Dean's Update
July 11, 2025 - Aron Sousa, MD
Friends,
There is plenty of time for worry and rending, so I want to start with a celebration. Each year our faculty put in large, impressive portfolios, as well as the painful Form D, as their promotion packet. And, each year we celebrate a remarkable group of faculty who are recognized by their fellow faculty and the university with a promotion. This year, we celebrate:
Promoted to Clinical Associate Professor
Arul Chandran, Medicine
Vijayalakshmi Donthireddy, Medicine
Muhammad Ehtesham, Medicine
Samir Elian, Medicine
Donna Eng, Medicine
Shatha Farhan, Medicine
Nagham L. Jafar, Medicine
Namita Jayaprakash, Emergency Medicine
James C. Lee, Medicine
Joseph Sanders, Anesthesia
Promoted to Clinical Professor
Gordan Srkalovic, Medicine
Celeste Williams, Medicine
Promoted to Fixed Term, Health Professions, and Non-Prefix Associate Professor
Hend Azhary, Family Medicine
Churlsun Han, Medicine
Kelly Hirko, Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Phillip McDonald, Medicine
Andrew Moriarity, Radiology
Sumugdha Rayamajhi, Medicine
Renzo Loyaga Rendon, Medicine
Mahmoud Salama, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
Mukta Sharma, Medicine
Jennifer Straughen, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
Parul Sud, Medicine
Mariam Younas, Medicine
Promoted to Fixed Term, Health Professions, or Non-Prefix Professor
Hassan Bagher-Ebadian, Radiology
Jordan Braciszewski, Pediatrics and Human Development
John Schuen, Pediatrics and Human Development
Li Zhou, Medicine
Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure
Omayma Alshaarawy, Family Medicine
Kent Key, Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health
Xiaopeng Li, Pediatrics and Human Development
Lorenzo Sempere, Radiology
Kristen Upson, Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Ping Wang, Radiology
Promoted to Professor with Tenure
Kip Bohnert, Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Cristian Meghea, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
Amber Pearson, Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health
While promotion technically reflects work since the hiring or the last promotion, each portfolio is really built on a lifetime of work and experience. You cannot do great work in the last seven years without preparing for that work in the rest of your career. Each new project and paper builds from the challenges overcome in the past. The success of our communities, college, and university comes from the continued success of our faculty as they overcome barriers in science, education, and society. And our future success will be secured as we continue to find and overcome challenges in collaboration with the talents and dedication of our colleagues, students, mentors, families, and community. Success comes from the support we receive and the obstacles we overcome – there cannot be remarkable success without challenge.
Promotion is a great achievement, and importantly, it is a marker of not just what has been achieved but also what will be achieved next. Because upon reflection, there is much to do. Funding and policy changes at the national level appear weekly. The adoption of the reconciliation bill last week will result in momentous changes in how students finance their medical education as well as consequential changes in Medicaid. I will point you to the Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) statement on the bill.
I have written about the loss of the Grad PLUS loan program previously. We have worked with our MSU team and colleagues in the AAMC to understand the implications of the detailed language in the bill. It seems clear that this change will have a significant financial impact on about half of all medical students at the College of Human Medicine and across the country. So, we have work to do advocating for medical students and raising scholarship funding.
In the next few weeks, we will announce a group of twelve Dean’s Scholars. We are modeling the Dean’s Scholars after a scholarship in the College of Natural Science that has been successful for their students and college. There will be three scholars from each medical school class who engage in scholarly work beyond their usual curriculum and will help us with outreach to our communities and alumni. We converted a dean’s discretionary fund to use the proceeds specifically for this project. I want to thank Karen Kelly-Blake, Amber Heard-Booth, and Andrea Wendling for putting the project together and running the nearly completed selection process. I am excited to meet the students!
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine