Spring 2026 Alumni Awardees

Across Cleveland Clinic and its medical education programs, this year’s alumni awardees reflect a wide span of the physician journey. From medical school to graduate training to early career leadership, their work reaches across bedside care, education, research and community engagement. What unites them is a shared commitment to making medicine more human, more welcoming and more responsive to the people it serves.

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Jad Daw, MD — GL-1 Award Honoree

Jad Daw, MD, has long seen teaching as central to who he is. Before residency, he tutored classmates and mentored high school students, and he brought that same instinct into his first year of internal medicine residency at Cleveland Clinic. Recognized for clinical excellence, communication skills, character and accomplishment, Dr. Daw is known for combining efficiency and attention to detail with strong patient advocacy and a natural ability to connect with others.

Faculty and peers point to his professionalism and persistence, including his work helping secure outpatient resources for a medically complex patient who lacked home health support. For Dr. Daw, medicine is rooted in trust. He recalls being struck by a physician who told patients it was an honor to care for them, a perspective that deepened through hospice volunteering, where he learned the value of presence even when outcomes cannot be changed.

That same commitment to showing up for others extends beyond the hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Daw and friends revived the Arora Foundation, expanding virtual tutoring, scholarships and mentorship for underserved students, many of them first-generation collegegoers. Through that work, he has helped students see that they belong in spaces they may never have imagined for themselves.

Hala Mouhydeen, MD — Dr. Satoru and Grace Nakamoto Award

For Hala Mouhydeen, MD, patient care means looking beyond lab values and treatment schedules to the human experience of illness. That perspective inspired Beyond the Numbers, a wellness initiative for hospitalized patients receiving hemodialysis. Her dialysis wellness kits include comfort items such as a memory foam neck pillow, blanket, lip balm, lotion and scalp massager, along with a short survey inviting patients to share what could make treatment easier.

The project reflects Dr. Mouhydeen’s belief that small, thoughtful interventions can restore dignity and ease the burden of a physically and emotionally taxing therapy. Colleagues and learners also recognize her for bringing that same attentiveness to the people around her, whether supporting peers on difficult days or making time to mentor students.

Originally from Lebanon, Dr. Mouhydeen first trained as a pharmacist before pursuing medicine, shaped by early experiences with limited healthcare access and by a desire to address the social and personal barriers affecting patients’ health. She sees the award as both an honor and an affirmation of patient-centered work that listens closely and responds with intention.

Jeffrey Shu, MD — Alfred and Norma Stoller CCLCM Award

Jeffrey Shu, MD (CCLCM’26), believes leadership is measured by how many opportunities it creates for others. At Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, he has built a record of service that bridges medical education, patient-centered care and research. His efforts to strengthen affirming, welcoming health education were especially far-reaching, spanning both the preclinical curriculum and a senior elective completed by more than 300 medical students.

Dr. Shu’s path to medicine was not linear. After studying molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and completing master’s studies in Sweden and the Netherlands, he initially imagined a future in research. That changed while volunteering at a free clinic for refugees in Sweden, where he saw both the barriers patients faced and the uniquely human role physicians play in helping them navigate those challenges.

At Cleveland Clinic, he found a place where research and patient care could coexist. In addition to his curricular work, he volunteered with the Cleveland LGBT Center, supported outreach efforts and participated in community health screenings. As he prepares to begin internal medicine training in the primary care track at the University of California San Diego, he says the principle that has guided him most is simple: patients come first.

Sarah Kiani, MD — Alfred and Norma Stoller GME Award

Sarah Kiani, MD, is driven by a question that reaches beyond any one patient encounter: how many talented future physicians never enter medicine simply because opportunity never came close enough for them to see it? As a pulmonary and critical care fellow at Cleveland Clinic, she is studying whether the distance between a student’s high school and the nearest academic health center affects medical school application rates.

Her research, supported through the Cleveland Clinic Center for Population Health Research, examines geography as a structural influence on the physician pipeline. For Dr. Kiani, this is a matter of fairness. Access to healthcare matters, she says, but so does access to the pathways that allow people to become physicians in the first place.

Her interest in medicine grew from an early sensitivity to unfairness and a desire to create meaningful change. Over time, that impulse evolved from emotion to systems thinking and scientific inquiry. She was drawn to pulmonary and critical care medicine because it combines the intensity of caring for critically ill patients with opportunities for reflection, research and broader impact.

Dr. Kiani credits Cleveland Clinic mentors with modeling thoughtful, measured leadership and says the Stoller family’s belief in education as a force for transformation resonates deeply with her work. Looking ahead, she hopes to help create new pathways into healthcare careers for people whose potential may otherwise go unrecognized.

Olivia H. Chang, MD — Early Career Alumnus Award

Olivia H. Chang, MD (UG/PS’21), has built a career around improving quality of life for patients whose conditions are often underdiscussed and undertreated. Now chief of female urology, pelvic reconstructive surgery and voiding dysfunction at UCI Health and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, she is being recognized for distinguished achievement within 10 years of completing fellowship training.

Dr. Chang’s path began in public health, with studies at McGill University and a master’s degree from Mount Sinai, but she realized she wanted the direct human connection of patient care. Medical school at Tulane, in post-Katrina New Orleans, reinforced her commitment to community-based care through student-led clinics serving residents facing poverty, displacement and limited access to healthcare.

After residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, she completed fellowship training at Cleveland Clinic, where she refined both her surgical expertise and her commitment to education, research and innovation in care. She credits mentors there with shaping her growth as a surgeon, academic and leader. Today, she is recognized as an emerging national and international leader in urogynecology and female urology, while also training the next generation and carrying forward the Cleveland Clinic legacy in her field.

This year’s alumni awardees represent a remarkable breadth of talent, service and vision. Whether at the bedside, in the classroom, in the community or through research, each is contributing to a stronger and more responsive healthcare environment. Their achievements reflect the enduring values of Cleveland Clinic and the many ways its alumni continue to make a difference.