Words from the Program Directors

It has been another fantastic year for our fellowship. Our recently elevated first-year fellows – Drs, Maria Martinez Cruz, Sarah Jacob, and Courtney Dominguez – have served as the faces of our division on the inpatient wards at Duke and the Durham VA over the past year. This group has provided excellent clinical care and is now developing plans for scholarly pursuits. Great job, gang!

Our upper-level fellows likewise continued their outstanding work. Recently graduated second-year fellows Drs. Randol Kennedy and Arya Sharifzadeh completed fellowship in June, and Randol has since joined our Duke faculty. While Arya has sadly moved on from Duke, he has identified an outstanding opportunity with Atrius Health back home in Boston. Upon finishing second year, Neesha Namasingh has now begun her third year of research fellowship, during which she will continue her exciting work examining the role of endocrine disrupting chemicals in driving metabolic disease. Happily, our recently graduated third-year fellow, Athavi Jeevananthan, has joined Randol as a new Duke faculty starting July 2025!

We are also thrilled to report that we had another stellar recruiting season. We welcomed three outstanding new fellows at the beginning of July 2025:

Jacob Gabbay, MD (Clinical Track)
Jacob graduated from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and recently completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Vermont Medical Center. During residency, he helped lead the development of a fracture liaison service and researched the use of CGM to examine glycemic impacts of wildfire-related poor air quality in CFRD. His clinical and scholarly during fellowship will focus on bone and other areas of interest. 

Katie Havranek, MD, MPH (Research Track)
Katie received her medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and her master’s in public health from the Colorado School of Public Health. She completed her internal medicine residency at New York University School of Medicine, and a year as primary care chief resident at NYU. Katie has strong interests in health equity – her fellowship research and clinical work will center this area. 

Jiazhen Li, MD (Clinical Track)
Jiazhen graduated AOA and GHHS from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.  He completed his Internal Medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center. Jiazhen has a background in clinical research examining pre- and post-pandemic rates of malignancy on thyroid FNA, and he cultivated extensive experience with medical education during residency. He will explore his scholarly interests in clinical education during fellowship.

Finally, a few other notable recent events to share:

In August 2024, we welcomed Dr. Stef Alexopoulos as our fellowship program associate program director.

On February 21, 2025, second-year fellow Arya Sharifzadeh gave a truly memorable Endocrinology Grand Rounds on the history of Duke’s Endocrinology Division, with a focus on divisional founding father Dr. Frank Engel. This celebration drew a bigger crowd in-person than we’ve seen since the pandemic, which included retired luminaries such as Drs. Warner Burch, Frank Neelon, and John Guyton. We hope that many of you were able to join the session virtually – and if not, Arya’s talk is available online. The celebration also included recognition and remembrance of Dr. Lillian Lien, who passed away in January 2025 after a courageous battle with cancer.  Please refer to our Divisional and Fellowship Program websites for additional news and information.

Thanks so much to all of our fellows and faculty for making our fellowship thrive! Looking forward to more good times ahead.

Thanks,

Matt Crowley, Program Director
Stef Alexopoulos, Associate Program Director
Traci Womble, Program Coordinator