Our Resident Physicians

PGY-4

Elimarys Perez-Colon, MD
Chief Resident

Dr. Perez-Colon is from Villalba, Puerto Rico. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in Ponce with a degree in Biomedics. She attended medical school at San Juan Bautista in Caguas, PR. She loves teaching, and her medical interests include the physiology of cardiovascular and renal disorders, congenital heart diseases, and street medicine. While in medicine school she created SACSM (Student association of Community and social medicine), an association directed to educate and offer medical care to medicaly indigent population in Puerto Rico. She also founded CONUCO (“Conociendo nuestra comunidad), an association that serve basic needs to indigent communities in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic.

Her hobbies include interior designing (she loves to practice at home!!), outdoor adventures (skydiving, zip line, river rafting, bungee jumping, rappelling and more), amusement parks, and travel round the world. She is fluent in Spanish and speaks a bit of Italian.
Paibel Aguayo-Hiraldo, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Aguayo-Hiraldo is from Canóvanas, Puerto Rico. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, and received a degree in applied microbiology University of Puerto Rico in Humacao PR. She attended medical school at San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in Caguas, PR. She was a member of the medical fraternity Alfa Kappa pi. Her medical interests include hematology and oncology. She would love to design a practice of Heme-Onc and work with patients and survivors of all ages. Street Medicine has a special place in her heart as well as missionary work.

Her hobbies include outside activities, whether sitting in a chair at the beach or having a few hours of extreme sports like rappelling, rock climbing, and hopefully soon enough, surfing. She enjoys arts, music- playing the violin, singing or just listening, photography-mostly black and white, and developing her own films and painting.
Linh T. Nguyen, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Nguyen grew up in Northern California; she received her undergraduate degree from the University of California Santa Cruz in 1998 with a bachelor in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. She then went on to earn her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Boston University School of Medicine in 2002 and a Master of Medical Science in 2004. During her time at Boston University she was a study coordinator for a research study in the “Quality of Life” survey sponsored by the greater Piscataque New Hampshire Association for infant Mental Health. She also was a research assistant in the Anatomy and Neurobiology department at Boston University where she investigated Dopamine Receptors and intracellular signaling in neurons in Parkinson Disease and cerebellar Purkinje cells in autism.

She has an abstract publication in the Society for Neuroscience for her involvement in GAD67 mRNA decrease in cerebellar purkinje cells in autism: an in situ hybridization study. She graduated from St. George’s University School of Medicine in 2009. Her academic awards include Honors Master Thesis. She is interested in a career in primary care that focuses on medically underserved population. Her hobbies include traveling, photography, interior designing, ballroom dancing, watching movies and hosting dinner parties. She lives in South Tampa with her husband, Quang.

PGY-3

Garrett Alderfer, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Alderfer was born in Brooklyn, New York, but was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from Little Rock Central High School and attended Drury University for his undergraduate education. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and History, Dr. Alderfer returned to Little Rock to attend the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where he received his MD. Dr. Alderfer’s medical interests include health informatics, infectious disease, and critical care medicine. When not working, Dr. Alderfer’s hobbies include building and maintaining computers, video games, watching movies, and spending time with his awesome fiancée, Jennifer.
Soniya Bhavsar, MD
Resident Physician
Jody Coonradt, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Coonradt is originally from Middleburgh, New York, and received her undergraduate degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. From upstate NY to Florida, she moved to the warmer world of Ft Lauderdale for medical school at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine. She recently moved to Tampa Bay for her Med/Peds residency at USF. She is leaning towards a career in primary care, but is looking forward to learning everything she can over the next 4 years. In her free time, Jody loves to cook, decorate cakes, enjoy the outdoors, travel, and spend as much time with her family and friends that she can!
Melanie Letobarone, MD
Resident Physician
Katie Newell, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Newell is originally from Roundup, MT, a small town in eastern Montana. She received her undergraduate degree from Montana State University of Bozeman, MT and attended medical school at the University of Washington in Seattle. Much of Montana is medically underserved and she plans to go back to work in one of these areas. In her free time she enjoys reading, running, baking, backpacking, and camping.
Melania Poonacha, MD, MPH
Resident Physician

Dr. Poonacha is a native of Lexington, Kentucky. She obtained her bachelor of science in biology from the University of Kentucky. She completed a master’s in public health at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Her work in the field of sexual violence prevention led to a position at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. After working there for a year, she decided to return to the US for medical school and completed her MD degree at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She is a 2009-2010 recipient of the CDC OC Hubert Global Health Fellowship. Her medical interests include adolescent medicine, family planning, infectious diseases and global health. In her free time, Dr. Poonacha enjoys surfing, Egyptian bellydancing, and soccer.

PGY-2

Minal Ahson-Niaz, MD
Resident Physician
Jonathan Chan, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Chan is from Danville, California and did his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University majoring in Human Biology and minoring in Psychology. He spent a brief time at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan working in conjunction with a pharmaceutical research company in California to develop detection agents for the EGFR mutation in non-small cell lung cancer. He also spent some time there teaching English to Middle and High School students. He graduated from St. George's University School of Medicine in 2011 and has an interest in medical informatics, genetics, metabolic endocrinology & nutrition, and hematology/oncology. In his free time he dabbles in computer software programming, photography, and dessert making. He is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese.
Katie Knupp, MD
Resident Physician

As a transplant from the Tarheel state, North Carolina, I'm thrilled to be doing Med-Peds in Tampa, FL! I completed my Undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (basketball season was ah-ma-zing), but moved back to my home town of Greenville, NC to attend medical school at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University (Go Pirates!). Now that I've moved to Tampa, I've traded one pirate for another and plan to attend as many Buccaneers games as residency allows. In tow with me to Florida is my husband, Travis, and our dog Sampson and two cats, Bijou and Cairo. I chose USF because the people are genuine, fun, and have the southern hospitality I love. Plus it's never a bad idea to be within 60 miles of some of the most beautiful beaches, ever. A true beach bum at heart, on my free time, you'll find me lounging in a beach chair by the water or grabbing a drink and a bite to eat at an outside cafe I've never explored.
Michelle Tang, MD
Resident Physician
Devi Yalamanchili, MD
Resident Physician

Dr. Yalamanchili grew up in several different countries before arriving in New York in 4th grade. She received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. After college, she worked in India teaching special-needs children before moving to New Orleans, LA to work with the American Red Cross rebuilding the area after Hurricane Katrina. She stayed in New Orleans to complete her medical school degree at LSU. During that time she helped run a clinic for the homeless population in New Orleans, worked with HIV/AIDS patients in Rwanda, and has been involved in setting up a free clinic in Jacsonville, Haiti since the earthquake in 2010. She plans on continuing her work in inner city and global health initiatives throughout her career. In her spare time, she enjoys running, being outdoors (hiking, canoeing, skydiving, caving, scuba diving), traveling, and spending time with friends.

PGY-1

Darren Adderly, MD
Resident Physician
Jenna Simpson, DO
Resident Physician
Kenneth Visalli, DO
Resident Physician