Mirian Vanesa Garcia Rivera, MD

I was born and raised in Lima, Peru. Our healthcare system is centralized and as such, all complicated cases from the Amazon Basin and the High Sierra areas were seen and managed in our capital. As a medical intern, I was versed in many tropical diseases and their complications. The desire to advance my medical education brought me to the USA. My journey included time in Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Early on I was actively involved in cultural advocacy, education to minority groups and working as part of the medical staff for a free clinic for underserved, uninsured, and foreigners. My residency program in Internal Medicine in Queens, NY afforded me the opportunity to continue my passion for Infectious Disease, serving a diverse population with multiple comorbidities from numerous nursing homes patients to the underserved, multicultural surrounding communities. We often managed patients with Candida Auris, disseminated tuberculosis, undiagnosed AIDS, septic shock and malaria. Good collaboration, communication, and leadership were vital to getting through my most challenging moments during the pandemic. I have had incredible opportunities to learn with peers and patients from a variety of cultures, languages, ethnicities, and nationalities that reshaped my perspective in life personally and professionally. In my free time I like to explore different cuisines, swim and play volleyball with family and friends. I chose the University of Colorado for its academic and global reputation in ID as well as its location in a vibrant city.

 

Nnamdi Nwafo, MD, MPH 

I attended medical school at University of Nigeria, then practiced in Nigeria for a time before moving to Brooklyn, NY, for Internal Medicine Residency training. After residency, I worked as a Hospitalist in South Dakota (Rapid City) and Colorado, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Public Health at University of Colorado along the way. The COVID pandemic played a major role in choosing this new step in my career, and I am excited to be back at University of Colorado for ID Fellowship. I have always enjoyed caring for acutely ill patients, and I have interests in sepsis and critical care. I also look forward to exploring the Transplant ID and ID Oncology fields. Outside work, I enjoy traveling with my family and seeing new places. I love sports and talk shows in sports, and I play lawn tennis and soccer when I get the chance. And I listen to audio books… everyday, every time (literally).

 

Chad McCormick, MD 

Arianna Kousari, MD - Chief Fellow
I’m originally from Phoenix, Arizona and completed my undergraduate and medical school at the University of Arizona. Although I love the desert, I was ready for a change and matched at the University of Colorado for residency. I was fortunate to be exposed to infectious disease rotations early in residency and was able to work with a lot of great faculty from the ID department which inspired me to pursue a fellowship in ID. I was very fortunate to be able to stay here for fellowship. I am interested in HIV medicine and research focused on ART and improving morbidity in persons with HIV. In my free time, I enjoy cooking, baking, reading, watching bad reality TV, parenting two puppies with my fiancé, exploring Colorado, and learning how to ski.

 

Alexandra Barger, MD
I was born and raised in Southern Illinois, and completed my undergraduate degree at Washington University in St. Louis. After college, I moved to Hamilton, Montana to complete a NIH postbaccalaureate intramural research training award at Rocky Mountain Laboratories focusing on Chlamydia pathogenesis. I eventually moved back to the midwest, where I attended medical school at Southern Illinois University, graduating with both my MD and MPH. I finished my Internal Medicine residency at Tulane in New Orleans in June 2021, and I am now thrilled to be in Colorado gaining infectious disease knowledge (and approximately 5,300 feet of elevation over Louisiana). I am particularly interested in epidemiology and public health. Outside of work, I love gardening, running, and taking care of my pet fish.

 

Tyler Degener, MD
One thing I am eternally grateful for is the journey I have made around the entire country throughout my medical training. Born and raised in upstate New York (Albany), I ended up deciding on the public university track for my undergraduate education at SUNY Binghamton. From there I moved to my first "big" city Philadelphia for medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine. During my time in Philly I was exposed to a marginalized and at-risk patient population for the very first time. I learned to specialize my care for these patients and navigate the difficult social situations that always seemed to pop up. I also was exposed to the HIV population for the first time, and from there on I knew I wanted to go into ID. A few short years later I went cross-country to complete my Internal Medicine Residency training in sunny Los Angeles at USC (no seriously, I drove from Philly to LA, by myself, over 5 days--something I will never ever do again). Working and training at LA County hospital was both a blessing and a curse, learning what it's like to treat at-risk patients in a limited-resource setting. I saw almost every OI you could think of and how to treat it. Add on top of that the COVID-19 pandemic and I got everything out of my USC experience and more. Coming to UC for my ID fellowship will give me all the amazing opportunities of working at a large academic university center as well as still being able to treat at-risk patients over on the Denver Health side. In my spare time I enjoy learning about space, baking/cooking, watching RuPaul's Drag Race (AllStars and regular seasons), and trying out the many breweries throughout the city! I confess that I don't know how to ski at all, so I will have to learn. But I've got plenty of teachers here to help me.

Vanessa Kung, MD, PhD
I was born and raised in Wisconsin, where I completed a bachelor’s in mathematics, doctorate in chemistry, and medical school.  As a student at the University of Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Uganda, where mentors sparked my interests in health disparity issues and infectious diseases.  I next journeyed to Atlanta, for global health training through the CDC, and a residency in internal medicine at Emory University (Grady Hospital).  Getting to be a part of patients’ lives at Grady was a cherished honor.  I am excited to now be pursuing an ID fellowship in beautiful Colorado.  In my spare time, I enjoy books, music, and exploring the mountains.

 

Jose Henao Cordero, MD - Chief Fellow
I was born in Colombia and grew up in Costa Rica where I went to medical school. After doing ID rotations in the US as a med student I decided that was the career path for me so I completed my IM residency at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What I like about ID is the diversity of the field including not only in the pathologies and organisms, but also the patient population you see. I have a special interest in Transplant ID and I am planning on doing a third year on Transplant. What brought me to the University of Colorado was the opportunity to explore my particular interests with the variety of transplants we do, the multicultural patient population, and the familiarity and inclusion I felt from the program. Outside of work I enjoy hiking, reading, eating Latin food, exploring Denver and dancing salsa.

 

David Fraulino, DO
I was born and raised in Portland, Connecticut and completed my undergraduate degree at Salve Regina University in oceanside Newport, Rhode Island where I first engaged in basic science research characterizing virulence factors within species of Leishmania.  After college, I went north to Boston, Massachusetts to pursue a research position at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School within the immunology lab of Dr. Raif Geha. Here we focused on identifying novel causes of primary immune deficiencies by creating knock-in mouse models. I then continued my tour up I-95 to the Portland, Maine area where I received my medical degree from the University of New England. Coming full circle, I returned home to complete my residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Connecticut.  My clinical interests are in antibiotic stewardship and HIV medicine. In my spare time I enjoy hiking, rock climbing, and skiing (typical Denver transplant...).

 

Zachary Shepard, MD
I was born in Texas, but grew up in Maryland. I returned to Texas to attend the University of Texas at Austin before working as an English teacher in Houston for several years. I received my MD from Baylor College of Medicine in 2017 and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan to complete internal medicine residency at the University of Michigan.  Within infectious diseases I am interested in hospital epidemiology and antimicrobial stewardship. When I'm not in the hospital or clinic, I enjoy spending time with my spouse, Heather, and our dog, Duke, as well as running and hiking, and playing board games.

 

 

 

Lilian Vargas Barahona, MD

I am originally from Honduras where I went to medical school. During my medical training I was involved in the care of patients in impoverished and neglected communities and saw firsthand the burden that many infectious diseases posed for these populations. I moved to the United States to do an internal medicine residency at Houston Methodist Hospital where I had exposure to ID in diverse populations, including transplant patients, further increasing my interest in the field. My interests include neglected tropical diseases, care of underserved populations, endemic mycoses, and HIV. In my free time I like to read, cook, drink coffee, listen to music, and spend time with my family.