Dr. Philip Stieg, Dr. Michael Kaplitt, and Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield are delighted to welcome Sergio Wesley Guadix and Marcus Valcarce-Aspegren as our two newest residents, who will begin the seven-year residency program with us in July.
“We met with an outstanding pool of candidates this year,” said Dr. Kaplitt, director of the residency program and executive vice chairman for research in the department of neurosurgery. “We could not be happier to have matched with two such extraordinary students, soon to be physicians, and begin this seven-year journey with them.”
“The rigorous interview process allows us to get to know several dozen of the most talented medical students in the country,” said Dr. Philip E. Stieg, department chairman and neurosurgeon-in-chief of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “We are always impressed by the intellect, diversity, and emotional maturity in the students we meet, and we are proud indeed to have matched with two such emerging stars.”
Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield, the vice chairman for academic affairs and associate director of the residency program, who directs the nearly year-long interview process, added that “as difficult as it is to rank the exceptional men and women we interview, we also know how challenging it is for the candidates to make their selections. We couldn’t be happier that Sergio and Marcus chose us. We consider it a privilege to be the program that will complete their neurosurgical training here at Weill Cornell Medicine.”
Sergio Wesley Guadix will receive his MD this year from Weill Cornell Medical College, where he was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical student honor society. During his time here at Weill Cornell, Sergio has gotten to know the neurosurgeons well. He has conducted research in endovascular neurosurgery alongside Dr. Jared Knopman, worked on imaging studies in craniosynostosis with Dr. Caitlin Hoffman, and co-authored a series of academic papers on neurosurgery during Covid and another paper on stereotactic radiosurgery with Dr. Susan Pannullo. Sergio took a year off from his medical studies to work under the mentorship of Dr. Mark Souweidane as the Rudin Medical Student Fellow in Pediatric Neuro-oncology, researching enhanced drug delivery systems for pediatric brain tumors. He was awarded the 2022 ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation Gamechanger Grant to continue those studies. Sergio received his bachelor’s degree in cognitive science from the University of Pennsylvania, then completed a yearlong post-baccalaureate pre-medical program at Johns Hopkins University before attending Weill Cornell Medical College.
Marcus Valcarce-Aspegren will receive his MD this year from Yale School of Medicine, where he was awarded two consecutive yearlong research fellowships to conduct epilepsy research in the laboratory of Dr. Hal Blumenfeld. Receiving both the Richard K. Gershon, MD, Medical Student Research Fellowship and the James G. Hirsch, MD, Endowed Medical Student Research Award allowed Marcus to spend two years using an awake mouse model of focal limbic seizures that he had helped develop. During the two years of research, Marcus used this new animal model to perform the first awake electrophysiology recordings in the locus coeruleus during focal limbic seizures. As a Yale medical student, Marcus also participated in the HAVEN free clinic, serving an uninsured population and mentoring junior medical students. Marcus received his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he completed an honors thesis on Medieval Medicine on the Camino de Santiago.