2023 Faculty Speakers
Dr. Michael Baca-Atlas, MD
Dr. Michael Baca-Atlas is originally from Baltimore, MD. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, College Park and medical school at University of Maryland in Baltimore. He completed his Family Medicine residency at UNC as well as an Addiction Medicine fellowship at UNC in the Department of Psychiatry. He serves as the associate medical director for the Tobacco Treatment Program. Dr. Baca-Atlas has a special interest in the intersection of physical and mental health and addiction. He is passionate about teaching learners and caring for underserved populations at UNC Wakebrook in Raleigh, NC where he sees patients on the residential detox unit and in the primary care clinic. He also serves as a contributor to a primary care medical podcast with listeners in the US and abroad. Outside of work, Dr. Baca-Atlas enjoys spending time with his partner, eating breakfast for dinner, and travel.
Dr. Dana Doctor, MD
Dr. Doctor completed her General Psychiatry residency training at UNC and served as Chief Resident. After training, she stayed on as faculty within the Department of Psychiatry. She has a passion for teaching and mentorship throughout all levels of medical education. She supervises psychiatry residents and medical students in her role as an inpatient attending. Within the UNC School of Medicine, she serves as the CSP Psychiatry Clerkship Director for Application Phase medical students and is a Clinical Skills Tutor within the Carolina MED EXCEL program. Her clinical interests include schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, as well as integrated and collaborative care models to expand access to psychiatric services.
Dr. Beth Laurie Jonas, MD, FACR
Dr. Jonas’ clinical interests are in the evaluation and management of patients with inflammatory arthritis, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and enteropathic arthritis. Dr. Jonas has a strong interest in medical education and educational scholarship. She is highly involved in teaching rheumatology to learners at all level from undergraduate medical students to rheumatology fellows.
Dr. David F. Ransohoff, MD
Dr. David F. Ransohoff, one of the first gastroenterologists to also train as a clinical epidemiologist, has had a longstanding academic interest in improving methods to evaluate screening tests for cancer. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, completed his Internal Medicine residency at Dartmouth College, and did his Clinical Epidemiology Fellowship at Yale University and Adult GI Fellowship at the University of Chicago. In colon cancer screening, he has evaluated colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, stool blood tests, and recently molecular markers used in cancer screening. He has served as an advisor to the National Cancer Institute, FDA, and the US Preventive Services Task Force, and to other organizations and companies; and he has served in editorial positions with numerous journals. At UNC he has led faculty development programs for junior faculty and fellows as director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and of NIH-funded training programs. Clinically he sees patients with general GI problems.
Dr. Neeta Vora, MD
Dr. Vora is triple boarded in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Maternal Fetal Medicine, and Clinical Genetics. She completed her residency and fellowship at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA, and joined UNC OB-GYN’s Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine in 2012. She is now an associate professor and serves as the Director of Reproductive Genetics at UNC.
Dr. Vora has authored more than 50 articles on prenatal genetics, ranging from cell free DNA to whole exome and genome sequencing. She has a K23 from the NICHD to study use of new genomic technologies in obstetrics and an R21 to study novel genes critical to human brain development in a zebrafish model. She is a co-investigator on a multicenter prenatal whole genome sequencing grant.