The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.
Sara H. Gleason, M.D.
GleasonDr. Sara H. Gleason, a staff psychiatrist at the G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an associate professor of psychiatry.
After receiving her BA from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1989, Gleason earned her J.D. at the University of Michigan Law School in 1992. She became an associate attorney at the Boston firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., before moving to Mississippi.
A teacher at Jackson Prep from 1995-97, Gleason completed post-baccalaureate premedical coursework at Millsaps College before enrolling in the School of Medicine. She earned her M.D. at UMMC in 2004 and served as a house officer in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior here from 2004-08.
Gleason joined the Mississippi State Hospital, Whitfield, as a staff psychiatrist in 2008 and then moved to the VA in 2012. During the last four years, she served at VA facilities in both Jackson and Biloxi. She has been an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at UMMC since 2012.
A Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and an executive council member of the Mississippi Psychiatric Association, Gleason is an active member of the American Psychiatric Association and the Mississippi State Medical Association. She is coauthor of an article in the Journal of Emergency Nursing, “Using a Single-Item Rating Scale as a Psychiatric Behavioral Management Triage Tool in the Emergency Department.”
Ashley L. Karel, MSN
KarelAshley L. Karel, a family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner for the Warren-Yazoo Mental Health Service, Vicksburg, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in nursing.
While serving as a senior nurse technician at St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital, Karel earned her BSN at UMMC in 2008. A resident of Vicksburg, she served as a registered nurse at St. Dominic, River Region Health System (Vicksburg) and GI Associates and Endoscopy Center (Jackson) while she earned her MSN from UMMC, which she received in 2011. Karel then joined the Warren-Yazoo Mental Health Service in June 2011.
Named to Vicksburg's “Top 20 Under 40” list in 2012, Karel is an active member of the Mississippi Nurses Association and the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.
Kemal Topaloglu, M.D.
Topaloglu
Dr. Kemal Topaloglu, professor of pediatrics and chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at the Cukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Adana, Turkey, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and as an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences.
After receiving his medical training at Cukurova University, Faculty of Medicine from 1982-88, Topaloglu had a residency in pediatrics at the Istanbul Zeynep Kamil Children's Hospital in Turkey from 1989-93, a fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Loyola University of Chicago from 1993-96 and a fellowship in human molecular genetics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, from 1997-99.
He joined the faculty at Mersin University, Turkey, in 1999 as an assistant professor of pediatrics before moving to Cukurova University two years later. At Cukurova University, he became an associate professor of pediatrics in 2002 and a professor of pediatrics in 2007. He also had a one-year sabbatical from 2012-13 at the Oregon Health and Science University, Beaverton.
A prolific writer, Topaloglu is the author or coauthor of 57 articles jn peer-reviewed scientific publications. On nine separate occasions he has been invited to speak at international conferences, and his various research projects have received funded of more than $500,000 collectively. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Human Genetics, the Pediatric Endocrine Society and the Endocrine Society.