About Our Current Residents
Jennifer L. Mulbury, M.D. (SUNY - Syracuse)
When Jennifer Mulbury arrived in Rochester in 2005 to begin her Pediatric residency she already had several years experience working with children.
A Yale graduate (with distinction in Psychology), Mulbury’s early work in New Haven was wide-ranging. At the Yale Child Conduct Clinic she pursued clinical research on children with conduct disorders. After completing a summer internship at Boston’s Language and Cognitive Development Center, Inc., she taught at Benhaven School in West Haven, working with adolescents and young adults with developmental disorders.
A member of Yale’s gymnastic team, which twice won the Ivy League championship, she used her skills to coach New Haven kids (ages 3-14) in basic gymnastic routines.
At the same time (1995-1998), she was both a research assistant at the Yale Child Study Center and a primary investigator at New Haven’s Developmental Disabilities Clinic. Her independent study focused on home videotapes of year-old children, images taken prior to the diagnosis of autism or mental retardation; the tapes were examined and coded for specific behaviors that might indicate early evidence of mental disorder.
As a research assistant at New York University Child Study Center (1998-2000) she assisted the Director of Research in implementing several pediatric psychopharmacology trials. She also conducted cognitive tests of preschool children at risk, recruiting families from the Juvenile court, and co-led two adolescent cognitive behavioral training groups designed to support disadvantaged children and their families.
In medical school at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, Mulbury created a database for the medical care of children with asthma seen at Syracuse University Pediatric and Adolescent Center, and worked at implementing action plans, patient education, and provider follow-up with a goal of reducing ER visits.
Mulbury completed her three-year residency in Pediatrics at the University of Rochester, and passed her Pediatric Board Exams. She will complete her training in Child Neurology next year. The mother of two young girls, Lily and Hadley, Jennifer is married to anesthesiologist, Michael Mulbury. Jennifer‘s interest in athletics remains high—and includes running, rollerblading, surfing, squash, and golf.
Denia Ramirez, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. (Univ. Autonoma de Centro America, Costa Rica)
At a recent Department of Neurology Retreat, the best translational research poster--on arginine transport defects and their implications for Batten Disease—was authored by Child Neurology’s newest resident, Denia Ramirez.
Ramirez’s medical career began in rural Costa Rica. After receiving her medical degree in 1994 from Universidad Autonoma de Centro America in San Jose, she followed the island nation’s national health care system’s protocol by serving one year as a general practitioner in a rural primary care clinic. Working with a nurse assistant and a health care technician, she provided both preventive and acute care, including home visits, to a community of 4,000 people.
After completing three years of Pediatrics residency training at the university and the associated 350-bed children’s hospital, Denia spent 20 months working half-time as an attending and half-time at an outpatient pediatric clinic. In 2000, she became board-certified in Pediatrics.
In 2001, she and her husband, Roberto Fernandez, arrived in Rochester to continue their training, Denia in Child Neurology and Roberto in Adult Neurology. They knew of the University of Rochester through an unusual way. “Some time ago, a former president of Costa Rica worked with Rochester faculty to establish a satellite Internet link between our rural communities and urban medical facilities. Through this program and through Roberto’s father, who was Costa Rica’s first neurologist, we knew of Rochester’s reputation and we decided to spend a year here. That was eight years ago,” Denia says with a smile.
During that time, Ramirez completed Masters Degrees in both Public Health and Genetics. In 2006 she received her PhD in Genetics, working under the supervision of David Pearce. She also worked as a post-doctoral associate at the Medical Center’s Center for Aging and Developmental Biology and as a volunteer public health advocate.
Working with Division Chief Jon Mink has been inspirational, she says. "Jon is successful at managing both a demanding medical career and enjoying family life outside the hospital. I hope Roberto and I can do the same thing." Ramirez is currently is her third year of training in Child Neurology.
Laurie E. Seltzer, D.O. (Philadelphia
College of Osteopathic Medicine)
Laurie Seltzer is a graduate of Lehigh University and of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed residencies at Lankenau Hospital in Philadelphia in Internal Medicine and at the University of Maryland Medical Center in General Pediatrics.
Seltzer has a background in scientific research work. Her first experience took place during a summer session at Cornell University where she studied the absorption and filtration of metals by lysimeter wicks, a technique used in agricultural research. Later, as an undergraduate at Lehigh, she studied viral and bacterial evolutionary change under selective pressure using bacterophages Φ x 174. And at Corning Incorporated, she conducted research involving the quality control of microarray slides in the Corning Life Science Department, working extensively with arrayer, electrophoresis, and PCR.
Currently Seltzer is in her second year of Child Neurology training and enjoys seeing children in both in-patient and out-patient settings.
A native of Elmira, NY, Seltzer says she is happy to be back in Upstate New York where she enjoys jogging, hiking, skiing, and biking. As for the latter, she is no slouch, having biked on one occasion from Seattle to San Francisco.
Laura E. Tomaselli, M.D.
(SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn College of Medicine)
Laura Tomaselli says that she always envisioned a future in medicine. At Allegheny College (where she was a scholar/athlete) “a great professor” ignited her interest in neuroscience through his course in physiological psychology. That interest led her to enroll in a PhD program in behavioral neuroscience at SUNY at Buffalo where she completed work on her master’s degree.
When she realized she was more interested in clinical medicine than in bench research, Tomaselli transferred to the SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn. There she became a junior AOA member and received her medical degree in 2005.
In medical school, Tomaselli says, she was once again inspired by a great teacher, this time a pediatric neurologist whose enthusiasm for her work was infectious. “I had thought that Pediatrics would be my field, but seeing how much she loved her field changed my direction,” she says.
Tomaselli completed her three-year residency in Pediatrics at the University of Rochester, where she participated in a medical school-led program that targets obesity in primary schools. She is currently in her second year of Child Neurology training.
At Rochester, Laura says she has found a “comfort level” that is supporting her through the rigors of the residency years. She and her husband, Mark, recently welcomed son Noah into their lives. As for her interest in the outdoors, this former scholar/athlete says: “That will just have to wait a while.”
Inna Hughes, M.D., Ph.D. (Washington University – St. Louis)
“Cellular science is the coolest thing on earth,” says Child Neurology’s newest resident Inna Hughes. “Why would you want to work on anything else?”
Born in Recife, Brazil, and raised in southeast Texas, Inna was recruited for her last two years of high school to Simon’s Rock, the Massachusetts early-admissions college which specializes in furthering the education of exceptional students. There, thanks to an inspired professor, Inna became fascinated by the intricacies of human physiology and the wonders of genetics.
At Williams College, from which she graduated magna cum laude with honors in Biology in 1999, Inna worked with mentor Dr. Martha Altschuler on the use of pulse field gel electrophoresis in mapping the macronuclear genome of Tetrahymena thermophila.
With bachelor’s degree in hand, Inna enrolled in the MD PhD program in Development Biology at Washington University School of Medicine and graduated in 2007, having received the Viktor Hamburger Award, as well as several fellowship grants. Her doctoral thesis explored the role of otopetrin1, a calcium-regulating protein required for the formation of otoconia, the carbon crystals in the ear that help regulate balance. The thesis was based on her research on the vestibular system in a mouse model and was funded for three years by the National Institute in Deafness. Her thesis advisor was David Ornitz. MD, PhD. While in St Louis, Inna also worked with collections of native medicines from Peru (brought back to the medical school by faculty), isolating and purifying their organic compounds.
During her Pediatric residency training in Rochester, Inna’s research work continued with Deborah Cory-Slechta, Ph.D, as they explored how chronic exposure to low-lead levels in children age 1-6 may be affecting the neurodevelopment of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The study was part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (the NHANES study), a major epidemiology survey begun in 1998.
Inna’s enthusiasm for her chosen field is infectious and her cheerful outlook must be a positive factor in her work with children in the clinic. Her professional goal: A teaching career in medicine.
