and missingness. Throughout her research career, she continues to enjoy the confluence of the technical, scientific, and public health aspects of collaborative studies in the areas of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity with major focus on novel markers such as adipocytes, cytokines, lipid subfractions, inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and more recently metabolomics. More recently, she is leading the data management efforts in the DC HIV cohort where she hopes to make the use of EHR data streams more robust for monitoring and analyses in order to explore the intersection of HIV and diabetes.
Robert Turner (GW SMHS, Clinical Research & Leadership)
Dr. Robert W. Turner II is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Neurology, at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He is a health disparities researcher with ethnographic and mixed methods training. His current National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded K01 award examines psychosocial and neurocognitive risk and protective factors, accelerated cognitive aging & mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) among former NCAA Division I and former NFL athletes. This line of research encompasses understanding how traumatic injury, as an occupational hazard, hinders daily living and career planning over the life course. These are many of the same concerns faced by military personnel returning from war.
Margaret Ulfers (GW MISPH, Epidemiology)
Dr. Margaret Ulfers completed her PhD in epidemiology here at GWU through the Columbia College of Arts and Science and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in 2008. This was some time after earning a BS in microbiology with a minor in Chemistry at Va Tech (as in 25 years later). I came to epidemiology and academia somewhat "later in life" than many so my career path has not been traditional. I spent many years (happily) "caregiving" for several family members, allowing only part-time work, so my professional life became focused on teaching as an adjunct, online teaching and a variety of smaller consulting projects. This was fortuitous as my interests have always been more broadly epidemiologic methods and provided me with many opportunities to think about the broader issues and a lot of variety. The personal side of life has given me a pretty extensive experience with MANY aspects of our health system from the receiving end.
Alison Warren (GW SMHS, Clinical Research & Leadership)
Dr. Alison Warren holds a Clinical Doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Dr. Warren received her Doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Bastyr University in Washington, specializing in orthopedics, pain management, and oncology. During her doctorate, she worked in pain management clinics and oncology hospitals focusing on integrative care. Additionally, Dr. Warren completed advanced training from Memorial Sloan Kettering in “Acupuncture for the Cancer Patient”. She received her Masters of Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine in Chicago from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine after receiving her Bachelors in Premed and Psychology at Kent State University. During her training in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), she also traveled to China to train at prestigious hospitals in both Shanghai and Chengdu.
Louisa Whitesides (GW SMHS, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine)
Dr. Louisa Whitesides is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences. She is also a part of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care at The GW Medical Faculty Associates. Dr. Whitesides received her medical degree from Emory University in 2016. She completed her Residency in Internal Medicine- Primary Care at the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. Dr. Whitesides has been a Geriatrics fellow at George Washington University for the past academic year. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and is board eligible in Geriatric Medicine. She is licensed in the District of Columbia.
Nicola Wolfe (GW CCAS, Psychological and Brain Sciences)
Dr. Nicola Wolfe is a neuropsychologist whose research is on aging and Alzheimer's disease. She earned her doctorate from Harvard University in Clinical Psychopharmacology. She teaches Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology courses with University of California, Berkeley – extension and George Washington University. She has also taught at Harvard University, University of California Berkeley, University of San Francisco, California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) Alliant University, Palo Alto University, and Saybrook University. She specializes in dynamic, visually rich, culturally sensitive instruction in this rapidly changing field. Dr. Wolfe is coauthor of the Cross Cultural Cognitive Exam (CCCE) ©, validated during a Fulbright Scholarship in Japan which has been translated in six languages. Her research includes cross cultural neuropsychology of dementia, neuroimaging in Alzheimer’s disease, and cognition in healthy aging.