Faculty

We are so lucky to have such a talented and committed group of faculty preceptors. Please take a few moments to meet them:

Amal Awadalla

Amal Awadalla, MD (She/Her/Hers)
Originally from Sudan, she immigrated to the United States in 1993. She graduated from the University of Khartoum with MBBS degree (Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery). Since Sudan follows a British system, one of the requirements is to rotate in all departments, medicine, pediatrics, surgery and OB/Gyn. This gave her an amazing experience in these fields, as well as the chance to perform some surgical procedures. She completed her internal medicine residence in New York City and graduated from the Mount Sinai program at Queen Hospital. In 2001, she completed a geriatric fellowship at the University of Maryland, before joining JHCP. Since she joined JHCP, she has been involved in teaching both the residents and medical students. Her area of interest is geriatric medicine. She is particularly interested in medication safety and health literacy.

Lisa Cooper

Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH (She/Her/Hers)
Dr. Cooper is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Health Equity and James F. Fries Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Bloomberg School of Public Health. A Liberian-born general internist, medical educator, and public health researcher, she was one of the first scientists to document disparities in the quality of relationships between physicians and patients from socially at-risk groups and to design effective interventions to address these disparities. Currently, she directs The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she and her transdisciplinary team work with stakeholders from healthcare and the community to implement rigorous clinical trials, identifying interventions that alleviate racial, ethnic, and income disparities in social determinants, quality of primary care, and health outcomes. The Center also provides training to a new generation of health equity scholars and advocates for social change with policymakers. Dr. Cooper received her B.A. in Chemistry from Emory University and her M.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She received her M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health while completing a postdoctoral fellowship in general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. 

David Dowdy

David Dowdy, MD, PhD (He/Him/His)
He has been working at EBMC since 2011 and is also an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at the School of Public Health. He finished his MD and PhD at Hopkins in 2008 and his residency in internal medicine at UCSF before returning to Baltimore to re-join the Hopkins team. At EBMC, his primary role is in urgent care (CarePlus), and he precepts interns and residents in both primary care and urgent care. At the School of Public Health, Dr. Dowdy's research interests center on the epidemiology of tuberculosis, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and he also teaches epidemiological methods. Dr. Dowdy has a daughter in high school who keeps him engaged in climbing and hiking when not in clinic or doing research.

Leonard Feldman

Leonard Feldman, MD, SFHM, FAAP, FACP (He/Him/His)
Lenny is an Associate Professor in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has been on faculty since 2004. He received his undergraduate degree at Brown University and his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed his combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency at the University of North Carolina, where he served as a chief resident for the Internal Medicine residency. He is the founder and program director of the Johns Hopkins Osler Urban Health Internal Medicine Primary Care Track and the Urban Health Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency. He is also an associate program director for the Osler Internal Medicine Residency. As a program builder and specialist in resident education, Dr. Feldman has focused his research on resident and online medical education and high-value care. Other interests include patient education, evidence-based medicine, and quality improvement. He is also the medical director of the Charm City Care Connection and president of the Behavioral Health Leadership Institute board. Lenny loves baseball (the Orioles), jogging, listening to Podcasts and Audiobooks, and spending time with his wife and son. He is a lifelong resident of Maryland and a proud member of the Baltimore community.

Seema Gadiwalla, MD (She/Her/Hers)
She has been practicing as a primary care physician for 20 years. Her clinic is based out of JHCP Odenton. She precepts twice a month in the resident clinic. She has been a preceptor in a resident clinic for 20 years. She am grateful for the opportunity to work with residents. The relationship is mutually beneficial. She finds that she learns from precepting just as much as she teaches. In addition, she enjoys her role as primary care provider (PCP). As a PCP, she looks forward to getting to know her patients as individuals and learning about the multiple facets of their lives that may potentially affect their healthcare. Although it can be challenging at times to be involved in coordination of all aspects of their health care needs, it is also gratifying. She did her residency in primary care track at VCU and has been with Hopkins for 12 years. She lives with her husband in Columbia and they have two kids in medical school. In her free time, she likes to read and go for hikes.

Tara Hebert

Tara Hebert, MD (She/Her/Hers)
She completed her undergraduate degree at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. She moved to Baltimore for medical school at Johns Hopkins expecting to spend only 4 years here. Instead, she stayed to complete her residency at Hopkins and fell in love with her clinic at EBMC. Sixteen years later, this is still the only place she wants to work. Outside of EBMC, she spends an enormous amount of time coordinating the lives of three very busy kids with the help of her husband and a network of good friends and neighbors. Her long list of hobbies includes performing and costuming in community theatre.

RKruzan

Rachel Kruzan, MD (She/Her/Hers)
Rachel has Midwest roots, growing up in a western Chicago suburb, attending Notre Dame for undergrad (Go Irish!), and returning to Chicago for medical school. She came to Baltimore for residency and ACS year at the Bayview campus over 8 years ago, and now call ‘Charm City’ home. She fell in love with primary care at Bayview and now at EBMC, but also adores precepting, resident medical education, and am the Associate Track Director of the IM Urban Health Residency Program. Some of her interests lay in primary care medical education, health disparities/promoting health equity, and working with the Baltimore LatinX population. Outside of work, she loves to run (albeit not that fast), dance (hip hop or ballet now), attempting to train her dog, and spending time with her husband and friends in beautiful Baltimore.

Colleen Leavitt

Colleen Leavitt, MD, MPH (She/Her/Hers)
She grew up in northern Connecticut and completed undergrad at Fairfield University. After college, she spent a year in Yakima, Washington as part of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp where she worked as a case manager for patients with chronic mental illness. Afterward, she attended Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine and continued at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago for Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics residency. After residency, she practiced at two FQHC’s as a NHSC scholar at Chicago Family Health Center in the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago and People’s Community Health Center on Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore. During this time, she was involved in HRSA’s Health Disparities Collaborative, practiced in resource scarce locations that encouraged a more minimalist practice, and appreciated the diversity of providers I learned from early in my career. I became the Office Medical Director at JHCP EBMC in 2014. Her professional interests are around delivery of health care, health disparities/equity, quality improvement and team based care. Her clinical strengths are around immunizations, substance use disorders/MAT, adults with developmental disorders and illnesses from childhood, HCV treatment, diabetes and hypertension. In her free time she is a runner, hiker, bird-watcher, city gardener, reader of The New Yorker, a ‘bad’ vegetarian and an aspiring cook. She lives with her husband and a crazy Australian Shepard, Rocky, in the Locust Point neighborhood of Baltimore City.

Jesse McDermott

Jesse McDermeit, MD (He/Him/His)
He recently completed residency in the Urban Health Primary Care Track of the Osler Program. He is originally from Illinois, but has been on the East Coast for a good bit now. He went to NYU for medical school and Hopkins for undergrad. He is interested in health policy, social determinants, and homelessness. Clinically, he is interested in substance use, HIV, and HCV treatment. He's a Ravens and Orioles fan and is always interested in finding a new place to eat or a new community event in Baltimore.

Jordan Nahas-Vigon

Jordan Nahas-Vigon, MD (She/Her/Hers)
She is excited to be a part of the EBMC precepting team. She is a (very) recent graduate of the Urban Health program at JHH with her main primary care practice at Remington. She has a special interest in health in the correctional system as well as addiction medicine. She will be working part time on the opioid treatment van in front of the jail and welcome all residents to join her there. When she's not practicing medicine she's spending time with her husband, daughter and dog. She is a Californian at heart, but has certainly warmed up to Baltimore.

Talia Robledo-Gil

Talia Robledo-Gil, MD (She/Her/Hers)
Talia is the Associate Track Director and Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Osler Urban Health Track. She completed her undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College where she majored in art history and minored in biology. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine. She joined Hopkins as a resident of the Internal Medicine Urban Health track. Following graduation, she joined Whitman-Walker in Washington, DC, as a staff bilingual physician, working in general primary care, HIV care, LGBTQIA health, and substance use. As a clinician educator, her interests include addressing and evaluating how care is delivered to limited-English proficient communities, exploring health care access issues particularly for uninsured or underinsured persons, providing education on gender affirming care, and supporting pipeline education programs aimed at greater diversity in healthcare.

Sujay Pathak

Sujay Pathak, MD (He/Him/His)
He is a Baltimore native and Hopkins “lifer” – Med ‘11, Internal Med residency at JHBMC, GIM faculty since 2014. His interest is in lifestyle medicine, and more specifically in food as medicine. Since adopting a plantbbased diet and advising his patients to do the same, he has both seen and personally experienced dramatic health benefits. His goal is to spread the word about the promise of healthy plant or mostly-plant based eating to patients and learners at Johns Hopkins.

Hopkins GIM Faculty

Hopkins GIM has over 80 full-time faculty members who fall into three broad groups: Clinician-Educators, Academic Hospitalists, and Patient-Oriented Researchers. All three groups are engaged in scholarship and teaching. Click to see recent faculty publications with links to Pubmed.The breadth of their research activities encompass many areas of potential interest to urban health residents.

Part-time Appointments

In addition, about 150 outstanding general internists hold part-time appointments in Hopkins GIM. Many are top-notch clinicians on the active staff of The Johns Hopkins Hospital who are invited to teach Hopkins medical students and residents in office and hospital settings. Other are researchers, policy makers, and administrators who formerly studied or taught at Hopkins and now offer their real-world expertise to colleagues and trainees.

Joint Appointments

As a historic crossroads between the Schools Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, the Division of General Internal Medicine has attracted a large and growing number of research faculty with active joint appointments. These faculty members play major roles on multidisciplinary research projects, serve as core faculty on federal training grants,and provide mentorship and guidance to trainees and junior faculty members.

Additional Faculty

The faculty members of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and of the interdisciplinary Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute also provide a wealth of opportunities for collaboration and mentorship.