Category: New Faculty

Please join us in welcoming Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD
Lead Investigator, Division of Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Nezami graduated from the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, Iran with a BSc in aerospace engineering, for which he also obtained an MSc from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Nezami worked at the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center as a research scientist and project leader. At the Brigham, he will leverage his expertise in bioinformatics, computational modeling and vascular biology from a pathophysiologic perspective to achieve clinical impact by using multifaceted systems with complex biological and mechanical interactions. Dr. Nezami’s primary focus is on using computational methods to develop tractable and provably reliable test systems and novel data-driven design and optimization platforms to provide mechanistic understanding of pathologies; asses the efficacy and optimize medical devices; and deliver predictive means, diagnostic tools and surgical guidelines to clinicians.

Dr. Nezami’s research interests thus include computational pathophysiology (biofluid dynamics, biomechanics, mathematical modeling); machine learning to analyze clinical data, diagnostics/prognostics and clinical decision making; deep learning for medical image processing (fusion of modalities, plaque characterization, etc.); data-driven design/optimization of medical devices and interventions; virtual surgery using Al and in silico predictive/prognostic tools; as well as drug delivery, solute transport, pharmacokinetics and optimization.

Please join us in welcoming Maria Edelen, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Maria Edelen, PhD
Associate Director, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value & Experience (PROVE) Center

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Edelen worked as a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, where her research focused on patient-reported outcome (PRO) development, refinement and evaluation in health settings. Dr. Edelen’s recent work has focused on the use of PROs for quality measurement in a number of contexts, including primary, specialty, post-acute and hospice care.

At the PROVE Center, Dr. Edelen will be directly involved in all activities related to the center to acquire PROs for selected surgery patients at Brigham Health and to implement a culture that embeds PROs as a standard. She will lead efforts to expand the center as a resource for faculty members in all surgical disciplines, establish collaborations inside and outside of Brigham Health and Mass General Brigham, and advance PRO reporting for outcomes research, clinical care, quality improvement and value-based health care.

Dr. Edelen graduated from Boston College with a BA in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a PhD in quantitative psychology from the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

Please join us in welcoming Piamkamon Vacharotayangul, DDS, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Piamkamon Vacharotayangul, DDS, PhD
Associate Surgeon, Division of Oral Medicine

Dr. Vacharotayangul received her DDS from Mahidol University and a graduate diploma in clinical sciences from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. She then completed a fellowship in oral medicine at UC San Francisco, where she also completed a PhD in oral and craniofacial sciences.

She is board certified by the American Board of Oral Medicine. She is a member of the American Academy of Oral Medicine (AAOM), the Massachusetts Dental Society (MDS) and the American Dental Association (ADA).

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Vacharotayangul worked as head of the Division of Oral Medicine and instructor at Srinakharinwirot University. She was also a part-time oral medicine specialist in various private hospitals in Thailand.

Dr. Vacharotayangul’s clinical and research interests include improving the oral and general health in people living with HIV, as well as those with chronic oral lesions and oral morbidities after head and neck cancer treatments.