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Department of Neurological Surgery Department of Neurological Surgery
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Meet Our Residents

The Team

  • PGY-7—Mickey Abrahams, MD

    PGY-7—Mickey Abrahams, MD

    Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
    Graduate School: Columbia University, New York, NY; Philosophy, Bioethics
    Medical School: Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ
    Outside Interests: Family, reading
    Research Interests: Neuro regeneration, spinal cord injury, device development, stem cell biology
  • PGY-7—Ronald Sahyouni, MD, PhD

    PGY-7—Ronald Sahyouni, MD, PhD

    Hometown: Orange County, CA
    Graduate School: UC Irvine, Irvine, CA; Biomedical Engineering
    Medical School: UC Irvine, Irvine, CA
    Outside Interests: Dog training, distance running, traveling, and exploring new cities through their coffee shops
    Research Interests: Restorative neurosurgery and neurotechnology, including neuromodulation, neuroprosthetics, and peripheral nerve interfaces designed to restore function after neurological injury
  • PGY-7—Alexander Tenorio, MD

    PGY-7—Alexander Tenorio, MD

    Hometown:  Los Angeles, CA
    Medical School: UC San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA
    Outside Interests: Running, hiking, sports
    Research Interests: Improving neurosurgical care delivery in under resourced regions
  • PGY-6—Kiefer Forseth, MD, PhD

    PGY-6—Kiefer Forseth, MD, PhD

    Graduate School: University of Texas, Houston, TX; Computational Neuroscience 
    Medical School: University of Texas, McGovern Medical School, Houston, TX
    Outside Interests: Surfing
    Research Interests: Global high-density electrophysiology of language and motor networks
  • PGY-6—Bryan Ryba, MD

    PGY-6—Bryan Ryba, MD

    Hometown: San Ramon, CA
    Medical School: UC San Diego, San Diego, CA 
    Outside Interests: Sports, exploring the outdoors including hiking, cycling, traveling, discovering new restaurants
    Research interests: Viral vector delivery, spinal cord injury, spine surgery outcomes
  • PGY-5—Hernán González, MD, PhD

    PGY-5—Hernán González, MD, PhD

    Hometown: Miami, FL
    Graduate School: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; Biomedical Engineering
    Medical School: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
    Outside Interests: Running, going to the beach, traveling, swimming 
    Research Interests: Surgical treatment of epilepsy, brain computer interfaces, neuromodulation targets and deep brain stimulation to improve patient outcomes, pediatric neurosurgery
  • PGY-5—Timothy Kim, MD

    PGY-5—Timothy Kim, MD

    Hometown: Davis, CA
    Medical School: The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
    Outside Interests: Spending time with my family, eating, sleeping, going to the gym, and watching the Sacramento Kings, San Francisco Giants, and San Francisco 49ers
    Research Interests: Adult spinal deformity, minimally invasive spine surgery, spinal robotics
  • PGY-4—Nicholas Hernandez, MD

    PGY-4—Nicholas Hernandez, MD

    Hometown: Pasadena, CA
    Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA
    Outside Interests: Traveling, cooking, hiking
    Research Interests: Open cerebrovascular neurosurgery, endovascular device innovation, anterior and lateral skull base surgery, pediatric skull base development
  • PGY-4—Jubran Jubran, MD

    PGY-4—Jubran Jubran, MD

    Hometown: Morgan Hill, CA
    Medical School: University of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ
    Outside Interests: Spending quality time with friends and family, enjoying music, exploring nature, discovering new restaurants
    Research Interests: Minimally invasive and personalized spine surgery, medical student and resident education
  • PGY-3—Kathryn Becker, MD, PhD

    PGY-3—Kathryn Becker, MD, PhD

    Hometown: Aurora, OH
    Graduate School: The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH; Cancer Biology
    Medical School: The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH
    Outside Interests: Quality time with family and friends, animals, reading, house plants and vegetable gardening, not exercising, anthropology, film photography, graphic and interior design, going to bed early
    Research Interests: Neuron-glioma interactions, glioblastoma tumor microtubes, glioma therapy resistance, glioma invasion, neuromodulation in psychiatric disease
  • PGY-3—Nikita Choudhary, MD

    PGY-3—Nikita Choudhary, MD

    Hometown: Plano, TX
    Graduate School: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Chemistry
    Medical School: University of Texas, Austin, TX
    Outside Interests: Spending time with friends and family especially over food, music, or nature
    Research Interests: Brain tumor therapeutics and outcomes, cerebrovascular/endovascular technology, artificial intelligence in neurosurgery, surgical education
  • PGY-2—Guan Li, MD

    PGY-2—Guan Li, MD

    Hometown: Oakland, CA
    Medical School: Stanford Medical School, Stanford, CA
    Outside Interests: Going to the beach, snorkeling, basketball, horror movies, traveling
    Research Interests: Innovation and translational research in spine, improving and predicting postoperative outcomes in spine surgery, applying artificial intelligence in neurosurgery
  • PGY-2—Julie Necarsulmer, MD, PhD

    PGY-2—Julie Necarsulmer, MD, PhD

    Hometown: Kennett Square, PA
    Graduate School: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; Cell Biology & Physiology and Neurology
    Medical School: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
    Outside Interests: Hiking, running, a good cheese plate, wine tasting, spending time with family, lacrosse, cooking, Costco trips, crossword puzzles
    Research Interests: Neurodegenerative disease, intersection of neurodegeneration and glioneuronal tumorigenesis, gene therapy technology and delivery, RNA regulation and transcriptomics, tumor microenvironment, outcomes
  • PGY-2—Kyle Zappi, MD

    PGY-2—Kyle Zappi, MD

    Hometown: Lafayette, LA
    Graduate School: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Biomedical Engineering
    Medical School: Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
    Outside Interests: Fishing, hunting, boxing, attending concerts, and recently learning to surf
    Research Interests: Functional neurosurgery, brain-computer interfaces, neuromodulation, disorders of consciousness, and development of novel neurotechnologies and implantable devices to restore and augment neurological function
  • PGY-1—Cyrus Ayubcha, MD, PhD

    PGY-1—Cyrus Ayubcha, MD, PhD

    Hometown: West Chester, PA
    Graduate School: University of Oxford, England, UK; Evidence Based Social Policy and Evaluation
    Graduate School: Harvard University, Boston, MA; Epidemiology and Biostatistics
    Medical School: Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
    Outside Interests: Playing sports and drums, writing poetry, hiking, and watching the Eagles and 76ers
    Research Interests: Multimodal computer vision and machine learning, geometric deep learning, neuroscience of vision, cerebrovascular malformations, skull base tumors, and neurosurgical clinical trials
  • PGY-1—Tracy Miller, MD

    PGY-1—Tracy Miller, MD

    Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA 
    Graduate School: West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV; Finance 
    Medical School: University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
    Outside Interests: Cooking 
    Research Interests: Metabolic vulnerabilities and targeted therapies in the treatment of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
  • PGY-1—Gavin Touponse, MD

    PGY-1—Gavin Touponse, MD

    Hometown: Bethlehem, CT
    Graduate School: Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; Medicine in Biomedical Investigation
    Medical School: Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA
    Outside Interests: Traveling, cooking, trying new restaurants, spending time with family
    Research Interests: Neuromodulation targets and deep brain stimulation to improve patient outcomes, human electrophysiology, spine surgery outcomes