New Faculty Hires and Promotions: January 2006-February 2007

New faculty recruitments include:

Garry E. Gold, MD, became an associate professor of radiology at Stanford University in June of 2006. He received a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1988 and his MD from Stanford in 1992. He began working with Dr. John Pauly in 1988 on ultra-short echo time imaging in MRI. In 1994-95, Dr. Gold completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with Dr. Albert Macovski and Dr. Robert Herfkens and was awarded the 1995 International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Young Investigator Moore Award for his work. In 1998, Dr. Gold did a fellowship in musculoskeletal radiology with Dr. Donald Resnick and subsequently joined the faculty at Stanford. Dr. Gold has authored over 60 journal articles, 170 abstracts, and five patents in MRI. He is the principal investigator on two NIH-funded projects to improve MR imaging of osteoarthritis using real-time MRI for the study of biomechanics. He has been the principal investigator or a co-investigator on over 30 funded research projects. At Stanford, Dr. Gold practices clinical musculoskeletal radiology while teaching medical students, residents, and fellows. He also teaches two courses in imaging physics and human anatomy for medical students and graduate students, and he serves as an advisor and co-advisor for many engineering graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Most recently, Dr. Gold was awarded the Kaiser Award for Outstanding and Innovative Contributions to Education and the President's Medal from the International Skeletal Society.

Lawrence "Rusty" Hofmann, MD, became an associate professor and the section chief of cardiovascular-interventional radiology in January of 2006. Prior to coming to Stanford, Dr. Hofmann received his medical degree from the Ohio State University School of Medicine and completed his residency in diagnostic radiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was elected chief resident. He completed his fellowship in cardiovascular and interventional radiology at Stanford University Medical Center and returned to The Johns Hopkins Hospital to become an assistant professor of radiology and surgery for five years before coming to Stanford in 2006. Dr. Hofmann's research interests include image-guided molecular interventions and minimally invasive treatment for deep venous thrombosis. He is a founding member of the American Journal of Nanomedicine, and he has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of Roentgenology, the Journal of Vascular Surgery, and the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. In his free moments, Dr. Hofmann enjoys spending time with his family watching the Ohio Buckeye football games and taking his three sons fishing on his boat.

Nishita Kothary, MD, has been an assistant professor of radiology at Stanford since April of 2006. Prior to coming to Stanford, Dr. Kothary was an assistant professor at Columbia University in New York. She completed her residency in diagnostic radiology at George Washington University in Washington D.C., which was followed by a fellowship in neuroradiology at New York University Medical Center, New York, and a second fellowship in interventional radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Her clinical and research interests include image-guided oncologic interventions, spine interventions, and women's health. She is also actively involved in mentoring medical students, residents, and fellows, and she is the education and fellowship director for the Division of Interventional Radiology. In her free time, Nishita enjoys traveling to remote places, especially the Serengeti, and she is a budding piano student.

William T. Kuo, MD, assistant professor of vascular and interventional radiology, received his BS degree with honors from Duke University and MD degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine with distinction in radiology, winning the Meschan award for radiology excellence. He completed his surgical internship at the Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, WA, and trained in a combined interventional and diagnostic radiology residency program at the University of Rochester Medical Center where he served as chief resident and became one of the first physicians in the nation to complete the Clinical Pathway in Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Following residency, Dr. Kuo received additional endovascular training by completing his fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center. His interests include peripheral and pulmonary arterial thrombolysis; embolotherapy for the treatment of gastrointestinal hemorrhage; chemoembolization for hepatic malignancies; treatment of renal and peripheral vascular disease; and techniques for the retrieval of trapped inferior vena cava filters. At Stanford, Dr. Kuo is initiating translational nanotechnology research that will investigate the in vitro effects of carbon and metallic nanoparticles for tumor therapy. His work has been published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and Techniques in Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Dr. Kuo is also a distinguished reviewer for the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. When he is not at work, he can probably be found running, playing tennis, or ski boarding.


Beverley Newman, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, did her undergraduate and medical school training at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, graduating cum laude in 1976. She next completed internships in internal medicine and general surgery and was a resident briefly in nephrology and immunology in South Africa before immigrating to the United States in 1978. Dr. Newman worked as a resident in pediatrics, which was followed by a radiology residency at Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center. Next, she finished a fellowship in pediatric radiology at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard University. Dr. Newman was a junior staff member in the Department of Radiology at Boston Children's Hospital for a year before being recruited to the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Pittsburgh Children's Hospital. She remained there for 22 years, rising to the rank of professor of radiology and section chief of body imaging and neonatal radiology. In mid-2006, Dr. Newman relocated to Stanford University as associate chief of pediatric radiology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. She has received multiple awards and honors over the years including multiple prizes in medical school, the Radiology editor's reviewer recognition award with distinction, and the Fellowship of the American College of Radiology. Dr. Newman has also been an active reviewer for multiple radiology journals including Radiology, American Journal of Radiology, Pediatric Radiology, and Journal of Pediatrics. Her particular areas of research interest are chest and cardiac imaging in children and newborns. Dr. Newman is delighted to be working with the knowledgeable and enthusiastic Stanford radiology faculty.

David S. Paik, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. He did his doctoral work in biomedical informatics at Stanford focusing on computer-aided interpretation of medical images including anatomic modeling, visualization, and computer-aided diagnosis. He is currently working on several major projects that focus on bringing a quantitative and principled approach to medical image analysis with the ultimate goal of integrating image-derived information with other biomedical information sources.

Jeffrey Tseng, MD, was appointed an instructor of radiology in July 2006. He received his medical degree from Yale University and finished his radiology residency at the University of Washington. Dr. Tseng has also completed a fellowship in nuclear medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a second fellowship in PET/CT and molecular imaging at Stanford. His research interests include molecular imaging, cancer biomarkers, drug development, and PET. He enjoys playing ice hockey and attending music concerts around the Bay area.

Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of medicine (cardiology) and radiology. He received his MD from Yale and his PhD from the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on adult and embryonic stem cell biology, gene therapy, and molecular imaging.

Greg Zaharchuk, MD, PhD, became an assistant professor of radiology in August 2006 after completing his residency and neuroradiology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, in June of 2006. His previous training includes medical school at Harvard and doctoral training in the joint Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) in the area of applied physics. His research interests center around the development and application of advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques, particularly the quantification of cerebral hemodynamics and oxygenation. In his spare time, he plays with his two sons, Kenji (age 5) and Noah (age 0), and builds IKEA furniture. He spent his undergraduate years at Stanford and spends much time bicycling through campus vicariously reliving those days!

Faculty promotions include:

Sunita Pal, MD, has been promoted to clinical assistant professor of diagnostic radiology, effective 2/01/07. Since 2004, Dr. Pal has been a clinical instructor at Stanford, where she was also a breast imaging fellow and resident in the Department of Radiology. She also received her medical degree from Stanford University, but spent her undergraduate days on the East Coast at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dr. Pal's research interests include using MRI in the early detection of breast cancer and in predicting breast tumor response to chemotherapy.

(Images courtesy of Mark Riesenberger)