Explore recent accomplishments from our faculty and trainees, including awards, publications, presentations and other notable achievements. These contributions reflect the collaboration, innovation and impact that define our department.
Recent Highlights
Michele Curatolo, MD, PhD, was recently featured in a UW Medicine Newsroom story about his role in a multi-institutional study on nerve tissues and chronic pain, published in the April issue of the journal Brain.
He has been actively sharing expertise in pain science across leading academic and international forums in the last year, including the Non-Opioid Pain Therapeutic Summit in Boston, Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Anesthesiology, and the 15th Advanced Course in Pain Therapy in Napoli, Italy.
In May, Department Chair G. Burkhard Mackensen, MD, PhD, FASE, FSCAI, shared his expertise at the 5th Leipzig TEE Masterclass in Germany. The premier live program highlights real-world clinical cardiac surgery cases, advanced hemodynamic monitoring, 3D transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) imaging, and interventions in structural heart disease.
Dr. Mackensen is also the recipient of the American Society of Echocardiography 2026 Outstanding Achievement in Perioperative Echocardiography Award. Read the full announcement.
A former trainee, Casey Quinlan, MD, will become the director of the Anesthesiology Residency Program director in July. “I am driven by the challenge of helping to leverage the best of what our department has to offer,” she said, “while simultaneously working to build a sense of belonging and community to support residents through some of the most difficult moments along the way.”
Effective July 1, See Wan Tham, MBBS, will assume the role of interim director for pain medicine at Seattle Children’s. In this capacity, Dr. Tham will partner with members of our department to ensure a smooth continuation of all activities related to pain medicine at Seattle Children’s, including the outpatient clinic, inpatient pain service, the Pain Rehabilitation Program (PReP), and the Pediatric Pain Fellowship.
Jake Sunshine, MD, has been selected to present at Redefining Healthcare in the Age of AI, a Nature Conference, held September 8-10 in Paris, France. The conference will explore the transformative impact of AI on modern medicine. Learn more about Dr. Sunshine’s work.
Monica Vavilala, MD, was featured as first author on an impactful study published in Critical Care Medicine on March 27. Her work shows how the Pediatric Guideline Adherence and Outcomes (PEGASUS) program, designed at Harborview Medical Center, improves outcomes for children with traumatic brain injury.
Tonya Palermo, PhD, was inducted as a 2026 USASP Fellow at the United States Association for the Study of Pain 2026 Annual Meeting. The highest class of membership within the USASP, the designation recognizes members who have demonstrated excellence in advancing the understanding of pain through sustained scholarship leadership and service.
Rui Li, PhD, received the G.F. Gebhart Journal of Pain Young Investigators Award at the USASP, Dr. Li is a research assistant professor at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. T32 Research Fellow Francesca Querdasi, PhD, also received a 2026 Travel Award.
Bonica Scholar Ian Jones, MD, won the Lisa Wise-Faberowski Resident Prize for Research Excellence at the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA) 2026 Annual Meeting. The award honors the author of the best research paper submitted to the AUA by a resident or fellow each year. See photos and a full recap of the meeting, hosted by our department.
On March 4, Michael Bruchas, PhD, was the featured speaker for the Science in Medicine Lecture series, presented by the UW School of Medicine. He discussed neuromodulatory circuits and GPCR signaling in affective behaviors.
Deepak Sharma, MBBS, MD, DM, represented the American Society of Anesthesiologists last February, leading multiple presentations for the “Best of Anesthesiology Annual Meeting” in Mumbai, India. In January he presented the new Transcranial Doppler Simulator for hands-on training at the Innovations in Neurosonology Symposium, co-hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University and Wake Forest University.
Kapil Gupta, MD’s textbook, Clinical Keys in Anesthesiology and Critical Care, published by Springer, is now available on Amazon and will be officially released soon.
Garret Stuber, PhD, joined by colleagues at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, received a $979K award from the Weill Neurohub for their project, “Mapping the developmental logic of midbrain dopamine circuits in autism models.”
Karen Domino, MD, is site principal investigator for the University of California San Francisco’s National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases R01 study, ” The Choice of Vasopressors to Prevent Postoperative Acute Kidney Injury After Major Non-Cardiac Surgery (VEGA-2).”
Rong Tian, MD, PhD, co-organized the 2026 Keystone Symposium on Cardiometabolic Health, held January 26-29 in Keystone, CO.