Massachusetts General Hospital

Physician Scientist Award Recipients

2012

Rhonda Bentley-Lewis, MD, MPH, MMSc
Diabetes
Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Rhonda Bentley-Lewis earned her Bachelor’s degree at Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. She went on to the University of Pennsylvania where she earned her Doctorate in Medicine at the School of Medicine and a Master’s in Business Administration at the Wharton School in healthcare management. She completed both her Internal Medicine residency and Endocrinology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. During this time, she earned a Master’s in Medical Science from Harvard Medical School focusing on clinical investigation. She joined the Massachusetts General Hospital in 2010 in order to focus her clinical practice and clinical research on diabetes in pregnancy and adverse maternal outcomes subsequent to pregnancy. She is currently an Assistant in Medicine in the Diabetes Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

2008

Marylyn Addo, MD, PhD
Clinical and Research Fellow
Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Marylyn Addo received her MD/PhD degree from the University of Bonn/Germany in 1998. She also obtained an MSc degree in Applied Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases and the Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1999, where she was the recipient of the in Neil Ralph Memorial Prize in Molecular Biology. Dr. Addo joined the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1999 as a postdoctoral research fellow in Bruce Walker’s lab, who remains her current supportive mentor. In 2004 she received the Maxwell Finland Award for Research Excellence from the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society for her work on T cell responses to regulatory and accessory proteins of HIV-1. She also was a recipient of the Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award in 2003. Dr. Addo completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the MGH in 2006 and is currently pursuing MGH Infectious Diseases Fellowship training and board certification as part of the ABIM Investigator Pathway, during which she was awarded the Edward Kass Award for Clinical Excellence in 2008. Her research interests at the Partners AIDS Research Center focus on T cell immunology and regulation in HIV-1 infection, with a special interest in understanding the correlates of spontaneous control of HIV-1 infection in HIV-1 long-term non-progressors. She currently is an instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School

William Carr, DVM, PhD
Assistant in Immunology
Massachusetts General Hospital

William Carr, DVM, PhD is originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, and did his undergraduate training there at Duke University with a double major in Zoology and Russian (BS, 1988). Subsequently, he trained in Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University and was awarded his D.V.M. degree in 1992. He worked in aquatic animal health research as a shrimp disease specialist at the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii for several years before starting graduate school at Stanford University to pursue a Ph.D. in human immunology. Under the supervision of Dr. Peter Parham, he was awarded his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2004 for his thesis “Mechanisms of Natural Killer Cell Recognition of Human Cytomegalovirus Infected cells”. Initially, his objective was to apply his research training to address aquatic animal health issues, but subsequently Dr. Carr decided to continue his research focus on human heath issues to address health issues with a larger global impact. He continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Lewis Lanier at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) with investigations in innate immune responses to HIV-1 disease in collaboration with Dr. Warner Greene (UCSF). In October 2006, he started as an Assistant in Immunology at the Partners AIDS Research Center (PARC) with a dual appointment as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 2007, he was also given an appointment as an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pediatrics/ HIV Pathogenesis Program (HPP) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa. Through an on-going collaboration with HPP, he is undertaking studies in HIV-1 pathogenesis in South Africa based at the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute at UKZN.

2007

Miguel Rivera, MD
Instructor in Pathology
Massachusetts General Hospital

Miguel N. Rivera, received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1996 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2001. He completed his Anatomic Pathology residency and a fellowship in Molecular Diagnostics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Rivera is now Instructor in Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and is the recipient of a Hood Foundation Postdoctoral Award and a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists. His research focuses on the connections between cancer and developmental pathways in Wilms tumor, a pediatric kidney cancer that is derived from kidney stem cells. He has recently identified a new tumor suppressor, WTX, that is frequently inactivated in this disease.

Jose Florez, MD
Instructor in Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital

Jose C. Florez, MD, PhD graduated from the combined BA/MS Honors Program at Northwestern University in 1988 and then entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University . After obtaining MD/PhD degrees, Dr. Florez moved to Boston in 1997 where he had matched as a preliminary medical intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital. After one year in the combined Partners Neurology program, he returned to the internal medicine residency at MGH and completed fellowship training in endocrinology. From 2002 to 2007 he was a post-doctoral fellow with David Altshuler working on the genetics of type 2 diabetes, with particular attention to genes that encode hypoglycemic drug targets. Currently, Dr. Florez holds a staff position in the Center for Human Genetic Resarch at MGH, he is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant in the Diabetes Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the recipient of a Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award.

2006

Aaron Styer, MD
Instructor, Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Biology
Massachusetts General Hospital

Aaron Styer, MD, received his MD degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1998. He completed his internship and residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital Integrated Program in 2002. Among numerous honors and awards, Dr. Styer received in 2004 the Lalor Foundation Trainee Research Award in the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction, and the 2005 Best Abstract Award-Trainee, sponsored by the Massachusetts General Hospital Women's Health Research Program. Dr. Styer currently holds a faculty appointment as Instructor in the Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Biology Department.

William Curry, MD
Instructor in Surgery (Neurosurgery)
Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. William T. Curry, Jr. who completed his residency at MGH in 2004, has won an NREF Young Clincian's Award for 2005. The award was created by the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation of the AANS in 1985 to support rising clinician-investigators by funding pilot studies. Following completion of residency, Dr. William Curry joined the neurosurgical staff at Massachusetts General Hospital. As a member of the Pappas Center for Neuro-oncology, he specializes in the surgical treatment of brain and spinal cord tumors, both malignant and benign. His academic interests center around brain tumor immunology, and he is developing a translational research program around clinical immunotherapy trials for patients with malignant gliomas. Dr. Curry was born in New York, NY and studied as an undergraduate at Harvard University. He graduated from Cornell University Medical College in 1997, after which he began neurosurgery residency at Massachusetts General.

 2005

Sherri-Ann M. Burnett-Bowie, MD, MPH
Instructor in Medicine, Endocrine Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital

Sherri-Ann M. Burnett-Bowie received her A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College in 1993, M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1997 and M.P.H. degree from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2005. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Burnett-Bowie holds a faculty appointment as Instructor in Medicine at MGH. In 2005, Dr. Burnett-Bowie was awarded the MGH Physician-Scientist Development Award. Her research focuses on phosphate and Vitamin D biology, and clinical trials for osteoporosis. Dr. Burnett-Bowie was recently awarded a K23 NIH grant for ongoing research on the dietary and hormonal regulation of FGF-23 in humans.

 2004

Karleyton Evans, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Psychiatric Neuroscience Division
Massachusetts General Hospital

Karleyton Evans, M.D., holds a faculty appointment as clinical research staff member of the Psychiatric Neuroscience Research and Neurotherapeutics Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital and as an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In 2004, Dr. Evans was awarded with the MGH Physician-Scientist Development Award, sponsored by the Multicultural Affairs Office. As a resident in the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Program, Dr. Evans serves as a clinical assistant in the dual-campus Psychiatry program. As a recipient of the physician-scientist award, he is conducting psychiatric neuro-imaging research, with a particular interest in differentiating areas of the brain that perceive dyspnea—shortness of breath—from those related to fear and anxiety in patients during panic attacks. His study provides a novel approach to studying the panic phenomena and hopefully will lead to the development of new drugs or treatments for the disorder.

For more information, please contact:

Elena Olson, J.D.
Executive Director, Multicultural Affairs Office
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit Street, BUL 123
Boston, MA 02114
Phone (617) 724-3831