#NephMadness 2025: Meet the Gamemakers

Posted on January 22, 2025 by AJKDblog in NephMadness // 1 Comment

We are a few weeks out from the launch of the 13th NephMadness! This year’s Executive Team features plenty of familiar faces, as well as a few new ones. These are the folks that have been working behind the scenes for months to make sure NephMadness is both fun and informative: Matthew Sparks, Anna Burgner, Anna Vinnikova, Elena Cervantes, Jeffrey Kott, Ana Catalina Alvarez-Elías, Dia Waguespack, and Krithika Mohan.

Matthew Sparks

@Nephro_Sparks – @nephrosparks.bsky.social

Matthew Sparks is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University and serves as the Program Director for the Nephrology Fellowship. He is a founding faculty member and program director of the Nephrology Social Media Collective (NSMC) internship. Dr Sparks is on the board of directors of Nephrology Journal Club (NephJC), a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing free online medical education in nephrology. He is co-creator of NephMadness (and designed the first logo!).

Anna Burgner

@anna_burgner – @annaburgner.bsky.social

Anna Burgner is a general nephrologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she is also the nephrology fellowship Program Director. She is on the Board of Directors of Nephrology Journal Club (NephJC), a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing free online medical education in nephrology. Dr Burgner became involved in NephMadness as a writer and expert for the Diabetic Nephrology Region in 2017 and joined the Executive Team in 2018.

Anna Vinnikova

@KidneyWars – @kidneywars.bsky.social

Anna Vinnikova is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at the Virginia Commonwealth University (Final Four 2011!!!). She joined the NephMadness Executive Team in 2021. Dr Vinnikova loves NephMadness Parties, NephMadness themed cookies and her kids NephMadness Minecraft videos.

Elena Cervantes

@Elena_Cervants

Elena Cervantes is an academic nephrologist and Assistant Program Director of the nephrology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Additionally, she serves as the co-director of the medical student Nephrology course at the School of Medicine. In 2022, she authored the Nephropathology section for NephMadness, and in 2024 she joined the NephMadness Executive Team.

Jeffrey Kott

@jrkott27 – @jrkott27.bsky.social

Jeffrey Kott is a Critical Care Medicine Fellow at Stony Brook Medicine on Long Island after completing his Clinical Nephrology training at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was a graduate of the 2021 Nephrology Social Media Collective. Dr Kott wrote the Organ Pool section of the Access to Transplant Region for Nephmadness 2023, and joined the NephMadness Executive Team in 2024.

Ana Catalina Alvarez-Elías

@catochita – @catochita.bsky.social

Ana Catalina is a pediatric nephrologist who specializes in transplantation. She trained in Mexico and Canada and holds a Ph.D. in medical sciences. Cata works as a research scientist at the Renal Research Institute, is Co-Chair of epidemiological research for ALANEPE, and is part of the emerging leaders program at the ISN. This is her first year on the NephMadness Executive Team.

Dia Waguespack

@d_r_waguespack

Dr. Dia Waguespack is an Associate Professor of Medicine at McGovern Medical School – UTHealth Houston and Director of the Nephrology Fellowship Program. She specializes in glomerular diseases, critical care nephrology, and peritoneal dialysis. Dr. Waguespack is also a leader in medical education and moderates the GlomCon Sunday Seminar Series. In 2019, she wrote a NephMadness commentary advocating for the eventual champions, the US Guidelines team out of the Hypertension Region. This is her first year on the NephMadness Executive Team.

Krithika Mohan

@krithicism

Krithika Mohan is a consultant nephrologist and transplant physician at Cytecare hospitals, Bangalore. She is the director of the graphical communications rotation in the NephEdC fellowship and also the chair of the WIN-India social media team. She is a visual abstract editor for ISN education, KI reports, Kidney news and Kidney medicine. Her interests include transplantation, women and kidney health and social media education. This is her first year on the NephMadness Executive Team, though she has been creating visual abstracts for NephMadness since 2019, and she was a member of NephMadness 2020’s highest scoring group, KNN.