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Director, Pediatric Nephrology and Transplant Immunology
Medical Director, Children’s Health Center
Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

Dechu Puliyanda, MD is a Professor of Pediatrics at Cedars Sinai Medical Center as well as UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She is the director of Pediatric Nephrology and Transplant Immunology at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

Her areas of expertise:

• Use of biomarkers to determine kidney transplant rejection
• Transplantation of the highly sensitized, difficult to transplant pediatric patients
• Viral infection following transplantation
• Transplantation of the very young pediatric recipients

Dechu Puliyanda has won numerous accolades throughout her career. She was a Gold Medalist from Mysore Medical College. During residency she won the best intern award. She has won numerous awards for her exceptional teaching of medical students, residents and fellows. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Benjamin Kagan award for outstanding contribution to patient care, research and teaching.

After her completion of her fellowship at Harvard medical school, she joined Cedars Sinai Medical center in 2000. Her research here has focused on viral infection in the post-transplant period and surrogate markers for renal transplant rejection.

She is a world-renowned speaker and is regularly invited to speak at a number of national and international conferences. She is the author of several high impact peer-reviewed publications in prestigious medical journals. In addition, she has a very strong commitment to providing comprehensive care to children and adolescents with chronic kidney disease.

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Adult and Pediatric Nephrologist, Department of Nephrology
Akron Children's Hospital and Akron General Medcial Center Cleveland Clinic

Rupesh Raina, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine, has been a clinical faculty member at NEOMED for seven years, and became M4 director in October 2021. He also practices adult and pediatric nephrology at Akron General Hospital, Summa Health and Akron Children’s Hospital, and conducts research on acute kidney injury and outcomes.

Pediatric Psychologist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Professor of Clinical Psychology,
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Debra Lefkowitz, Psy.D. is Section Co-Chief, Pediatric Psychology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a former Councilor and Allied Health and Ethics Committee member of the International Pediatric Transplant Association.

Pediatric Nephrologist and Professor
Pediatrics and Child Health, Max rady College of Medicine
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Canada

Dr. Aviva Goldberg is Section Head of Nephrology in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, the Associate Dean Student Affairs and co directs the UGME Professionalism Program at the Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. She completed a clinical fellowship in Bioethics and Medical Humanities and Northwestern University and a Masters of Arts in Bioethics and Health Policy from Loyola University Chicago.

Dr. Goldberg is the Vice President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation and former Chair of the AFMC Student Affairs Section. She has published and lectured nationally and internationally on ethics, health policy and medical humanities subjects in transplantation, ethics and pediatrics. She co-edited the book Ethical Issues in Pediatric Organ Transplantation, the first book solely on pediatric transplant ethics. She is a recipient of the Canadian Association of Medical Education’s 2018 Certificate of Merit a 2022 Martha Donovan Women’s Leadership Award and multiple other teaching awards.

Alexis F. Hartmann, Sr., MD, Endowed Professor of Pediatrics
Vice Chair for Clinical Investigation, Department of Pediatrics
Professor and Chief, Division of Pediatric Nephrology, Hypertension & Apheresis
Washington University School of Medicine & St. Louis Children’s Hospital
St. Louis, USA

Dr. Dharnidharka obtained his MBBS and MD degrees from Topiwala National Medical College and BYL Nair Hospital, under Bombay University. He completed his Pediatric Nephrology fellowship training at Children’s Hospital/Harvard University in Boston. Dr. Dharnidharka has published more than 240 papers and has received NIH grant support continuously since 2004, with 4 current grants as lead Principal Investigator. His expertise relates to BK virus and Epstein-Barr virus infections and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders.