ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2024

Nneka N. Ufere, MD, MSCE is a transplant hepatologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. She received her bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a minor in Psychology at Harvard College. She received her medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she also served as Chief Medical Resident. She completed her fellowship training in gastroenterology and transplant hepatology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology degree at the at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

She is a health services and patient-centered outcomes researcher whose work is at the intersection of hepatology, transplant, and palliative care. As a clinical trialist, she develops and tests supportive care interventions aimed at increasing the quality of life, quality of care, and healthcare system empathy for patients with cirrhosis and their families. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed publications, many in high-impact journals such as JAMA Internal Medicine, Journal of Hepatology, Hepatology, and Gastroenterology. She was a co-author of the national practice guidance on palliative care in decompensated cirrhosis for the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. She is the PI for the LiverPal randomized clinical trial of longitudinal inpatient palliative care for hospitalized patients with cirrhosis. Her work is currently funded by a Clinical, Translational, and Outcomes Research award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, a Sojourns Scholar award from the Cambia Health Foundation, and a Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.