Healthcare Advisory Board
Shilpy Setya MD, FAAP
Pediatrician
Dr. Setya is a board certified pediatrician.
Dr. Avni Desai
Manager
Dr. Avni Desai is a Manager at a Big 4 consulting firm, serving as a subject matter expert in public health, clinical medicine and biomedical data. She is known for her versatile skills as a key bridge builder, leading teams playing across technology, project management, research, biomedical data and consulting. Avni holds a medical degree from Sardar Patel University, India. Additionally she earned a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and a Certificate Masters from Georgetown in Biostatistics. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Her publication on medicinal plants and cancer chemoprevention has over 370 citations. Her interests include environment, children’s health, alternative and integrative medicine, yoga and meditation.
Dr. Chitvan Gupta
Holistic General & Cosmetic Dentist
Dr. Gupta is a general and cosmetic dentist, specializing in non-invasive biomimetic (using dental materials that mimic biochemical processes) treatments. She believes in the mantra of “less dentistry is the best dentistry”. With the use of minimally-invasive biomimetic treatments, she tries to avoid many invasive treatments when indicated e.g. root canals. She is a graduate of Maulana Azad Dental College in Delhi, India, the Alleman-Deliperi Center of Biomimetic Dentistry and the Eastman Institute for Oral Health at the University of Rochester. She also has a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and practices a holistic approach to oral health.
Nithan Narendra, MD, FACG, CNSC
Gastroenterologist & Hepatologist
Dr. Narendra has been practicing Gastroenterology and Hepatology in New York City for more than 11 years. After completing his Internal Medicine residency at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Long Island, he went on to complete a Clinical Nutrition fellowship at NYP Columbia University Medical Center. He then completed a gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. Apart from medicine, he has volunteered in multiple LGBTQ+ organizations including Trevor Project.
He has been appointed a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology. He is also board certified in Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology as well as Clinical Nutrition.
Salony Setya
Integrative Psychotherapist
Salony Setya is a Licensed Professional Counselor, with a Master’s degree in Psychology and a concentration in Clinical Counseling. For nearly 15 years, she has been working with children, adolescents and adults in a variety of settings including intensive in home, residential, outpatient, intensive outpatient and private practice. She has also served as a supervisor for several years at a crisis unit, over-seeing crisis intervention specialists and clinicians. Her primary experience has been working with Trauma, Anxiety and Depression in adults and adolescents.
Salony is an integrative therapist and life coach. Her professional and life experiences in psychotherapy, transformative coaching and spirituality bring a unique perspective of viewing mental health and self-development as an evolution of the different layers of the mind, body and spirit.
With her training and her integrative approach to treatment, Salony offers a rich array of mind-body healing that goes beyond symptom reduction and strives toward life balance and mental wellbeing.
Purnima Popli, MD
Internal Medicine
Being a physician is an immense privilege and provides innumerable opportunities to help others. Dr. Popli chose internal medicine because it provides a new set of challenges every day with diverse patients, conditions, and treatments. For her, internal medicine provides intellectual satisfaction and a deep fulfillment from building relationships with patients. She enjoys getting to know her patients, not just their diseases. She also enjoys the emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. She provides a full range of treatments for my patients, from primary and preventive care to more complex medical care. She appreciates the opportunity to build meaningful long-term relationships with her patients.
Dr. Fred Ferguson
Pediatric Dentist
Dr. Fred Ferguson is an attending pediatric dentist, One Brooklyn Health, Brooklyn New York, and Distinguished Teaching Professor – Emeritus, School of Dental Medicine, Stony Brook University. During his 42-year career at Stony Brook, Ferguson developed oral health programs for special needs, children with HIV infection, chronic health problems, and craniofacial deformities and maintained an active and practice. Dr. Ferguson presents professional, consumer, and community groups, consulted to hospitals, organizations, and corporations, has contributed to the healthcare literature. Dr. Ferguson is President/CEO and founder of Health Migration Consulting Inc. and ABOUTSMILESWORLD LTD, organizations focused on improving the quality of care and reducing cost through building a process to improve consumer accountability and partnership, stakeholder collaboration, and EMR integration.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-fred-ferguson-1236132/
TED Talk (2013): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsC0fhplGcE
His Vision: An Effective, Efficient, Equitable Healthcare
His Mission: The Migration to Effective, Efficient, Equitable Health
Jennifer Cole, PhD
Lecturer in Global and Planetary Health
Dr. Cole’s research interests are human health, particularly with regard to evolutionary and population biology, including how we have adapted to live in modern environments, how modern conditions affect our health across the life course, and the risks posed to health when healthcare systems are disrupted or overwhelmed by conflict, disasters and emergencies. She currently works at the Royal Holloway University of London and she is interested in resilience at individual, community, national and international levels, particularly in response to natural hazards including serious disease outbreaks, severe weather events, CBRN attacks, flooding and climate change. From 2007-2017, she ran the Resilience and Emergency Management program within the National Security and Resilience Department of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI), a policy think tank working closely with UK government including the Cabinet Office, MoD, Home Office and Foreign Office.
Her PhD was in Computer Science, and she retains an interest in how health information is sought out, shared and trusted during health emergencies, including over peer-to-peer platforms and social media, and how relevant scientific information and advice is communicated from the authorities to the affected population. During the COVID19 pandemic, she has moderated discussion forums on reddit, including r/COVID19_support, which she set up in February 2020.
Parita Sahani, DO
Obstetrician
Dr. Parita Sahani is a board-certified physician and fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She loves practicing medicine and finds it to be an interesting and rewarding career. She specializes in high-risk pregnancies and manages conditions including diabetes, preeclampsia—a pregnancy condition that involves high blood pressure—thyroid disorders, and rheumatologic and other autoimmune conditions. Preventing preterm birth and ensuring that my patients have a safe and healthy pregnancy is my topmost priority.
As a gynecologist, she enjoys investigating and managing different diseases such as abnormal uterine bleeding, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, vaginal inflammation, and infertility. She also provides medical interventions for birth control and she is adept in hysteroscopic and laparoscopic surgeries as well as open myomectomy, which is a surgical procedure to remove uterine fibroids.
Dr. Sahani graduated from an osteopathic medical school, She received extra training in the musculoskeletal system and can accurately diagnose the causes of many aches and pains and initiate proper therapy. Her training in alternative medicine and certifications in naturopathy enables her to treat patients with a more holistic approach.
She uses evidence-based medicine to provide quality care for patients and she is currently researching the effects of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in pregnant women.