Our Team

Daniel Leidy

Daniel graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Biological Anthropology, with a minor in Cognitive Neuroscience. He worked as a Research Assistant in Temple University’s Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory before joining Dr. Reese at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently working as a Clinical Research Coordinator on projects involving medication adherence, psychosocial impacts of kidney donation, incentivizing health behaviors, and kidney biomarkers. Daniel is also taking courses through the Master of Science in Translational Research Program offered by Penn.

Dan was a co-author on our recent AJKD publication.

Simona Levsky

Simona obtained a degree in the Biological Basis of Behavior and a minor in History in 2016 with  the  hope of becoming a physician. She has been interested in community-based health research as a result of her involvement in volunteering with homeless individuals in the West Philadelphia community at a medical clinic, as well as teaching health and nutrition lessons to children in local elementary and middle schools. She has been involved with research in transplant adherence, studying the effects of incentives on medication adherence in dialysis patients at various dialysis clinics in Philadelphia. She has also been involved with studying physical and psychological outcomes in live kidney donors and the effects of turn-down for donation on individuals at the Penn Transplant Institute. Simona hopes to continue pursuing her interests in community-based health research in medical school. 

Simona is a co-author on this Journal of Renal Nutrition article about novel methods to help dialysis patients lower serum phosphorus. In addition to co-authoring our AJKD article, she was also published in Clinical Transplantation for work on individuals turned down for live kidney donation. You can now find her at Temple Med School!

Ruchita Pendse

Ruchita graduated with majors in Biology and Health & Societies and a minor in Bioethics. She has a particular interest in the intersection of ethics and health policy, and is passionate about resolving disparities in health care access and quality. In addition to working with the Reese Lab, Ruchita is researching an honors thesis on medical debt among under-insured populations, and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Penn Bioethics Journal. She hopes to become a physician and to advocate for health policy change.

She can now be found at Stanford Med School and was recently published in Clinical Transplantation for work on individuals turned down for live kidney donation!

Daniel Gray, MS

After finishing a chemistry MS in 2009 at UC Berkeley, Dan realized that his research interests were in healthcare. After contributing to the lab at Drexel University and learning linux system administration, he started in clinical research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with the Emergency Department Screening for Teens at Risk for Suicide (ED-STARS) trial. Dan started his work with the Reese Research Group in July 2015, where he conducts qualitative interviews with kidney donors who are currently undergoing evaluation. He also assists two medication non-adherence trials. Outside of work, he spends his free time marathon training with Students Run Philly Style, writing computer programs, and trying to quit drinking copious amounts of really strong coffee. Dan began medical school at Jefferson University in Fall 2016.

Neel Koyawala

Neel is an Associate at the Boston Consulting Group in New York working on healthcare cases before going to medical school. He holds a B.A. in Biochemistry and Minor in Biophysics and a B.S. of Economics with Concentrations in Healthcare Management and Operations Management from the University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in transplant epidemiology for its complexity and diversity in connecting with many fields in society. His previous epidemiology research involved disparities in children’s health and teen suicide. He plans to apply these experiences to future health services research. Overall, in the long-term, he hopes to integrate his scientific and business backgrounds and work with others to build a healthier community.

Neel will be attending Johns Hopkins SOM next year and is first author on a JASN publication!

Francisca Bermudez

Francisca is a rising sophomore at Princeton University, where she is pursuing a BA in Molecular Biology with certificates in Global Health & Health Policy and Spanish. Her time at Penn will be spent working on a retrospective, qualitative pilot study of live kidney donors which is focused on the experiences of individuals that have been turned-down for donation. After graduating from college, she hopes to obtain an MD/PhD and one day work with Doctors Without Borders. She enjoys volunteering and serves as project leader of SVC: Creative Minds, a group that volunteers at local nursing homes in the Princeton/Plainsboro area. In addition, she is an editor for the Princeton Public Health Review, plays Club Field Hockey, and is actively involved in the Davis International Center. Outside of her academic interests, Francisca enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Also recently published in Clinical Transplantation for work on individuals turned down for live kidney donation!

Watch her thoughts on the LDI-sponsored, summer-long research program (SUMR) here.

Ramnika Gumber, MD

Ramnika was a renal fellow at Penn and has since moved on to the next stage. She went to medical school in Mumbai, India during which she did clinical electives at NIH and Weill Cornell. By her final year, she knew she would be a nephrologist. Her clinical and research interests are renal immunology and renal transplantation. During residency at SUNY Buffalo she studied steroid minimization protocols in renal transplant, elderly transplant donors and role of macrophages in chronic glomerular injury.  Now she is working with our team to study rehospitalization after solid organ transplant.

Caroline Carney

Caroline graduated from UPenn in 2012, where she studied Anthropology, concentrating in Medical Anthropology and Global Health. She completed an honor’s thesis on mapping fresh food access and diabetes prevalence in Philadelphia. Since undergrad Caroline has worked as a research coordinator for medication adherence and weight loss studies at LDI CHIBE. Caroline hopes to practice qualitative research methods and continue her education in the health or design fields. She is interested in the social and health implications of climate change.

Neda Khan

Neda received her Bachelor’s degree from Drexel University in 2016 with a BS in Biological Sciences and a focus in Cellular, Molecular, Genetics, and Biochemistry along with a minor in Psychology. Before joining Dr. Reese’s Research Team, she was previously working as a clinical research assistant at Methodist Hospital as well as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. As a research assistant, she focused on ER-related patient research and was involved in patient recruitment and data analyses. To further her education in medicine, she just received her Master’s in Biomedical Sciences in May of 2017.

Neda hopes to gain more experience in the field of clinical research and eventually be able to manage research studies in the future. In her free time, she enjoys various activities including paddle boarding, yoga, reading, and exploring new places.

Sakshum Chadha

Sakshum is a student of the 7 year BS/MD medical program with The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) and New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). He finished his undergraduate coursework at TCNJ early as a Biology major and used his extra year and a half to work as a CRC in the Reese Lab before starting medical school. He has previous experience working with Translational research in the Pulmonary department at Penn and with Anesthesiology and Neurology research at NJMS.

Concurrent with his work as a research coordinator, Sakshum obatined a Masters in Law with a concentration in Health at Penn Law. He has a strong interest in public health and its broad applications. As a future physician, he hopes to apply both his experience working directly with patients as a research coordinator and his studies in Health Law to his medical career in order to impact health policy and advocate for its change and reform.

Anna Sicilia

Anna graduated from Temple University in 2014 with a Bachelors of Science in Biology and a minor in Healthcare Management. After graduation, she began working at Penn as a Clinical Research Assistant with ITMAT. Her research was focused on preventative cardiology, lipidology, and pulmonary hypertension. Anna started as a Clinical Research Coordinator with the Reese Research Group in December 2015. She worked mostly on a pilot kidney transplant study involving HCV+ kidneys. Anna will be attending medical school in the Fall! Outside of work, Anna enjoys going to the beach, trying to cook, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.