Welcome to another academic year! 

I trust everyone had a nice summer. I am personally looking forward to an exciting fall. The start of an academic year always means new faces, new programming, and new opportunities to learn.  

Along with that theme, I am excited to announce the launch of our first CARTI Basic Science Training Track. We received many competitive applications, and I send my heartfelt thanks to those who volunteered their time to participate on the selection committee.  

I am pleased to introduce the new cohort of CARTI scholars who span the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, and who are investigating a wide range of biology including epigenetic and neuronal changes caused by substance use disorder during pregnancy, neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, stress exposures and fetal brain development, immune dysfunction related to chronic viral infections, development of therapeutic biomaterials, computational biology, musculoskeletal frailty, solutions for antimicrobial resistance, and treatment of epilepsy with low intensity focused ultrasound: 

• Rhishita Chourashi, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, UM School of Pharmacy 

• Alip Ghosh, PhD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine 

• Bing Guo, MD, PhD, Research Associate in Medicine 

• Sandesh Kamdi, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in Neurosurgery 

• Hangfan Liu, DNS, Assistant Professor of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine 

• Miguel Lujan, PhD, MSc, Research Associate in Neurobiology 

• Isadora Martini Garcia DDS, MSc, PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor, UM School of Dentistry 

• Jimmy Olusakin, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in Neurobiology, 

• Courtney Townsel, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences 

• Jeanine Ursitti, PhD, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics   

We also have a new member of our CARTI team. Please join me in welcoming our new administrative assistant Yarlene Williams, who has been but two weeks on the job and is already hitting the ground running. We talked her into returning to UMB from retirement, where she was caring for family members. Yarlene previously worked on the clinical side with University of Maryland Faculty Physicians, Inc., with the Department of Surgery. We are thrilled to have her; she brings with her much institutional knowledge and a great can-do attitude.  

Welcome to CARTI and I hope everyone has a productive September. I look forward to seeing you soon at one of our events. 

-- E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA