Pediatrics

FY23 Department of Pediatrics Awards & Recognition

US News & World Report 2023

In 2023, the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital ranked nationally in nine of ten pediatric subspecialty areas, two more areas than the prior year:

Cancer #37
Cardiology & Heart Surgery #21
Diabetes & Endocrinology #48
Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Surgery #17
Neonatology #11
Nephrology #19
Neurology and Neurosurgery #31
Orthopaedics #38
Urology #27

Overall, the hospital ranked #26 in the nation and 5th in the State of California. This is the 17th consecutive year that UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital has been nationally ranked in multiple subspecialties, reflecting broad and sustained excellence.

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA ranked #10 in primary care and #18 in research. The Department of Pediatrics ranked #6, based on ratings from medical school deans and senior faculty across the country.

FY23 Faculty Awards

  • Adam Schickedanz was recognized by the Board of Directors of the Academic Pediatric Association (APA) for his contributions as Region Chair and Health Care Value Special Interest Group (SIG) Chair.
  • Alan Chin, MD was elected as the APPD Program Directors' Executive Committee Chair-Elect (3 year term: Chair-Elect 2023-24, Chair 2024-25, Past Chair 2025-26).
  • Amanda Kosack, MD was awarded the Kaiser-Permanente award for Excellence in teaching.
  • Anna McKinsey, MD received the Alice Litman Moss Award.
  • Audrey Kamzan, MD, and Ben Wang, MD received the Robert C. Neerhout Teaching Award.
  • Bassem Shoucri, MD was awarded the 2023 William Friedman Fellowship Award.
  • Benjamin Macadangdang, MD, PhD, and Emily Whang, MD were selected as the NIH K12 UCLA CHRCDA faculty scholars.
  • Bonnie Drago, MD was awarded the Physician Champion of the quarter by the Los Robles Hospital administration for demonstrating exceptional service excellence and exemplifying their core values of Teamwork, Respect, professionalism, compassion and communication.
  • Cherie Lewis, MPH received the Special Person Award and was selected, with Pediatric Multifellowship Coordinator, Jennifer Martinez, to serve on the inaugural UCLA GME Program Coordinator Leadership Committee.
  • Christine Thang, MD was appointed the AAP Section on Early Career Physicians (SOECP) District IX representative for a 3-year term of November 2022 - October 2025 and was selected as a recipient of the 2022 Special Achievement Award from the AAP.
  • Cody Aros, MD and Richard Lee Sleightholm, MD, were selected by the Frontiers in Science Program and attended the 2023 Frontiers in Science (FIS) Symposium at the AMSPDC annual meeting in Florida in March 2023.
  • Deborah Lehman, MD was awarded the Serge & Yvette Dadone Clinical Teaching Award.
  • Donald Kohn, MD was awarded the 2023 Society for Pediatric Research (SPR) Maureen Andrew Outstanding Mentor Award.
  • Elizabeth Barnert, MD, received the UCLA Public Impact Research Award. She also became faculty affiliate of UCLA Latin American Institute.
  • Elizabeth Volpicelli, MD (PGY2) was awarded a 2023 AAP CATCH Resident Grant for "Rooted in Resilience" - a program to build mental health resources and curriculum for local high school students. She was also selected to be the Resident Assistant District Representative (ADR) - District 9 of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Pediatric Trainees (SOPT).
  • Jacqueline Casillas, MD was invited to serve on the Steering Committee of the American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2024 and elected to serve a five-year term on the Voting Body Steering Committee for the Children's Oncology Group.
  • Jaime La Charite, MD, was accepted to the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Doctoral Training Program and Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) TL1 Program in Learning Health Systems.
  • Kaitlin Hall, MD was awarded the 2023 Society for Pediatric Research (SPR) PRomotion of FellOwS' PEdiatric Research (PROSPER) Diversity Award.
  • Kalpashri Kesavan, MD was elected as the SW representative to the CAN Board from 2022-2025.
  • Kathryn Leifheit, PhD received Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science Postdoctoral Award.
  • Lisa Jacobs, MD received the John A. Fricker Teaching Award.
  • Lynne Smith, MD, was the recipient of the J. Usha Raj Endowed Professorship in Pediatrics.
  • Majid Husain, MD was awarded the Fellow Award for Excellence in Teaching.
  • Marinda Tu, MD was selected as a member of the 2023 UCLA Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Eudaimonia Society.
  • Marlin Touma, MD, PhD received UCLA Academic Senate Research Program Faculty Research Award. She was also awarded the International Abstract Travel Award from The 2022 World Congress, International Society for Heart Research (ISHR).
  • Myke Federman for her appointments as Professionalism Advocate for the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Staff Executive Committee and Interim Professionalism Advocate for the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital Professional Staff Executive Committee.
  • Neema Pithia, MD was awarded the 2023 AFMR Henry Christian Award for abstract entitled, “A human Milk Diet in Late Preterm and Term Infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial”. She was the recipient of a T32 Hematology/Oncology award.
  • Noah Federman, MD, was awarded the Jonathan and Nancy Glaser Endowed Chair for Pediatric Sarcomas.
  • Pietro Presicce, PhD, MBA, was accepted for the 10x Genomics Single Cell Grant Program. He was also selected to receive the 2022 I3T Core Technology Award.
  • Peter Szilagyi, MD was selected as a member of the 2023 cohort of the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honorary Society.
  • Sue McDiarmid, MD was named the 2023 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Liver Health Foundation.
  • Suhas Kallapur, MD  was appointed as an Associate Editor of American Journal of Reproductive Immunology - an official journal of the American Society of Reproductive Immunology.  He served as an Ad-hoc member of the NIH Pregnancy-Neonatology study section in June 2022, and was selected as APS/SPR National Cohort leader for the Journeys program for career mentoring.
  • Tatiana Zyrianova, PhD (Division of Critical Care Medicine, Schwingschakl Laboratory) received the Early Academic Achievement (REAAch) Award by the Assembly of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (RCMB) of the American Thoracic Society.
  • Resident Research Awards for 2023 were awarded to: Drs. Alexandra Abbott, Emma Burdekin, John Hwang, Teryn Igawa, Hiroya Ono and Lisa Soumekh.
  • Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute (CDI) Seed Grants were awarded to: Drs. Vivian Chang, Jeremy Moore, Erin Okawa, Colin Sallee, and Rajsekar Rajaraman with Julia Chang.