MIR Gains Four New Faculty Members

Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has recently gained four new faculty members.

Daniel C. Castro, PhD, joins the Biophotonics Research Center as an assistant professor of radiology. Castro was previously an acting instructor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Washington. He was first author on a recently published paper in Nature titled “An endogenous opioid circuit determines state-dependent reward consumption.”

Castro earned his doctorate in psychology/biopsychology from the University of Michigan and served as a postdoctoral research scholar in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine. His research interests include the study of neural circuits and the mechanisms of positive and negative affect.

Carlos A. Mahia, MD, joins the community radiology section as an assistant professor. He was previously on staff at Mercy Hospital Jefferson as an interventional radiologist and brings over a decade of experience to MIR.

Mahia earned his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina. He completed his diagnostic radiology residency as well as a vascular and interventional radiology fellowship at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

Elizabeth G. McFarland, MD, joins Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital as an associate professor. McFarland comes to us from SSM Health St. Joseph – Lake Saint Louis and previously served on the MIR faculty in the abdominal imaging section from 1994–2004. She has played active roles in the American College of Radiology, Association of University Radiologists, and Society of Computed Body Tomography. McFarland served on the Board of Directors of the Association of University Radiologists and was chair of the Philips AUR Junior Faculty Development Program for five years. She also served as chair of the American College of Radiology colon cancer committee from 2006–2009.

While working in private practice in the community, McFarland added breast imaging to her areas of specialization. She is passionate about addressing health care disparities that persist in image-based screening examinations. McFarland earned her bachelor of science and medical degree from University of California, Irvine, followed by an internship in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She completed a diagnostic radiology residency, an MRI fellowship and a fellowship in GI/GU interventional radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Steven C. Sauk, MD, joins the interventional radiology section as an assistant professor of radiology. Sauk was previously an attending physician at Northwestern Lake Forest Memorial Hospital. While there, he was treating both venous disease and arterial disease and became a leader in vascular care.

Sauk earned his medical degree from UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine after completing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University. An alumnus, he completed a diagnostic radiology residency and interventional radiology fellowship at MIR and served as chief resident.