CHICAGO, IL – JAMA Network announces a new cohort of 10 academic physicians and nurses to join the JAMA Editorial Fellowship Program, designed to engage early career clinical or health services researchers with JAMA’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication.
Fellows are chosen based on a demonstrated interest in a career in academic medicine, medical publishing, or medical education, knowledge of peer-reviewed research and study design, and communication skills.
“We are delighted to welcome the new cohort of JAMA Editorial Fellows and build on the program we’ve developed the last 2 years” said JAMA Deputy Editor Joseph Ross, M.D., M.H.S., who leads the program. “Fellows will have the opportunity to see the peer-review process firsthand and bring their own unique skills and expertise to the table.”
Reflecting the JAMA Network’s commitment to seeking high-value science from across the world, the 2026 class includes one fellow from Ireland and one from Switzerland.
“The JAMA Editorial Fellowship is a unique opportunity for early-career faculty to observe the journal’s editorial process up close” said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, M.D., Ph.D., M.A.S., editor in chief of JAMA and the JAMA Network. “Each fellow comes to us from a diverse range of background and experiences. In return, we benefit from their novel ideas and perspectives.”
Introducing the 2026 JAMA Editorial Fellows:
Sumit Agarwal, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. , is a primary care physician, health economist, and assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and School of Public Health. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation, Population Studies Center, and Poverty Solutions. His research uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to investigate how social and economic policies at the local, state, and national levels impact access to care and health.
Randi A. Bates, B.S.N., M.S., Ph.D. , is a registered nurse, board-certified family nurse practitioner, and tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing. Bates’s award-winning and NIH-funded multi-site research investigates ecobiodevelopmental influences on stress and sleep in young children and their caregivers, with a focus on supporting families experiencing socioeconomic inequities.
Christin Iroegbu, Ph.D., M.S., R.N. , is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Nursing at Towson University. Her research examines how nursing resources, work environments, and patient-provider communication shape outcomes for patients with kidney disease, with an emphasis on health disparities and leveraging the essential role of nurses to advance equitable, patient-centered care.
Natalie McEvoy, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N. , is a Lecturer in the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for critically ill patients through international and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Melanie Molina, M.D., M.A.S. , is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation. Her research focuses on using electronic health record-based interventions to address social and behavioral needs in the emergency department.
Max Jordan Nguemeni, M.D., M.S. , is an assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA. His research uses multidisciplinary, mixed-methods approaches, to study inequities in pain, addiction, and environmental health, from healthcare delivery, policy barriers, and neighborhood-level determinants of health.
Basile Njei, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. , is a physician-scientist at Yale School of Medicine and a Fulbright Visiting Professor of Global Health. His work integrates hepatology, clinical research, and artificial intelligence to improve the diagnosis of liver disease and strengthen health systems, with research interests spanning MASLD, digital health innovation, global health equity, and the ethical governance of emerging technologies.
Irbaz Riaz, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. , is a Gerstner AI Scholar and serves as Director of Cancer AI, Lead of the Data Science and AI Work Group at Mayo Cancer Center and Lead of the NCCN AI Working Group. He also leads the Living Evidence Program at Mayo Evidence Based Practice Center. His research focuses on artificial intelligence in healthcare and computational oncology, with key areas of focus multi-modal AI models (natural language processing for clinical data, computer vision for digital pathology and imaging data), human-AI interaction, and predictive modeling.
Jiani Yu, Ph.D. , is a health services researcher and Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Economics, Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. She studies three interrelated areas of the U.S. health care delivery system: telehealth services, post-acute and long-term health care delivery, and provider staffing and organization, with a focus on how policy levers impact health care quality and cost.
Tibor Zwimpfer, M.D., P.D. , is a Consultant and Gynecological Oncology Fellow at the University Hospital Basel and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel, Switzerland. His research focuses on high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, translational tumor biology, and biomarker-driven precision oncology, with additional interests in surgical innovation and integrating molecular profiling into clinical decision-making.
For more information, contact JAMA Network Media Relations at 312-464-JAMA (5252) or email media relations .