New Employee Spotlight - April

Abigail M. Papé, MD, MBA
Assistant Professor - Clinical Medicine
General Internal Medicine - U of U Medical Center

Abigail Papé grew up in Oregon. She has a BA in Humanities from the University of Colorado at Boulder and worked as a scribe for Emergency Department physicians and subsequently pursued medicine. Dr. Pope received an MD from Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and completed her residency at the University of Virginia Medical Center. She subsequently completed her MBA at Darden School of Business, University of Virginia to better understand finance and economics as it pertains to medicine and healthcare. After completing training, Abigail returned to OHSU to continue practice as a hospitalist and care for her grandmother, Shirley Papé. Shirley passed away at 98 after an impressive life and Abigail was able to consider all options for continuing her professional development. The University of Utah Medical Center remains a superior institution for medical care and research and the place Abigail chose to continue medical practice in the academic environment, as well as continuing her pursuit of combining her MD and MBA in an increasingly complex system.

Richard Shelton, MD, MSc
Associate Professor of Medicine
Electrophysiology and Cardiovascular Disease - U of U Hospital Clinic

Rich Shelton grew up in Idaho and came to Utah to study engineering, having received a Master's of Science in Bioengineering with the University of Utah in 2003. He then attended medical school at Saint Louis University and did residency at Indiana University. After residency, he participated in a research fellowship at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology at Indiana University while working as a hospitalist.

During his education and training, Dr. Shelton studied autonomic nervous system control of the cardiovascular system through modeling the beat to beat variability of systolic blood pressure during hypovolemia, observing the cardiovascular responses of stress in animal models, eliciting nerve activity of the baroreflex response, observing antiarrhythmic effects of vagal nerve stimulation and spinal cord stimulation, and monitoring sympathetic nerve activity in cardiovascular disease.

After his research fellowship, Dr. Shelton continued did a fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease at the University of California, Davis in Sacramento and a fellowship in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. At Cedars Sinai, Dr. Shelton was reunited with his mentor from Indiana University, Dr. Peng-Sheng Chen, a world renowned physician scientist in the field of neuromodulation for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Shelton has now returned to the University of Utah and sees patients with disorders of autonomic dysfunction, including postural orthostatic dysfunction syndrome and heart failure, as well as many patients with assorted arrhythmias.

Rich Shelton and his very supportive wife have 5 beautiful children who enjoy riding their bikes and having juvenile fiction read to them.

Brian Hansen, MS
Program Manager
Epidemiology - VA Campus, building 2

Brian is the Computation Analytic Science and Methods (CASM) Program Manager for the Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Analytic Science (IDEAS) Center. Prior to joining Epidemiology, Brian served as a Research Manager in Occupational and Environmental Health at the U’s Department of Family and Preventative Medicine. Brian is a military retiree and joined the University of Utah team after serving more than 20 years as a Naval Officer. Brian earned his Master of Science from Central Michigan University and his Bachelor of Science from the University of Idaho. In his free time, Brian enjoys alpine and telemark skiing, whitewater rafting, hiking, traveling and spending time with his family.

Deborah Ilangikwa
Admin Program Coordinator
Internal Medicine Admin and Gastroenterology

Esad Ferhatbegovic
Social Worker
Infectious Disease

Favour Nnah
Lab Assistant
Nephrology

Ian Macklin
Clinical Research Coordinator
Cardiovascular Medicine

Kaylene Zupan
Clinical Research Coordinator
Nephrology

Sage Buch
Community Health Worker
Infectious Disease

Sierra Shepherd
Study Coordinator
Clinical Trials Unit - University of Utah

Prior to joining CTU, Sierra worked for a private research sector working with multiple variations of studies and study populations. She is looking forward to expanding her knowledge and career with the University of Utah. Sierra enjoys spending her free time outdoors camping down south.

Whitney Mumford
Administrative Assistant
Gastroenterology