Please join us in welcoming these recent additions to the College of Medicine faculty.
Department of Neurosurgery
Deanna Sasaki-Adams, M.D.
Deanna Sasaki-Adams, M.D., has joined the Department of Neurosurgery as a Professor. Dr. Sasaki-Adams received her medical degree from the University of Wisconsin Medical School at Madison. She completed her neurosurgery residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), serving as Chief Resident in her final year. She completed a fellowship in skull base and open cerebrovascular neurosurgery at Saint Louis University before joining the UNC faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2011.
Dr. Sasaki-Adams continued her training with a fellowship in interventional neuroradiology at UNC in 2013-2015. In 2017, she was promoted to Associate Professor. She served as Section Chief of Cerebrovascular and Skull Base Neurosurgery at UNC from 2016 until her recruitment to UAMS. While at UNC, she received numerous honors, including four Teacher of the Year Awards in the Department of Neurosurgery.
This spring, Dr. Sasaki-Adams will complete her work toward a Global Executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Dr. Sasaki-Adams is board certified through the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Her primary clinical interests include treatment of neurovascular disease such as intracerebral aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, intracranial bypass procedures, stroke, and carotid occlusive disease. She also treats skull base tumors including pituitary tumors, meningiomas, vestibular schwannomas and clival chordomas.
Dr. Sasaki-Adams is an active member in the cerebrovascular section of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons/American Association of Neurological Surgeons (CNS/AANS) and the North America Skull Base Society. She is currently a member of the inaugural class of Executive Leadership in Hospital Medicine, a part of the Drexel College of Medicine ELAM Program. She also serves on the advisory board of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Council of Faculty and Academic Societies.
Department of Pediatrics
Colin Kay, Ph.D.
Colin D. Kay, Ph.D., has joined the Department of Pediatrics as a Professor in the Developmental Nutrition Section and Scientific Director of the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC) Metabolomics and Analytical Chemistry Research Core. He also serves as Director of Precision Health Research in the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute.
Dr. Kay was recruited to UAMS from North Carolina State University, where he was the David H. Murdock Distinguished Professor of Translational Nutrition in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences and at NC State’s Plants for Human Health Research Institute and Phytochemical and Foodome Center.
His research centers on establishing the metabolism of dietary phytochemicals and the potential impact this has on their biological activity. His research core is focused on the development of qualitative and quantitative metabolomic methodologies for establishing the contribution of dietary phytochemicals to the human metabolome. This work has led to the development of a food composition knowledge database (MetaboFood®) comprising chemical composition and metabolome data, including metabolic and disease pathway associations for supporting precision nutrition and health initiatives.
Prior to North Carolina State University, Dr. Kay served on the faculty of Department of Nutrition, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. He received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Guelph, Canada, and postdoctoral training in human vascular interventions and controlled dietary feeding trials at the Pennsylvania State University. Read more about Dr. Kay’s work on Google Scholar.
Department of Surgery
Oleksiy Gudz, M.D., Ph.D.
Oleksiy Gudz, M.D., Ph.D., has joined the Department of Surgery as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. Dr. Gudz received his medical degree from Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University in Ukraine. He also completed his general surgery residency, as well as a Master of Medical Science (M.M.S.) and doctoral (Ph.D.) degree at the Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University. Dr. Gudz continued his training with a vascular surgery fellowship at Lviv National Medical University.
He served as an Associate Professor in the Post-Graduation General and Vascular Surgery Department at Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University in Ukraine before relocating to Little Rock.