Appalachia public health expert, Cincinnati Children's fellow join UMMC faculty

Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.

Patricia G. Amolenda, M.D.

Dr. Patricia G. Amolenda, recently a fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of anesthesiology.

After receiving her B.S.N. from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines, in 2007, Amolenda earned her M.D. magna cum laude at the University of Santo Tomas in 2011. She had residency training at UMMC from 2014-18 before completing her fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in 2019.

The author or coauthor of two articles in the Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, four posters presented at scientific meetings nationally and three scholarly projects, Amolenda has given a Grand Rounds presentation at UMMC.

Vinayak K. Nahar, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Vinayak K. Nahar, assistant professor of public health/one health and research at the Center for Animal and Human Health in Appalachia, Lincoln Memorial University, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of dermatology with a secondary appointment in preventive medicine.

After receiving his M.D. in 2008 from the School of Medicine at Vitebsk State Medical University, Republic of Belarus, Nahar earned his M.S. in health promotion in 2013, his graduate interdisciplinary certificate in applied statistics in 2015 and his Ph.D. with an emphasis in health behavior in 2016 at the University of Mississippi. He also has served as affiliate research faculty at the DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine.

A fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and a member of the Women’s Dermatologic Society, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Public Health Association, among other professional organizations, Nahar serves on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Dermatology Nurses’ Association and as an associate editor for the International Journal of Women’s Dermatology.

Nahar has had articles published in many high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA Dermatology, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, JAMA Oncology, the British Journal of Dermatology and the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology. He has presented his work at national and international conferences and has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous research grants focusing on several topics related to health issues, from oral health behaviors to opioid addiction to sun protection behaviors among skin cancer patients.