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Dr. Jason Maikos

Bio- Medical Engineering – VANYHHS
Inaugural Director – VISN 2 Gait and Motion Analysis Laboratory

Dr. Jason Maikos, Bio- Med Engineering, VANYHHS, is a 2018 Federal Executive Board Award Winner in the Scientific or Technical Category. Winning submissions across the Harbor will be highlighted over the upcoming days.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) fosters an environment of innovation to develop and apply cutting edge healthcare for the most effective evidence-based interventions. Dr. Maikos embodies the core values of VA and is helping to lead the evolution of amputation care to become more effective and efficient.

Over the past year, Dr. Maikos has continued his successful campaign to reshape the paradigm of prosthetics and amputation care in the VA healthcare system. This year, he and his research team were awarded $2.5 million in grant funding to contribute to prosthetic outcomes research and support evidence-based healthcare practice in the rehabilitation of individuals living with amputation. In addition, Dr. Maikos has kicked off 4 DoD-funded investigations, which utilize complex analytical methods that explore both cutting edge prosthetic technology and rehabilitation treatments to help determine the best practices to maximize our disabled Veterans’ rehabilitative and functional potential. Most recently, his team launched a comprehensive physical and psychosocial needs assessment for women living amputation, a major focus of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Furthermore, in the past year, Dr. Maikos has demonstrated an outstanding record of disseminating his research findings to the scientific community. He presented at the annual conferences for both the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the Association of Academic Physiatrists, where he conducted symposia on the results of an interdisciplinary, multi-center amputation outcomes database. He also gave guest lectures and hosted webinars regarding the clinical significance and application of his research to clinicians and residents at several universities and VA medical centers across the country. Since the beginning of 2018, he has submitted three manuscripts for review in leading journals, which are expected to be published in the coming months.

Dr. Maikos also has a demonstrated commitment to serving Veterans beyond the clinic. He regularly volunteers his time to support VA New York Harbor’s growing adaptive sports program which provide adaptive sport opportunities and experiences as a way to promote the health-life plan initiative amongst New York Veterans.

Dr. Maikos has written the first great chapter of his early career and that of the VISN 2 Gait and Motion Analysis Laboratory. He has demonstrated an outstanding record of accomplishments this past year and is a motivated individual who shows exceptional commitment to our Veterans. His past accomplishments are a strong indicator for the beneficial impact he will have on the future of VA research and we greatly look forward to what his next great chapter will say.

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Peter S. Liang, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor – NYU School of Medicine
Attending Gastroenterologist – VA New York Harbor Health Care System Manhattan Medical Center

Peter S. Liang, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor at the NYU School of Medicine and an attending gastroenterologist at the VA New York Harbor Health Care System Manhattan Medical Center.

Dr. Liang completed his undergraduate degrees in Biological Sciences and East Asian Studies with honors and distinction at Stanford University and was a Fulbright Fellow in China. He attended Harvard Medical School and earned a master’s in public health in Quantitative Methods at the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his clinical gastroenterology and T32 research fellowship at the University of Washington.

Dr. Liang’s primary research interest is colorectal cancer prevention. He studies sociodemographic and geographic disparities in colorectal cancer screening and outcomes, the comparative effectiveness of different screening strategies, novel methods to increase screening adherence, and early-onset colorectal cancer. He also maintains interests in gastric cancer prevention and the management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. His research has been supported by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, American Gastroenterological Association, American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and ReMission Foundation.

Dr. Liang serves as Chair of the World Endoscopy Organization Coalition to Reduce Inequities in Colorectal Cancer Screening and the AGA Trainee and Early Career Committee. He also serves on the ASGE Annual Scientific Program Committee, the ACG International Relations Committee, the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable Membership Committee, and the New York Citywide Colon Cancer Control Coalition Screening Guidelines Committee. He previously served on the AGA Publications Committee.

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Lois Anne Katz, MD, FACP

Associate Chief of Staff for Special Emphasis Programs and Quality Management – VA New York Harbor Healthcare System / 630
Fellowship in Nephrology – NYU School of Medicine

Dr. Katz, a graduate of Wellesley College and NYU School of Medicine, is an internist and nephrologist who is the Associate Chief of Staff for Special Emphasis Programs and Quality Management at VA New York Harbor Healthcare System.

From 1980 to 2000 she was Associate Chief of Staff for Ambulatory Care. In that role she was responsible for implementing Primary Care and Home Based Primary Care at the New York VAMC.

She is Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine; she teaches medical students and medical residents at NYU and the VA. Dr. Katz treats inpatients and outpatients; she specializes in managing patients with hypertension and patients with kidney disease including those on dialysis. She is also a primary care physician who has been a Preventive Medicine advocate for many years.

She is the VISN 3 Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Program Manager and is a member of the Preventive Medicine Field Advisory Committee for VA. Her clinical research career spans more than 30 years; she was a principal investigator for the ALLHAT, ACCORD, and SPRINT studies (landmark NHLBI studies of the treatment of hypertension and diabetes) and many other antihypertensive drug studies.

She also supervises the Women Veterans Program, the Visually Impaired Services Team, and Employee Health Programs at VA NY Harbor. She was the Women’s Liaison Officer to the AAMC and chaired the Women in Medicine and Science Committee at NYU School of Medicine from 1980 until 2005.

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Melanie Jay, MD, MS

Staff Physician – New York Harbor VA Manhattan
Associate Professor of Medicine and of Population Health – New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Director – NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity
Director of Research Collaboration and Mentorship – Division of General Internal Medicine

Melanie Jay, MD, MS is a staff physician at the New York Harbor VA in Manhattan. She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine and of Population Health at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, and is board certified in internal medicine. She serves as Director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity and Director of Research Collaboration and Mentorship for the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her research focuses on improving the treatment and prevention of obesity, particularly in primary care settings. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and Veterans Affairs, among others and is currently PI on 4 obesity-related behavioral clinical trials. She recently was named Director of the new Michael J. Simberkoff Center for Vaccine Clinical Trials at the NY Harbor VA where they are conducting Covid-19 vaccine trials. Her studies with Veterans include:

The Peer Assisted Lifestyle Coaching Study: This is a cluster randomized trial of a technology-assisted peer coaching intervention for weight management. This is funded by a VA Merit Review Award

Patient use characteristics of VA Telehealth Services and Impact on Quality of Care during COVID-19. This is a quality improvement project funded by the Office of Connected Care.

Optimizing Telemedicine: Using Standardized Patients to Assess and Train Clinicians in Digital Communication and Use of Technology This is a quality improvement project funded by the Office of Connected Care.

Goals For Eating and Moving: This study is a cluster-randomized trial of a technology-assisted weight management intervention funded by the NIH

WOOP VA: Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions to Promote Weight Management in Primary Care—This study will be funded by a VA Merit Review Award to conduct a Randomized Trial of a novel imagery technique to increase motivation to participate in a weight management program.

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Jared Jagdeo, M.D., M.S.

Staff Dermatologist – Brooklyn VA Medical Center

Jared Jagdeo, M.D., M.S., is a Staff Dermatologist at the Brooklyn VA Medical Center. Dr. Jagdeo is a world recognized expert in lasers and photomedicine. He is also an Associate Professor of Dermatology and Director of the Center for Photomedicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

As a physician-scientist, his research focuses include cutaneous photobiology, wound healing, fibrosis, skin cancer, immunology, and procedural dermatology. He has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as edited several books and co-authored book chapters. Dr. Jagdeo has received awards and honors, including the NIH-UC Davis CTSC K12 Mentored Career Development Award, NIH-UC Davis Innovation Grant, designation as an American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Future Leader, the Laser Florence Young Dermatologist Abstract Competition 1st Place Winner and the Dr. Horace Furumoto Innovations Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery. Dr. Jagdeo has received research support and funding for laboratory and clinical investigations at the VA.

A native of Brooklyn, Dr. Jagdeo is happy to serve as a physician, researcher, educator and mentor for patients and trainees.

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Dr. David Goldfarb, MD

My Bibliography

Chief of Nephrology – The New York Harbor VA Healthcare System
Clinical Chief of Nephrology – NYU Langone Medical Center
Professor of Medicine and Physiology – NYU School of Medicine

Dr. Goldfarb graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in biology and received his MD from the Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine and his fellowship in nephrology at NYU Langone Medical Center and the New York VA Medical Center. He is the Chief of Nephrology at the New York Harbor VA Healthcare System, the Clinical Chief of Nephrology at NYU Langone Medical Center, and Professor of Medicine and Physiology at NYU School of Medicine. He directs kidney stone prevention clinics at NYU and the New York VA. He has been the medical director of the hemodialysis unit at the New York VA since 1994. He was an associate editor of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) for five years, and is currently on the editorial board of JASN, CJASN, Kidney International, Urolithiasis and Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension.

He is the former president of the New York Society of Nephrology, was president of the ROCK Society (Research on Calculus Kinetics) for 2015-2016 and serves on the medical advisory board of the National Kidney Foundation Serving Greater New York and the Oxalosis and Hyperoxaluria Foundation. In 2014 he was recognized as the Stone Crusher of the Year by the Oxalosis and Hyperoxaluria Foundation. In 2016 the American Kidney Fund awarded him Nephrologist of the Year. He is the co-editor of 2 books on kidney stones published in 2014. He has also had three calcium oxalate stones.

Dr. Goldfarb is the principal investigator of the cystinuria component of the Rare Kidney Stone Consortium which was funded by the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences from 2009-2019. He has performed research in many aspects of kidney stones, chronic kidney disease and end stage kidney disease and hemodialysis. He helped plan and execute three VA Cooperative Studies. He has published more than 200 articles which can be viewed here:

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Dr. Murray Fingeret, O.D., F.A.A.O.

Chief of the Optometry Section – Brooklyn/St. Albans Campus, Department of Veterans Administration New York Harbor Health Care System
Clinical Professor – State University of New York, College of Optometry

Dr. Murray Fingeret is Chief of the Optometry Section, Brooklyn/St. Albans Campus, Department of Veterans Administration New York Harbor Health Care System. Dr. Fingeret is a Clinical Professor at the State University of New York, College of Optometry and a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry. Dr. Fingeret was inducted into the National Optometry Hall of Fame in 2019 and sits on the Board of Directors of the Glaucoma Foundation. He is a member of the American Glaucoma Society, the American Optometric Association, and the National Academies of Practice. Dr. Fingeret is a founding member and past-president of the Optometric Glaucoma Society and currently the president of the Optometric Glaucoma Foundation. He is the recipient of the 2013 Vincent Ellerbrock Clinician Educator Award from the American Academy of Optometry, 2008 Distinguished Service Award Optometric Glaucoma Society, 2005 Carel C. Koch Memorial Medal from the American Academy of Optometry, 1999 AMSUS Federal Service Optometrist of the Year award and 1996 Otsuka Glaucoma Educators Award from the American Academy of Optometry. Dr. Fingeret sits on the editorial boards for the Journal of Glaucoma, International Glaucoma Review, Glaucoma Today, Primary Care Optometry News, Optometry Times and Review of Optometry and has authored numerous articles and co-authored the texts “Atlas of Primary Eyecare Procedures” and “Primary Care of the Glaucomas”. His area of research includes the development of ophthalmic instrumentation related to glaucoma. He has been involved in the normative datbabase development for several perimeters and optical coherence tomographers.

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Dr. Nabil El-Sherif

In Memoriam Dr. Nabil El-Sherif

Director of the Cardiology Division – Brooklyn Campus of VA’s New York Harbor Healthcare System

Dr. Nabil El-Sherif graduated from Cairo University School of Medicine in 1960, received post-graduate training at Cairo University Hospitals and Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida. In 1978, he became a Professor of Medicine and Physiology at the State University of New York (SUNY), Downstate Medical Center and in 1984 became the director of the Cardiology division at Downstate. He is currently the Director of the Cardiology Division at the New York Harbor Veterans Affairs Health Care Center, Brooklyn campus.

Dr. El-Sherif is an internationally recognized authority in Cardiac Electrophysiology. He is a member of several National and International medical societies and serves on the editorial board of several journals. His research has been consistently supported by federal and non-federal grants for the last 35 years and has dealt with the link between molecular biology, ion channel physiology, cellular electrophysiology and clinical presentations of cardiac arrhythmias. He has published over 500 peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, and book chapters and has edited 8 books in the field of cardiac arrhythmias. He has received several honorary awards including the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award from the European Cardiac Arrhythmia Society (ECAS) and the 2010 Pioneer of Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology from the Heart Rhythm Society.

Dr. Nabil El-Sherif, director of the cardiology division at the Brooklyn campus of VA’s New York Harbor Healthcare System, received the American College of Cardiology’s prestigious Distinguished Science Award for 2016. The award was presented to El-Sherif in recognition of his translational research on heart arrhythmias, which has improved the management of cardiac rhythm disorders in two main groups of patients. The first group consists of those who experience palpitations, dizziness, or fatigue, along with other non-life threatening symptoms. These symptoms are usually caused by various forms of irregular heartbeats, and are cured in almost all cases by a relatively non-invasive procedure developed by El-Sharif and others called transcatheter radiofrequency ablation. The second group consists of patients with more serious rhythm disorders that may result in death. El-Sharif discovered that some of these potentially lethal arrhythmias were due to an electrical mechanism he called the “figure-of-eight-model of reentry.” This mechanism helped pinpoint the best site from which the problem could be eliminated, either by surgery or through a procedure called electrode catheter ablation.

El-Sharif’s current research focuses on identifying which patients in this group are at highest risk, so that internal defibrillators can be implanted in time to save these patients’ lives.

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Cory K. Chen, PhD

Director of the VISN 2/NYH Clinical Resource Hub Psychology Section – Manhattan Campus of the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System
Director of the Psychotherapy Research and Development Program – New York University
Associate Clinical Professor – Department of Psychiatry at New York University

Dr. Cory K. Chen is the Director of the VISN 2/NYH Clinical Resource Hub Psychology Section based at the Manhattan Campus of the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System. Dr. Chen is also Director of the Psychotherapy Research and Development Program and Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at New York University. He completed his undergraduate training in Psychology with a certificate in Neuroscience and Public Policy with a concentration in Health Policy at Duke University. Dr. Chen earned his doctorate from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill where he was awarded the Martin S. Wallach Memorial Award for Outstanding Doctoral Candidate. He completed his clinical internship at NYU/Bellevue Hospital.

Dr. Chen is heavily involved in the training of students in the delivery of psychotherapy and provides seminars and supervision to psychology externs, interns, and postdoctoral fellows, psychiatry residents, and social work trainees. He was the recipient of the 2016 Robert Cancro Award for Excellence in Teaching from the NYU Psychiatry Residency Program. Dr. Chen is also the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships for his research including a Howard Hughes Research Fellowship, Gable Fellowship, APA Minority Summer Fellowship, NIH/NIA Carolina Program in Healthcare and Aging Research Fellowship, and an NIH OBSSR Summer Institute Fellowship.

He is also the recipient of a VA Health Services Research and Development (VA HSR&D) Career Development Award. His research and program development work has been funded by the NIH/NIA, VA Office of Geriatrics and Extended Care, VA HSR&D, VA Office of Rural Health, American Psychoanalytic Association, International Psychoanalytic Association, Weill Cornell Medicine Clinical and Translational Science Center, and the NYU Program for Medical Education Innovations and Research. Dr. Chen’s psychotherapy research focuses on studying and developing new interventions and approaches to help difficult to reach patients.

His current research attempt to understand factors associated with psychotherapy treatment non-response as well as develop and pilot new treatments for non-responders. He has multiple ongoing studies focused on family caregivers of individuals with dementia, Veterans with depression, and Veterans with PTSD. He also conducts research and quality improvement work on the structure, process, and outcome of tele-psychotherapy services.

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Dr. Mohamed Boutjdir

Director of the Cardiovascular Research Program – VA New York Harbor Healthcare System
Professor at Departments of Medicine, Cell Biology and Pharmacology – State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University
Professor at the Department of Medicine and Cardiology Division – NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York

As the former Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the VA NYHHCS, Dr Boutjdir directed and managed a research portfolio of over $15M from NIH, DoD, Veterans Affairs and AHA.

Dr. Boutjdir’s research interest is in cardiac electrophysiology, autoimmune channelopathies and mechanisms of sudden cardiac death. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts including high impact journals such as Nature immunology, Nature Cardiology and Circulation.

Dr. Boutjdir serves in several review boards for cardiovascular study sections for many granting institutions such as National Institute of Health, American Heart Association, Veterans Administration and several European and Canadian funding agencies. Dr. Boutjdir serves also as a reviewer for many National and European high impact journal and is an active member of editorial boards.

The daily Post

Dr. Jason Maikos

Dr. Jason Maikos

Peter S. Liang, MD, MPH

Peter S. Liang, MD, MPH

Lois Anne Katz, MD, FACP

Lois Anne Katz, MD, FACP

Melanie Jay, MD, MS

Melanie Jay, MD, MS

Jared Jagdeo, M.D., M.S.

Jared Jagdeo, M.D., M.S.

Dr. David Goldfarb, MD

Dr. David Goldfarb, MD

Dr. Murray Fingeret, O.D., F.A.A.O.

Dr. Murray Fingeret, O.D., F.A.A.O.

Dr. Nabil El-Sherif

In Memoriam Dr. Nabil El-Sherif

Cory K. Chen, PhD

Cory K. Chen, PhD

Dr. Mohamed Boutjdir

Dr. Mohamed Boutjdir

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