About Us
Promoting advocacy, career development, and mentorship for early-career physician-scientists
Our Story
The American Junior Investigator Association is a 501(c)3 organization founded in 2024 dedicated to advocacy, career development, and mentorship for early-career physician-scientists.
Meet The Team
Evan Noch
Co-founder
Dr. Evan Noch is Assistant Professor of Neurology within the Division of Neuro-oncology and Director of Physician-Scientist Development in the Department of Neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Noch earned his BA in Neuroscience with Honors from New York University and his MD and PhD degrees from Temple University before completing his residency in Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine and fellowship in Neuro-oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In the lab, Evan studies glioblastoma metabolism, with a focus on synergistic drug and dietary therapies targeting glucose utilization and redox pathways. Dr. Noch is a previous past-President, Board of Directors member, and founder of the resident, fellow, and junior faculty committee of the American Physician Scientists Association. In 2024, Dr. Noch co-founded the American Junior Investigator Association to better address the needs of post-graduate physician-scientist trainees and improve their career development opportunities.
Jennifer Kwan
Co-founder
Dr. Jennifer Kwan is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, working on mechanisms of cardiotoxicity associated with oncologic therapies and the role and effect of clonal hematopoiesis and somatic variants in heart failure in patients with cancer. She was awarded a KL2 for this work. She obtained her MD and PhD degrees from the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she won several outstanding research awards at both the local and national levels. She completed her Cardiology and Cardio-oncology/Advanced Imaging fellowships at Yale University. She previously graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Molecular Cell Biology, where she was both a Cal Alumni Scholar and recipient of the Berkeley Academic Scholarship. She also serves on the board of directors for the American Physician Scientists Association and has spearheaded advocacy efforts and initiatives to support the career success of physician-scientist trainees and early-career physician-scientists, including successful advocacy for increased NIH funding. She continues those efforts for early-career physician-scientists as a co-founder of the American Junior Investigator Association.
Nathan Chen
Ambassador for Public Outreach
Nathan Chen is a graduate of Yale University, where he majored in Statistics & Data Science. He is currently attending a Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Medical program as he prepares for a career in medicine, with an interest in becoming a physician-scientist. He is from Salt Lake City, UT and moved to Southern California at 13 years old to pursue a career in figure skating. He began skating at the age of 3 and has skated competitively since then. He is the 2022 Olympic men’s champion, 2022 Olympic team event champion, 2018 Olympic bronze medalist, 3-time World champion, and 6-time U.S. national champion. He was recognized on the Time100 and Forbes 30-under-30 list. He was nominated for a People’s Choice Award, Laureus Award, and an ESPY Award. He is a founding member of Gold House, a non-profit organization of Asian founders dedicated to creating more multicultural representation and societal equity. At Yale, he was an undergraduate researcher with the Cardiovascular Research Center in the Kwan lab leveraging deep learning to analyze genomic data to better understand the impact of variants of known and uncertain significance on cardiovascular outcomes.
Alexander Obradovic
Director of Data Management
Dr. Aleksandar Obradovic received his MD and PhD degrees from Columbia University in 2023, graduating in the Department of Systems Biology under the joint mentorship of Dr. Andrea Califano and Dr. Charles Drake. Dr. Obradovic is currently an Associate Research Scientist in the Columbia Department of Medicine in the Division of Experimental Therapeutics, and a resident physician in Internal Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital. His research focus is on the development of novel approaches for analysis of transcriptional, TCR-Seq, and spatial data, at the bulk and single-cell level, applying these tools across clinical data toward an improved understanding of the immunologic mechanisms of resistance to checkpoint inhibitors and the discovery of synergistic combination therapies.
Aisha Siebert
Treasurer
Dr. Aisha Siebert is currently a Clinical Fellow in Pediatric Urology at Boston Children's Hospital. She completed her residency training in Urology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. She is a graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry's Medical Scientist Training Program with an MD and PhD in Translational Biomedical Sciences. She holds a Master's of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences and Toxicology from the Mailman School at Columbia University. Her current work focuses on operationalizing genomic tools for varied applications in personalized medicine, including addressing genetic and environmental causes of gonadal dysgenesis leading to infertility, androgen dysfunction, and differences of sex development (DSD) in pediatric, adolescent, and adult Urology patients. She has an interest in optimizing Surgical Quality Measurement and Improvement, and was an American Urological Association Quality Improvement Summit Fellow. Aisha has been involved in advocacy for physician-scientist career development and retention for over 15 years, serving as co-chair of the American Physician Scientists Association Policy Committee and now member of the American Junior Investigator Association.
Alokkumar Jha
Director of Early-Career Scientist Development
