Faculty Directors

Tina Burton, MD, MFA
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Adult Neurology Residency Director

Dr. Tina Burton is a vascular neurologist and an assistant professor of neurology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, where she is also associate program director for the adult neurology residency program. She is vice chair of clinical operations for the department of neurology and co-manages NIH StrokeNet Rhode Island Hospital Trial Operations.

Prior to her career in medicine, Dr. Burton was a practicing object-based artist in New York. She received a master of fine arts degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before changing her career path. She completed her medical school and neurology residency at the University of Utah and completed her vascular neurology fellowship at the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She has been managing the code stroke simulation for neurology residents since 2020 and is interested in expanding opportunities for neurological education for all learners.

Alexis Kearney MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Clinician Educator

Alexis S. Kearney is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine with an appointment in the Division of Global Emergency Medicine. She received her Masters in Public Health, with a focus on the epidemiology of microbial diseases, from Yale University in 2007. Dr. Kearney graduated from medical school at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City in 2012. She then completed residency in Emergency Medicine at Brown University. She currently works clinically as an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, The Miriam Hospital and Newport Hospital, and serves as the faculty coordinator for emergency medicine resident electives abroad. Dr. Kearney has experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia for both government and non-governmental organizations focusing on a variety of topics. Most recently, she has been conducting research on trauma patients presenting to an emergency department in Rwanda, and is currently in the process of trying to understand the current state of emergency medicine in Ecuador. Overall, her interests have focused on outbreak response and control, understanding and treating trauma in low-income countries, and improving the delivery of emergency care throughout the world.

Tanya Rogo, MD, MPH&TM
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Tanya Rogo is Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She is the Program Director of the Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases, the Global Health Educator in the Department of Pediatrics, and the Medical Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, RI. In addition, she co-directs the global health scholarly concentration for Brown medical students. Dr. Rogo was born in Kenya and completed her undergraduate education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and then received her medical degree and master’s degree in public health and tropical medicine from Tulane University. She went on to complete pediatric residency at the Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children in Falls Church, VA, followed by fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Brown University/Hasbro Children’s Hospital. After fellowship, Dr. Rogo spent 4 years in Rwanda developing the pediatric residency program at the University of Rwanda through the Human Resources for Health partnership with the Rwanda Ministry of Health. In 2017, Dr. Rogo was the inaugural recipient of the Velji Young African Leader Award from the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. Dr. Rogo continues to teach and conduct research with the University of Rwanda Department of Pediatrics and Child Health. Her interests are in pediatric HIV, antimicrobial stewardship, and global health education.

Elizabeth Lokich, MD
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Division of Gynecologic Oncology
Medical Director of Surgical Operations and Quality, Women and Infatnts Hospital

Elizabeth Lokich is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Lokich completed medical school at The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and her fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology and Women and Infants Hospital of Brown University. She is also the medical director of the OR at Women and Infants Hospital. Dr. Lokich has previously done global health work in cervical cancer screening and treatment in Kenya and Rwanda and is currently involved in building a sustainable cervical cancer screening and treatment program and training medical students and Ob-Gyn physicians in Rwanda as well as part of a D43 Grant with Dr. Cu-Uvin to train oncologists from Eldoret, Kenya in research design and methods.

Natasha Rybak, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Division of Infectious Diseases
Director, RISE/TB Clinic

Natasha Rybak is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Medicine and Pediatrics. She trained in the field of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Rhode Island Hospital/Hasbro Children’s Hospital. She then joined the Division of Infectious Diseases in July 2016 as an attending in adult and pediatric infectious diseases at The Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital. Dr. Rybak received her medical degree from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University as part of the Brown-Dartmouth medical program in 2007. She then stayed on at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University to complete her residency in Combined Medicine and Pediatrics in 2011 followed by Fellowship in Combined Adult and Pediatric Infectious Diseases, which she completed in 2016. Dr. Rybak’s clinical and research interests are in global health with a specific interest in tuberculosis (TB), HIV and TB, and multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis among adults and children in Eastern Europe. She helped to create the Brown University Ukraine Collaboration, a global health initiative program at Brown University to address these issues of TB, TB/HIV co-infection and MDR-TB in Ukraine. She will also serve as the Medical Director of the RISE TB Clinic.

Daria Szkwarko, DO, MPH
Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Teaching Scholar Track
Director for the Global Health Faculty Development Fellowship in Family Medicine

Daria Szkwarko is an Associate Professor and Director for the Global Health Faculty Development Fellowship in Family Medicine at Brown University. She completed medical school at the Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine in New Jersey and went on the complete her family medicine residency at Brown followed by her preventive medicine residency at the University of Massachusetts. She is the Family Medicine Lead for the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) consortium – a bilateral educational exchange program between Moi University in Kenya and several North American institutions. Her research interests are in TB prevention strategies globally. Specifically, she has experience in implementing child contact management for TB in western Kenya, and domestically, she is the director for the Advanced Massachusetts TB infection ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) and the Regional LTBI ECHO which democratizes TB infection testing and treatment knowledge to primary care clinicians across 16 states. In the Family Medicine Residency, she co-leads point of care ultrasound (POCUS) education and is also involved in POCUS education globally. Clinically, she does urgent care and TB infection management at Blackstone Valley Community Health Center and is a hospitalist at Kent Hospital. She is passionate about teaching, mentorship, and anti-saviorism approaches in global health.