Fellowship Training Program Information

The mission of the UVA School of Medicine Nephrology Fellowship program is to produce physicians who are leaders in the Nephrology field and are firmly committed to lifelong learning.  Our faculty are recognized nationally and internationally in research, education, and clinical care.

Our Clinical Faculty..

• are recognized as national and international leaders in different fields of Nephrology
• are recipients of several prestigious national and local awards for teaching excellence
• serve on editorial boards of high-impact journals, NIH study sections, and different national professional organizations’ clinical practice guideline committees

A brief description of each of our faculty’s areas of expertise and recent accomplishments can be found below

Emaad Abdel-Rahman, MBBS, PhD has clinical interests in Geriatric Nephrology, hemodialysis, AKI, and home hemodialysis.  For the past two decades, he has been a favorite teacher for the fellows and a great mentor for residents, fellows, and junior faculty members.

Rasheed Balogun, MBBS, is internationally known for his expertise in blood purification techniques, including hemodialysis, continuous renal replacement therapy, and therapeutic apheresis. He is the course director for the annual International Therapeutic Apheresis Academy and the President-Elect of the International Society of Apheresis.

Brendan Bowman, MD, completed his residency and fellowship training at UVA.  He is involved in fellows’ education and ranks among our top undergraduate and postgraduate medical education educators. His interest and experience in the care of ESRD patients, quality improvement, and the business operations of dialysis have made him a unique internal resource for our fellows.

Adam Campbell, MD, completed his residency at the University of Kentucky and Nephrology fellowship at the University of Virginia.  He is based at Augusta Hospital and has a clinical interest in nephrolithiasis.

Tushar Chopra, MD is the Program Director of the Nephrology Fellowship Training Program. He joined our faculty after completing fellowship training at Vanderbilt University in 2015.  He has received several Teaching Excellence awards at UVA. His main area of clinical interest is acute peritoneal dialysis (PD), and he started the Urgent Start PD Program at UVA.  His current teaching projects involve overseeing clinical Graduate Medical Education, developing innovative educational tools, and curriculum reform. He received the highly competitive American Society of Nephrology William and Sandra Bennett Clinical Scholar grant to improve PD prescription writing among trainees.

Alden Doyle, MD joined the UVA faculty from Drexel University in 2016.  He is currently the Medical Director of Kidney Transplantation at UVA. He has twenty years of experience in immunology, international medicine, and patient-focused transplant care.  He is considered one of the top educators by his trainees here at UVA and throughout his career elsewhere.  He has received multiple awards for educational excellence and was recently awarded the Department of Medicine Clinical Excellence Award.   His areas of clinical interest include combined and sequential transplants, transplantation in HIV patients, and kidney disease following organ transplantation.

Uta Erdbruegger, MD, joined the faculty after completing her fellowship training at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Her clinical interest is rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis. Her research involves the functional role of platelet and endothelial microvesicles in health and disease.  She was recently awarded a five-year, $3.5 million NIH-NIDDK R01 grant titled “Insulin, Extracellular Vesicles, Exercise and Vascular Function in Type 2 Diabetes.”

Jeanne Kamal, MD, joined the faculty in 2019.  She completed her Nephrology fellowship at New York University and her Transplant fellowship at Columbia University. She is interested in adult transplant nephrology, mainly in the area of kidney disease recurrence after transplantation.

Sana Khan, MD, completed her Nephrology fellowship at UVA following her residency at the University of Cincinnati.  Her area of clinical interest is peritoneal dialysis.  She is the co-leader of the Renal System course in the School of Medicine’s pre-clerkship Nephrology curriculum.

Daphne Harrington Knicely, MD, MD MEHP, completed her residency at East Carolina University and her Nephrology fellowship at UVA.  She joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University before returning to UVA.  She is based at Augusta Hospital and is interested in patient education and patient-centered outcomes research.

Anubhav Kumar, MD, joined the faculty in 2019 after completing a fellowship in nephrology and ultrasound at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is interested in curriculum development and trains fellows in one-on-one and classroom sessions to use point-of-care ultrasound to enhance diagnostics and care delivery to patients.

Joseph Leeds, MD, completed his residency at Stony Brook University in NY and general Nephrology and Transplant training at UVA.  He was a former trainee of UVA Nephrology’s T32 Program.

Peter Lobo, MD, is one of our Transplant Nephrologists and an expert Immunobiologist.  He was the prior Director of the HLA tissue typing laboratory at UVA.  Fellows have enjoyed his outstanding teaching style and his stimulating their critical thinking by asking probing questions.

Angie Nishio-Lucar, MD, completed Nephrology and Transplant Nephrology fellowships at UVA following her residency at Henry Ford Hospital.  Her clinical interest areas include non-infectious complications of renal transplantation, barriers to transplantation, obesity, transplantation, and living donation.

Mark Okusa, MD, is the Chief of the Division of Nephrology at UVA. He served as the President of the American Society of Nephrology from 2018-2019.  He is known internationally for his contributions to understanding the pathophysiology of acute kidney injury.  Despite his busy schedule, Dr. Okusa has made fellow education a priority. He continues to attend the inpatient ICU and Floor Consult services and supervises fellows in their continuity clinics.  Fellows have consistently ranked Dr. Okusa as one of their top educators. He is the director of two research educational training grants: 1) NIH R25: Kidney Technology Development Research Education Program (VA K-TUTOR). This grant is aimed to attract technology-oriented undergraduate students into Nephrology research and two) Integrated Virginia Research Training Centers in KUH (IGNITE KUH).  This grant is a state-wide pre-and postdoctoral training grant to support research in Kidney, Urology, and Hematology at UVA, Virginia Tech, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Swati Rao, MD, a Transplant Nephrologist and Medical Director of UVA’s Pancreas Transplant Program, joined UVA in 2018.  She completed Nephrology fellowship training at Temple University and a Transplant Nephrology fellowship at Emory University.  Her research interests include pregnancy post-transplant, multi-organ transplant, and clinical outcomes.

Amanda D. Renaghan, MD, joined the UVA faculty in 2017 after completing residency and Nephrology fellowship training at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.  She established Virginia’s first dedicated Onco-Nephrology Clinic at the UVA Cancer Center to care for patients living with cancer and kidney disease.  Her clinical and research interests include the effects of chemotherapy on the kidneys.  She is active in medical student, resident, and fellow education and became Associate Program Director for the Nephrology Fellowship Program in 2023.

Mitchell Rosner, MD, is the UVA Department of Medicine Chair. He received the 2019 ASN Robert G. Narins Award for lifetime achievement in teaching excellence. He has won several prestigious teaching awards at UVA, and he served as the director of the ASN Nephrology Board Review Course and the Chair of the ASN Kidney Week Program Committee. His areas of clinical and research interest include ADPKD and disorders of sodium and water balance. He supervises fellows during their inpatient rotations and in their continuity clinics.

Julia Scialla, MD, MHS, joined the faculty at UVA in 2019 and is the Director of Outcomes Research at the Departments of Medicine & Public Health Sciences and the Director of the Nephrology Clinical Research Center.  Her primary focus is on epidemiology and outcomes research in chronic kidney disease.  Dr. Scialla is deeply committed to mentoring fellows who wish to experience the clinical research process first-hand and bring their curiosity and ideas to improve patient care and prevent kidney disease. She is one of the Division’s top educators.

Anita Vincent-Johnson, MD, received her residency training at Roanoke-Carillion and a Nephrology fellowship at UVA. She primarily practices at Augusta Hospital. Dr. Vincent-Johnson loves getting patients interested in and invested in their healthcare.

Sarthak Virmani, MBBS, completed his Nephrology and Transplant Nephrology fellowship training at Yale University. He joined the UVA faculty in 2023. His clinical practice is in the field of transplant medicine, and his interests lie in federal policies on organ allocation and improving access to organ transplantation.

Karen Warburton, MD, joined the UVA faculty in 2016 after spending ten years on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Transplant Nephrologist with clinical interests in immunosuppressive medication, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease following solid organ transplantation. She is the recipient of multiple awards for teaching and mentorship. She has a long history of leadership experience in Graduate Medical Education and currently serves as the Director of Graduate Medical Education Advancement at UVA. She also directs the Clinician Wellness Program for the UVA Health System. In these roles, Dr. Warburton works with faculty and trainees to promote personal and professional well-being, find meaning in their work to reduce burnout and promote engagement, and foster effective interpersonal communication by increasing self-awareness and promoting emotional intelligence skills.