Among his achievements, Dr. Kingsmore pioneered the development of ultra-rapid Whole Genome Sequencing to decode rare disease in newborns. In 2021, he led the RCIGM team to break his own world speed record by achieving diagnosis via WGS in 13.5 hours. Dr. Kingsmore came to Rady Children’s in 2015 from Children’s Mercy Kansas City, where he was the Executive Director of Medical Panomics. He previously served as President and CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources; COO of Molecular Staging Inc.; Vice President of Research at CuraGen Corporation; founder of GatorGen; and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s School of Medicine. Dr. Kingsmore received MB, ChB, BAO and DSc degrees from the Queen’s University of Belfast. He trained in clinical immunology in Northern Ireland and did residency in internal medicine and fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.

Dr. Meredith Wright is a Genomics Development Scientist at Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine where her work lies at the intersection of molecular genetics, data science, and clinical implementation. Her role in the BeginNGS newborn sequencing initiative involves leading retrospective and prospective research and clinical implementation efforts. Meredith is a part of multiple working groups centered around technology, data science, and clinical feasibility with a focus on building a scalable and equitable newborn sequencing platform.

Dr. Reimers is a maternal-fetal medicine and medical genetics trained physician pursuing a career as an independent researcher focusing on patient-centered research on the intersection of reproductive genomics and prenatal diagnosis. She has completed a four-year residency at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynecology followed by an additional four year Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Clinical Genetics combined fellowship at Brigham and Women’s and the Harvard Medical School Training Program in Genetics.Her interest in population genetics and molecular biology started with at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology focusing on the academic areas of molecular genetics and evolution, ecology and animal behavior. Following this, Dr Reimers worked for two years as a clinical lab technician at the cytogenetics laboratory of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She then earned a combined MD/MPH in epidemiology from Tulane University in New Orleans and worked with the Louisiana Department of Public Health to review the newborn screening program for the state over a ten-year period following the introduction of expanded newborn screening. Dr Reimers sees pediatric patients in the Genetics/ Dysmorphology division at UCSD/ Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego (RCHSD) and pregnant persons in the Perinatology department at RCHSD. She has dedicated research time through an institutional K grant at Scripps Research Translational Institute where she is leading a prospective trial for fetal sequencing in prenatally diagnosed congenital heart disease and she is the San Diego principle investigator for a transformative newborn sequencing trial at Rady Children’s, called BeginNGS. Dr Reimers is dedicated to bringing genetic diagnoses and unique opportunities for treatment to families as efficiently as possible to help them lead the healthiest lives possible. 

Kathleen Lynch, Board Member RCIGMKathy is a life sciences executive with over twenty years of experience assisting companies in establishing and growing government and external affairs teams. Kathy is committed to ensuring access to groundbreaking technologies by advancing global public health through innovative policy and reimbursement strategies. She has spent the last few years at early-stage genomics companies leading their engagement with governments globally. Prior to the early-stage companies, Kathy launched Illumina’s Global Government Affairs Department in 2015 and led the Department until she went to Pacific Biosciences in 2021 to start its Corporate Affairs Department. While at Illumina, Kathy led an expansive team of government affairs professionals in managing the company’s interactions and programming with domestic and foreign governments, including the U.S. federal government, U.S. state governments, and those in key markets across the world. Prior to Illumina, Kathy served as the Senior Director of Government Relations at Thermo Fisher Scientific and Life Technologies. At Life Technologies, Kathy also served as Chief of Staff to its President and Chief Operating Officer. Before transitioning to Government and External Affairs, Kathy worked as a corporate attorney in New York and Massachusetts. Kathy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of New Hampshire and a Juris Doctorate from St. John’s University School of Law. Kathy is on the Board for the Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine.

Terri H. Finkel, MD, PhD was recruited in March 2020 as professor and associate chair of pediatrics at University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), vice chair of clinical affairs and chief of pediatric rheumatology at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital (Le Bonheur), UTHSC faculty liaison for research and clinical operations at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and Endowed Chair of the Children's Foundation of Memphis. Dr. Finkel has been an NIH-funded investigator since 1990, studying mechanisms of congenital and acquired immune dysregulation in autoimmune and infectious disease, recognized by more than 160 publications, 10 U.S. patents, and 4 licensed technologies. She has served on NIH Study Sections and as special reviewer on >40 NIH, Arthritis Foundation, and other national and international grant review committees. 

Dr. Finkel earned her MD and a PhD in Biochemistry & Biophysics from Stanford University. After a pediatric internship and residency at Boston Children's and Colorado Children's Hospitals, she completed a Howard Hughes research fellowship in Immunology and a clinical fellowship in Pediatric Rheumatology at National Jewish Health. Dr. Finkel then led the division until 1999 when she was recruited as division chief of rheumatology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Joseph Lee Hollander Endowed Chair of Pediatric Rheumatology, and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, Dr. Finkel was recruited to Nemours Children's Hospital as pediatrician-in-chief, chair of the department of pediatrics, and Chief Scientific Officer. During her tenure, she led the build of a successful research enterprise across 5 institutions, with external grant revenue totaling over $20 million, bringing precision medicine to children with cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, immune and neuromuscular disorders.  

Since arriving in Memphis, Dr. Finkel has continued to pursue the use of big data, genomics, and AI to address the causes and cures of chronic disease via growth of the UTHSC/Le Bonheur Biorepository and Integrative Genomics (BIG) Initiative and expanded the UTHSC 100K Genomes Project, a fully consented DNA biorepository linked to longitudinal health data, spanning the state of Tennessee. At the time of this submission, this project has over 38,000 consented participants, with DNA on >25,000 of these, and whole exome sequencing and genome-wide SNP analysis on 13,500 participants 

Thomas May, PhD is currently Floyd and Judy Rogers Endowed Professor, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Washington State University; and Faculty Investigator at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. In addition to serving on the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Medicine and as two-term Chair of the American Public Health Association’s Ethics Forum, Dr. May has served as an advisor to the National Vaccine Program Office, the State of Washington Health Care Authority, the Florida Department of Health, the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission, and the Wisconsin Task Force on Emergency Preparedness.

Jessie Conta is a licensed and certified genetic counselor with expertise in genomics, laboratory stewardship, and healthcare delivery. She is a co-founder of PLUGS® (Patient-centered Laboratory Utilization Guidance Services) and leads insurance alignment initiatives for the collaboration. Jessie started her career in patient-facing and research genetic counselor roles in cancer, pediatrics, and rare disease and spent the past decade leading the genetic test stewardship program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is a consultant and owner of Pickhandle Consulting, where she is focused on identifying, analyzing, and reducing barriers to access and financial coverage of genetic counseling and testing.

Jerica Lenberg is Lead Genetic Counselor at Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine in San Diego, California. Jerica provides genetic counseling and clinician support for inpatients at Rady Children’s Hospital undergoing rapid whole genome sequencing. In addition, Jerica coordinates the RCHSD Precision Medicine Clinic, conducts clinical genome analysis at the RCIGM Clinical Genome Center, supports multiple research studies, and serves as adjunct faculty at Augustana University and Keck Graduate Institute.

Rob Knight is the founding Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation and Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute at UC San Diego. He is the Wolfe Family Endowed Chair in Microbiome Research at Rady Children's. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Microbiology. He was honored with the 2019 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his microbiome research and received the 2017 Massry Prize, often considered a predictor of the Nobel. He is the author of “Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes” (Simon & Schuster, 2015), coauthor of “Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), and written over 900 scientific articles. He spoke at TED in 2014 which is viewed over 2.2 million times. His lab has produced many of the software tools and laboratory techniques that enabled high-throughput microbiome science, including the QIIME pipeline (cited over 34,000 times as of this writing) and UniFrac (cited over 10,000 times including its web interface). He is co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and the company Biota, Inc., which uses DNA from microbes in the subsurface to guide oilfield decisions. His work has linked microbes to a range of health conditions including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, has enhanced our understanding of microbes in environments ranging from the oceans to the tundra, and made high-throughput sequencing techniques accessible to thousands of researchers around the world. Dr. Knight can be followed on Twitter (@knightlabnews) or on his web site http://knightlab.ucsd.edu/.

Aaron Besterman, MD, is an Assistant Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD and Clinical Investigator at the Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine. He works as an attending psychiatrist on intensive services at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego. His primary research focus is on the integration of clinical genetics into psychiatry, focusing on a range of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, early-onset psychosis and catatonia. He is interested in understanding how genomics can lead to more precise and effective treatments for youth with mental illness. Dr. Besterman completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in medical genetics and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at UCLA. He completed adult psychiatry training at UCSF and an HHMI-NIH Research Scholarship at the NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch.

Dr. Jennifer Yang is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurosciences in the Division of Pediatric Neurology at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego. She completed her medical degree at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, her Child Neurology residency at UC San Diego where she served as Chief Resident, and a fellowship in Neuroimmunology and Neurometabolics at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital. She has formal training in clinical research methods through the UCSD Clinical Research Enhancement through Supplemental Training program.Dr. Yang specializes in the clinical management of pediatric inflammatory and demyelinating disorders (ADEM, MS, MOGAD, NMOSD), mitochondrial disease, and genetic white matter diseases. Her research interests include long-term outcomes and treatment of autoimmune encephalitis in children and improving translational diagnostics in mitochondrial disease. She is currently a site lead for a multi-center registry network for pediatric neuroinflammatory diseases including autoimmune encephalitis, Laudau-Kleffner syndrome and Rasmussen encephalitis. Additionally, she is involved in industry-sponsored clinical trials and investigator-initiated studies in pediatric and adult multiple sclerosis, Leigh Syndrome, and mitochondrial myopathies. She has authored several peer-reviewed publications on autoimmune encephalitis, biological aging and immunosenescence in multiple sclerosis, neurological sequalae after COVID19 and rare mitochondrial syndromes. She has completed research grants from the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Santoro serves as the Director of Neuroimmunology and Demyelinating Disorders Program and Director of Research for the Neurologic Institute at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He is also an Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. Dr. Santoro completed his undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees at Tulane University. He completed residencies in pediatrics and child neurology at Stanford University which was followed by sub-specialty training in neuroimmunology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Santoro is one of only a handful of national clinician-scientists who treats neurologic disorders associated with Down syndrome. He has been instrumental in identifying systemic vascular abnormalities in persons with Down syndrome and moyamoya disease, a rare stroke disorder which affects persons with Down syndrome 26 times more frequently than the general population. Dr. Santoro also has clinical research expertise in neuroinflammation as it is related to cerebrovascular disease and neurocognitive disorders such as Down Syndrome Regression Disorder (DSRD), of which he has spoken internationally. In addition to his clinical and research activities, Dr. Santoro advocates for persons with disabilities at both the state and federal level through the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Neurology.

Aaron Besterman, MD, is an Assistant Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD and Clinical Investigator at the Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine. He works as an attending psychiatrist on intensive services at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego. His primary research focus is on the integration of clinical genetics into psychiatry, focusing on a range of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, early-onset psychosis and catatonia. He is interested in understanding how genomics can lead to more precise and effective treatments for youth with mental illness. Dr. Besterman completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in medical genetics and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at UCLA. He completed adult psychiatry training at UCSF and an HHMI-NIH Research Scholarship at the NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch.

Rob Knight is the founding Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation and Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute at UC San Diego. He is the Wolfe Family Endowed Chair in Microbiome Research at Rady Children's. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Microbiology. He was honored with the 2019 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his microbiome research and received the 2017 Massry Prize, often considered a predictor of the Nobel. He is the author of “Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes” (Simon & Schuster, 2015), coauthor of “Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), and written over 900 scientific articles. He spoke at TED in 2014 which is viewed over 2.2 million times. His lab has produced many of the software tools and laboratory techniques that enabled high-throughput microbiome science, including the QIIME pipeline (cited over 34,000 times as of this writing) and UniFrac (cited over 10,000 times including its web interface). He is co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and the company Biota, Inc., which uses DNA from microbes in the subsurface to guide oilfield decisions. His work has linked microbes to a range of health conditions including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, has enhanced our understanding of microbes in environments ranging from the oceans to the tundra, and made high-throughput sequencing techniques accessible to thousands of researchers around the world. Dr. Knight can be followed on Twitter (@knightlabnews) or on his web site http://knightlab.ucsd.edu/.

Dr. Jennifer Yang is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurosciences in the Division of Pediatric Neurology at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego. She completed her medical degree at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, her Child Neurology residency at UC San Diego where she served as Chief Resident, and a fellowship in Neuroimmunology and Neurometabolics at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital. She has formal training in clinical research methods through the UCSD Clinical Research Enhancement through Supplemental Training program.Dr. Yang specializes in the clinical management of pediatric inflammatory and demyelinating disorders (ADEM, MS, MOGAD, NMOSD), mitochondrial disease, and genetic white matter diseases. Her research interests include long-term outcomes and treatment of autoimmune encephalitis in children and improving translational diagnostics in mitochondrial disease. She is currently a site lead for a multi-center registry network for pediatric neuroinflammatory diseases including autoimmune encephalitis, Laudau-Kleffner syndrome and Rasmussen encephalitis. Additionally, she is involved in industry-sponsored clinical trials and investigator-initiated studies in pediatric and adult multiple sclerosis, Leigh Syndrome, and mitochondrial myopathies. She has authored several peer-reviewed publications on autoimmune encephalitis, biological aging and immunosenescence in multiple sclerosis, neurological sequalae after COVID19 and rare mitochondrial syndromes. She has completed research grants from the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Santoro serves as the Director of Neuroimmunology and Demyelinating Disorders Program and Director of Research for the Neurologic Institute at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He is also an Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. Dr. Santoro completed his undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees at Tulane University. He completed residencies in pediatrics and child neurology at Stanford University which was followed by sub-specialty training in neuroimmunology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Santoro is one of only a handful of national clinician-scientists who treats neurologic disorders associated with Down syndrome. He has been instrumental in identifying systemic vascular abnormalities in persons with Down syndrome and moyamoya disease, a rare stroke disorder which affects persons with Down syndrome 26 times more frequently than the general population. Dr. Santoro also has clinical research expertise in neuroinflammation as it is related to cerebrovascular disease and neurocognitive disorders such as Down Syndrome Regression Disorder (DSRD), of which he has spoken internationally. In addition to his clinical and research activities, Dr. Santoro advocates for persons with disabilities at both the state and federal level through the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Neurology.

Among his achievements, Dr. Kingsmore pioneered the development of ultra-rapid Whole Genome Sequencing to decode rare disease in newborns. In 2021, he led the RCIGM team to break his own world speed record by achieving diagnosis via WGS in 13.5 hours. Dr. Kingsmore came to Rady Children’s in 2015 from Children’s Mercy Kansas City, where he was the Executive Director of Medical Panomics. He previously served as President and CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources; COO of Molecular Staging Inc.; Vice President of Research at CuraGen Corporation; founder of GatorGen; and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s School of Medicine. Dr. Kingsmore received MB, ChB, BAO and DSc degrees from the Queen’s University of Belfast. He trained in clinical immunology in Northern Ireland and did residency in internal medicine and fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.

Dr. Lucia Guidugli is the CLIA Laboratory Director at the Rady Children’s Institute of Genomic Medicine (RCIGM). She is a certified Clinical Molecular Geneticist by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG), and a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (FACMG). She received her PhD in Experimental and Molecular Oncology at the University of Pisa and completed a postdoctoral fellowship supported by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation at the Mayo Clinic. During her postdoctoral studies she developed a strong experience in characterizing variants of unknown significance (VUS) using standardized functional and genetic models. She then joined the ABMGG clinical molecular genetics fellowship at the University of Chicago where she translated her previous experience into clinical molecular diagnostics. Subsequently, she worked as Molecular Geneticist at Ambry Genetics and Blueprint Genetics testing companies where she further strengthened her knowledge in interpreting genetics data for the diagnosis of rare and common disorders. She joined the RCIGM as Associate Laboratory Director in 2019 and advanced to cover the role of CLIA Laboratory Director in 2021. At the Institute, she provides technical and clinical oversight of the laboratory, and reviews and approves clinical testing and proficiency testing. She also oversees the clinical laboratory quality management program and training program as well as ensures compliance with Federal and State laboratory regulations. In addition, she directly supervises the team of genome primary analysists, and engages in research activities.

Dr. Jennifer Schleit is a laboratory director at Rady Children's Institute at Genomic Medicine. She received her PhD in Pathology and clinical molecular genetics training from the University of Washington.

Katarzyna (Kasia) Ellsworth, PhD, FACMG, CGMB serves as a senior director of clinical operations at the Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine, San Diego, California. She has completed fellowships in both clinical biochemical genetics and clinical molecular genetics at the Greenwood Genetic Center in Greenwood, South Carolina, and is certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG) in both specialties. She earned her PhD in Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Ellsworth is an active member of the American Society of Human Genetics and is a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.

Dr. Whitney Thompson is currently a dual fellow in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and Medical Genetics at Mayo Clinic, and she also holds positions in Mayo’s Clinician Investigator Training Program and Biomedical Ethics Scholars Training Program. She completed residency training in pediatrics at Mayo Clinic, medical school at the University of Minnesota, and an M.Phil in Medical Genetics from the University of Cambridge. In collaboration with Rady Children’s Institute for Genomics Medicine, Dr. Thompson helped spearhead the initiation of Mayo Clinic’s clinical urWGS program through the Department of Clinical Genomics, and she is helping develop an integrated translational research program for urWGS patients through Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine. Dr. Thompson aspires to be a future leader in the integrated diagnosis, management and discovery of neonatal genetic disease.

Eric W. Klee, Ph.D., is a consultant – research in the Division of Computational Biology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with joint appointments in the Department of Clinical Genomics and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. Dr. Klee is the Everett J. and Jane M. Hauck Midwest Associate Director of Research and Innovation, Center for Individualized Medicine, where he also serves as director of the Bioinformatics Program, Translational Omics Program, and Omics Data Platform. In addition, he is enterprise co-leader of Cancer Informatics and Data Science in Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Klee joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 2005 and holds the academic rank of professor of biomedical informatics, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.Dr. Klee’s research focuses on the use of omic technologies for research and clinical testing. He has developed a translational research program focused on rare or undiagnosed Mendelian disease, applying cutting-edge technologies to seek diagnoses and/or treatments for patients where current state-of-the-art clinical testing is indeterminant. This program uses integrative omics and functional studies to better characterize the putative role of variants of uncertain significance in the context of patient-specific disease state. This work has led to Dr. Klee serving on the Board of Directors for the Undiagnosed Disease Network International, a multination consortium of clinicians and scientists dedicated to finding solutions for patients with rare and undiagnosed diseases worldwide. Dr. Klee is also actively engaged in leading the Mayo Clinic Omics Data Platform as part of the digitization of practice activities at Mayo Clinic, designing the next generation of analytic resources to support Mayo’s translational omic activities. He engages in development and implementation of systems to support sequence analysis and interpretation in the context of individualized precision medicine.

My career in next generation sequencing (NGS) and genomics began almost 20 years ago at the Genome Sciences Center in Vancouver, BC where we conducted the first NGS RNAseq experiments and were the first to publish on the technology [Bainbridge at al 2006]. Later, we conducted the first ChIP-Seq experiments using the Solexa sequencing platform.Later, at the Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston Texas, I developed an analytical platform for clinical analysis of whole genome data for patients with rare disease. This platform was adopted by the clinical lab at Baylor College of Medicine and was the first in the world to offer clinical whole genome sequencing commercially. This platform also resulted in in the discovery of multiple new disease.At Rady Children’s Hospital I have been pushing the limits of NGS technology and combining more functional data with genome sequencing. This has enabled the discovery of more novel disease genes, the use of NGS to identify active infections in critically ill children and the first paper to describe the landscape of repeat expansions across populations.Lastly, my work focuses on the development of novel sequencing platforms for clinical use. This includes most recently a publication on longread sequencing in a clinical setting.

Dr. Gail Knight received her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of California, San Diego. She completed her pediatric residency and fellowship training in neonatal-perinatal medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and earned a master’s degree in medical management from the University of Southern California, School of Business.When her fellowship training was completed, Dr. Knight accepted a position as a Neonatology Attending Physician at Children’s Hospital – San Diego (now Rady Children’s Hospital) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Throughout her career, Dr. Knight has been active in clinical research, especially in advancing therapies for newborn babies with respiratory failure. She has had multiple publications. She led the region’s highest level NICU as Medical Director and was a member of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), heart-lung bypass team. Dr. Knight served as Chief of Staff for Rady Children’s as well as the Division Chief for Neonatology. In 2016, she was chosen to serve as the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for the Hospital. Under her leadership, Rady Children’s has consistently ranked amongst the best in all 10 pediatric subspecialties and for the first time in Rady Children’s history, has been named by U.S. News & World Report to its 2023 - 2024 Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll, a distinction awarded to only 10 children’s hospitals nationwide.Dr. Knight has received many honors and awards, including the ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support, the 2023 MacLaggan/Frye Rotary Club Award, the 2024 Cymbiotika San Diego Open Women & Wellness Award. Dr. Knight has been recognized numerous times as one of San Diego Magazine’s Top Docs, as well as accolades for Top NICU and Top Doctor by U.S. News and World Report.

Dr. Reimers is a maternal-fetal medicine and medical genetics trained physician pursuing a career as an independent researcher focusing on patient-centered research on the intersection of reproductive genomics and prenatal diagnosis. She has completed a four-year residency at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynecology followed by an additional four year Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Clinical Genetics combined fellowship at Brigham and Women’s and the Harvard Medical School Training Program in Genetics.Her interest in population genetics and molecular biology started with at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology focusing on the academic areas of molecular genetics and evolution, ecology and animal behavior. Following this, Dr Reimers worked for two years as a clinical lab technician at the cytogenetics laboratory of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She then earned a combined MD/MPH in epidemiology from Tulane University in New Orleans and worked with the Louisiana Department of Public Health to review the newborn screening program for the state over a ten-year period following the introduction of expanded newborn screening. Dr Reimers sees pediatric patients in the Genetics/ Dysmorphology division at UCSD/ Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego (RCHSD) and pregnant persons in the Perinatology department at RCHSD. She has dedicated research time through an institutional K grant at Scripps Research Translational Institute where she is leading a prospective trial for fetal sequencing in prenatally diagnosed congenital heart disease and she is the San Diego principle investigator for a transformative newborn sequencing trial at Rady Children’s, called BeginNGS. Dr Reimers is dedicated to bringing genetic diagnoses and unique opportunities for treatment to families as efficiently as possible to help them lead the healthiest lives possible. 

Dr. Suhrie is a neonatologist and director of the Perinatal Genomics Program at Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Children's Health in Indianapolis, IN. Her research is focused on the diagnosis of genetic disease in NICU patients.

Paige Ridder is a genetic counselor at Mayo Clinic, specializing in preconception, prenatal and neonatal genetics. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2018 and spent the first three years of her career at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

Dr. Fakhoury is from Portage, MI. He completed his medical education at American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and his residency training in Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine (WMed) in Kalamazoo, MI. He is board certified in General Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics and will sit for Pediatric Hospital Medicine Certification later this year. Dr. Fakhoury practices as a Pediatric Hospitalist at Bronson Children’s Hospital in Kalamazoo, MI where he also serves as co-chair of the Pediatric Process Improvement Committee. In addition, he is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Fakhoury has earned three institutional Outstanding Teaching Awards since 2019. One of his passions lies in advocacy, which led to his involvement with the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Executive Board, currently serving as Chapter Vice President with his anticipated Presidency beginning September 2024. Clinically, he has interests in pediatric sedation, care of complex patients, and precision medicine. Dr. Fakhoury's interest in clinical genomics stemmed from early involvement with local colleagues (and fierce advocates) in Project Baby Deer, Michigan's Statewide Initiative inspired by Project Baby Bear. At Bronson Children's, he is the clinical champion in this initiative outside of the NICU and represents the inpatient general pediatric and pediatric critical care units. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, live music, watching television, fitness and spending time with his Goldendoodle, Simba.

As a clinician in the neonatal intensive care unit, I provide care for critically ill infants and understand the importance of personalized clinical care in improving outcomes. I am the physician lead for the rapid Whole Genome Sequencing (rWGS) program in the Primary Children’s Hospital Center for Personalized Medicine and have integrated clinical genetic testing throughout the hospital. Given the confirmation that rWGS accelerates diagnosis and life-saving therapies especially in critically ill infants, we have implemented availability of this testing out to Level III NICUs throughout the state of Utah.

Lukas Chavez is an Assistant Professor at the SBP Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego, USA, and holds an Assistant Adjunct Professor position in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego. He is also the Director of the Clayes Research Center for Neuro-Oncology at the Institute for Genomic Medicine at the Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego. In this role, he works with a team of physicians and scientists to capture genomic, transcriptomic, epigenetic and functional data from pediatric brain tumor patients, and uses this information for precision diagnostics with the aim of improving treatment. His research interests focus on structural variants as well as circular extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in childhood cancers and their impact on gene regulation, oncogenic signaling, and tumor growth.

Dr. Paul is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and practicing pediatric neuro-oncologist at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, caring for children with brain and spinal cord tumors from infancy through young adulthood. She is also the proud parent of a pediatric brain tumor survivor. She is the Clinical Co-PI of the Neuro-Oncology Molecular Tumor Board. Her clinical and research interests involve identifying novel treatment strategies for pediatric neuro-oncology patients who have few or no medical treatment options.

Dr. Praveen Raju is the Director of the Pediatric Brain and Spinal Tumor at Rady Children’s Hospital and holds the Nathan Gordon Endowed Chair in neuro-Oncology. He is also a faculty member in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego.He completed his MD and PhD training in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, his Pediatrics residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and his Pediatric Neurology fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He performed postdoctoral work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center developing mosaic mutagenesis approaches in the mouse before moving on to setting up his independent pediatric brain tumor research lab at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2010 where he was the Englander Clinical Scholar in Children’s Health. He was recently recruited to his current position from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC where he established and co-directed the Mount Sinai Children’s Brain and Spinal Tumor Center.In addition to his clinical and educational duties, Dr. Raju has directed an NIH-funded translational research lab focused solely on pediatric brain tumors over the past ~15 years. He has been recently working on novel nanomedicine-based drug delivery approaches to bypass the blood-brain barrier to improve outcomes for children afflicted with brain and spinal tumors and minimize treatment-related side effects.

Jerica Lenberg is Lead Genetic Counselor at Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine in San Diego, California. Jerica provides genetic counseling and clinician support for inpatients at Rady Children’s Hospital undergoing rapid whole genome sequencing. In addition, Jerica coordinates the RCHSD Precision Medicine Clinic, conducts clinical genome analysis at the RCIGM Clinical Genome Center, supports multiple research studies, and serves as adjunct faculty at Augustana University and Keck Graduate Institute.

Lukas Chavez is an Assistant Professor at the SBP Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego, USA, and holds an Assistant Adjunct Professor position in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego. He is also the Director of the Clayes Research Center for Neuro-Oncology at the Institute for Genomic Medicine at the Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego. In this role, he works with a team of physicians and scientists to capture genomic, transcriptomic, epigenetic and functional data from pediatric brain tumor patients, and uses this information for precision diagnostics with the aim of improving treatment. His research interests focus on structural variants as well as circular extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in childhood cancers and their impact on gene regulation, oncogenic signaling, and tumor growth.

Dr. Praveen Raju is the Director of the Pediatric Brain and Spinal Tumor at Rady Children’s Hospital and holds the Nathan Gordon Endowed Chair in neuro-Oncology. He is also a faculty member in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego.He completed his MD and PhD training in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, his Pediatrics residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and his Pediatric Neurology fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He performed postdoctoral work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center developing mosaic mutagenesis approaches in the mouse before moving on to setting up his independent pediatric brain tumor research lab at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2010 where he was the Englander Clinical Scholar in Children’s Health. He was recently recruited to his current position from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC where he established and co-directed the Mount Sinai Children’s Brain and Spinal Tumor Center.In addition to his clinical and educational duties, Dr. Raju has directed an NIH-funded translational research lab focused solely on pediatric brain tumors over the past ~15 years. He has been recently working on novel nanomedicine-based drug delivery approaches to bypass the blood-brain barrier to improve outcomes for children afflicted with brain and spinal tumors and minimize treatment-related side effects.

Among his achievements, Dr. Kingsmore pioneered the development of ultra-rapid Whole Genome Sequencing to decode rare disease in newborns. In 2021, he led the RCIGM team to break his own world speed record by achieving diagnosis via WGS in 13.5 hours. Dr. Kingsmore came to Rady Children’s in 2015 from Children’s Mercy Kansas City, where he was the Executive Director of Medical Panomics. He previously served as President and CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources; COO of Molecular Staging Inc.; Vice President of Research at CuraGen Corporation; founder of GatorGen; and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s School of Medicine. Dr. Kingsmore received MB, ChB, BAO and DSc degrees from the Queen’s University of Belfast. He trained in clinical immunology in Northern Ireland and did residency in internal medicine and fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.