Faculty & Staff

Jump to: Campus Leadership Module Directors & Content Facilitators Preclinical Core Clinical Core Student Affairs & Academic Advising Experiential Learning Administration Site Directors

Campus Leadership

Elizabeth Gray, MD

Campus Dean

elgray@augusta.edu

Dr. Gray, an internist, has led the Savannah location of the Southeast Campus, home to around 80 third- and fourth-year students who live and learn in the area, since 2020.

She came to MCG from Nova Southeastern University School of Allopathic Medicine in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she was director of the school’s clinical sciences and clerkship curriculum, and as a founding faculty member helped develop learning objectives for students, recruited clinical faculty and teaching sites, authored accreditation standards and directed the clinical simulation and standardized patient programs.

She earned her medical degree and a master’s degree in business administration from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. She completed her internal medicine residency at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Stephen Chitty, MD

Campus Associate Dean SE Clinical Campus,
Assistant Professor

Hunter Faircloth, MD

Campus Assistant Dean, Experiential Learning,
Assistant Professor

Dr. Faircloth completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine with the Medical College of Georgia. He completed a year as Chief Resident with the Health Center in Augusta where he was able to work extensively with the experiential learning team and has a record of both teaching and research. He currently works with the St. Joseph’s / Candler Health System.

Nina Paletta, MD

Campus Assistant Dean, Student Affairs,
Assistant Professor

Folami Powell, PhD

Campus Assistant Dean, Pre-Clerkship,
Associate Professor

Dr. Folami Powell is a native of the SC/GA Southeast coastal area, growing up in nearby Beaufort, SC. She attended Brown University, where she obtained her B.Sc. in Neuroscience and completed her PhD (with distinction) at the Medical College of Georgia in Biomedical Sciences within the Pharmacology and Toxicology Department. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at MCG in the Ophthalmology/Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) departments and then joined BMB as an assistant professor and medical educator. Previously, she redesigned and co-directed the Biochemistry course the Student Educational Enrichment Program, a pipeline program offered to prospective medical students through the Medical College of Georgia. She also co-directed the pre-matriculation biochemistry course for incoming medical students. Prior to her transition as the preclerkship assistant dean at the Savannah campus, she served as the Module Director for Career Paths in Medicine and the Gastrointestinal, Genitourinary, Endocrine module, and co-created the Translational Medicine Area of Concentration in Augusta. She also leads a research lab that studies retinal degeneration and insulin signaling.

John Rowlett, MD

Campus Assistant Dean, Clerkship
Professor

Dr. John Rowlett, a native of Richmond, Kentucky, is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He completed a combined internal medicine/pediatrics residency, chief residency, and fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at what is now the Homer Stryker College of Medicine at Western Michigan University. Dr. Rowlett has been a practicing physician in Savannah for the past thirty-two years, including the past 24 at St. Joseph's/Candler where he is the director of pediatric emergency and hospital medicine and chairman of the department of pediatrics. Dr. Rowlett has been involved with teaching at the Medical College of Georgia for more than thirty years. Dr. Rowlett and his wife (Sharon) have three children. In his spare time, Dr. Rowlett enjoys tennis, golf, pickleball, barbecue, travel, and reading.

Full-Time Module Directors & Content Facilitators

Ivo Boudakov, PhD, MSc, MBA

Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Dr. Ivo Boudakov (PhD, MSc, MBA), Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School / BIDMC and the University of Toronto / TGH. From 2020 to 2023, he served as a Professor at Mercer University School of Medicine and was a founding faculty member at Mercer’s Columbus Campus. His extensive teaching experience includes academic program development and administration at St. George’s University School of Medicine (Grenada), Lakehead University (Canada), and two Ontario Career Colleges. Since 2010, Dr. Boudakov has been an independent consultant and expert evaluator for the European Commission's Research Executive Agency.

Steven Ebert, PhD

Associate Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Dr. Ebert obtained his PhD from the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Program at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory of Developmental and Molecular Neurobiology, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California. He worked for several years as a senior research associate in the Department of Pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC. After his promotion to Assistant Professor, he served as the Associate Director for the PhD Program in Pharmacology. He moved on to the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences College of Medicine, University of Central Florida in Orlando where he became the founding coordinator for the UCF MD/PhD track in Biomedical Sciences, the Integrated Medical Sciences Master of Science Track in Biomedical Sciences and founding director for the Focused Inquiry and Research Experience (FIRE) Module for the research program for medical students in years 1-2.

Rachel Koshi, MBBS, MS, PhD

Professor of Anatomy

Dr. Koshi obtained her MMBS and PhD from Christian Medical College, Vellore, Madras University in India. She is a skilled Anatomist with over 30 years of original research in various branches of Anatomy. Dr. Koshi served on the editorial board for popular medical textbooks such as “Gray’s Anatomy for Students, “Atlas of Clinical Gross Anatomy”, and “Clinical Neuroanatomy and Neuroscience”. She was Professor Anatomy at Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Chittoor, India. Dr. Koshi will now lead the Anatomy lab for the MCG-Savannah Campus.

Paramita Pati, PhD

Assistant Professor, Pharmacology

Dr. Pati obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia. She completed her postdoctoral training at Yale University and served as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Alabama prior to becoming an instructor there. She is a discussion facilitator for the Cardio-Renal Journal Club, a KURE-Mentoring Academy leader for small group sessions, and principal investigator on a R01 active grant entitled, “Chronic circadian disruption in cardiovascular disease” and pending R01 grant entitled, “Role of circadian disruption in vascular disease”.

Elapulli Prakash, MBBS, MD

Professor of Physiology

Dr. Prakash obtained his MBBS from the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University in Chennai, India and his MD from Pondicherry University in Puducherry, India. His postdoctoral training was also completed in India. He was an Associate Professor of Physiology at the AIMST University Faculty of Medicine in Malaysia prior to becoming a Professor of Physiology at Mercer University, Department of Biomedical Sciences, in Macon, Georgia. He served as an Associate Dean of Admissions and Associate Dean of Preclerkship, Clinical Skills Education during his tenure at Mercer.

Shannon Stewart, MD

Assistant Professor

Adam Webb, MD

Assistant Professor

Preclinical Core Teaching Faculty

Paul Drweiga, MD

Assistant Professor

Dr. Drweiga completed his residency training in Pathology at the University of Alabama with an additional fellowship in surgical pathology. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Georgia. He has a strong history of both research and teaching. He currently works with the St. Joseph’s / Candler Health System.

Jessica McLendon, MD

Assistant Director

Dr. Mclendon completed her residency training in Emergency medicine at the Cleveland Clinic after completing medical school at MUSC. She has been an advocate for her students as a preceptor, and has a strong background in both research and education. She currently works with the St. Joseph’s / Candler Health System.

William Webb, MD

Assistant Professor

Dr. Webb completed his residency training in Pediatrics at Memorial Health Medical Center in Savannah. He has a long-established and successful pediatrics practice in Savannah and is a dedicated educator. He is a beloved preceptor for our third and fourth year medical students. He currently works with the Southcoast Health System.

Clinical Core Teaching

T. Wayne Rentz, MD

Professor Emeritus

Dr. Rentz is a native of Georgia and attended the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia where his father also attended medical school. After graduation from medical school he did his residency in General Surgery at the US Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. He is board certified in General Surgery and holds the academic rank of Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Surgery. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the Southern Surgical Society. He has been a part of the Southeast Campus for 15 years, since it’s beginning, and is excited as the campus transitions to a four year program.

Student Affairs & Academic Advising

Anna Mukongo, PhD

Assistant Professor

Experiential Learning

Mary Rice, BSN, RN Instructor

Director, EL Operations

Joshua Sisson

Standardized Patient Program Coordinator

Administrative Staff

Allen Edmunds, MBA

Savannah Campus Administrator

Malinda Moore, M.Ed

Campus Manager, Admin Operations

Holly Murphy, MS, RN

Campus Manager, Student Affairs

Alexander Miller, MBA

Clerkship Program Coordinator 2

Sherri Kelly

Clerkship Program Coordinator 1

Site Directors

Brunswick Site Directors

Kregg Laundon – Emergency Medicine
Vincent Arlaskus – General Surgery
William Bristol- Pediatrics
Stephen Chitty – Internal Medicine
Jay Floyd– Family Medicine
Lori Trefts – Neurology

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