Innes, Vanessa, Pabon, NP

Monica Velasco is certified by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She received her Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, NY. Previously, she received her Master of Science in Nursing and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Miami, FL. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society and the Transplant Nurses Association. She earned many awards and honors during her clinical and academic career, including the Mary Dickey Lindsay ’45 Nursing Scholar, 2013 from Columbia University School of Nursing. She has co-authored numerous transplant publications and has served as an international guest speaker. She is considered an expert in the field of Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplant. Monica’s nursing experience spans over 25 years. She began her transplant career in 1998 at the University of Miami, where she worked for 13 years as the Program Manager for the Pediatric Liver and Intestinal Transplant Division and Senior Transplant Clinical Coordinator. During her time there, she helped grow the Liver and Intestinal Transplant Program into one of the top transplant centers in the world. In 2010, she was recruited by the Center of Liver Disease and Abdominal Transplantation at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Currently, she is the Program Manager for the Intestinal and Ex-Vivo Transplant Division and is a Senior Transplant Clinical Coordinator. She has over two decades of clinical experience in pediatrics, taking care of complex liver and intestinal transplant patients. She has vast experience working with nutritionally challenged patients who require enteral and parenteral nutrition. She is a co-investigator on numerous research projects in the areas of liver and intestinal transplantation. She holds a Clinical Faculty Position at Columbia University School of Nursing, where she serves as an Assistant Professor of Nursing, Clinical Preceptor and Portfolio Advisor for their Doctorate Program. Fluent in Spanish Visit The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at columbiasurgery.org/liver

I have been a Nurse Practitioner for 31 years and love my work. I have had a variety of practice opportunities, both inpatient and outpatient and bring all of this experience with me. I have had more than 8 years working in Neurology at Columba, as an intensivist in the Neuro Graduate service.

Dr. George A. (Jack) Cioffi is an internationally recognized glaucoma scientist and clinician and is the Edward S. Harkness Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons since 2012. He also holds the Jean and Richard Deems Endowed Professorship and is the Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. From 2014 to 2023, Dr. Cioffi served as the President of ColumbiaDoctors, the multi-specialty faculty practice organization of more than 2,500 clinicians from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and was concurrently appointed Vice Dean of Clinical Affairs. Dr. Cioffi formerly held the Richard G. Chenoweth Chair of Ophthalmology at the Devers Eye Institute and was the Chief Medical Officer & Senior Vice President at Legacy Health System in Portland, Oregon. He received his medical degree at the University of South Carolina, completed a residency in ophthalmology at the University of Maryland where he also served as Chief Resident, and a fellowship in Research & Clinical Glaucoma at Devers Eye Institute under Dr. E. Michael Van Buskirk. Subsequently, he completed the inaugural Harvard Business School program in Managing Healthcare Delivery. Dr. Cioffi is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Academic Ophthalmology, the official journal of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO). As well, he is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Glaucoma, after serving for 10 years as the Editor-in-Chief, and he is the past Chair of the Basic and Clinical Science Course for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He is the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Glaucoma Research Foundation in San Francisco. He is a past President of the Oregon Academy of Ophthalmology and has served as a member of the FDA Ophthalmology/Dermatology Advisory Committee for drug approval. He also served on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Medical Excellence and was selected by the Governor John Kitzhaber to serve on the Oregon Health Policy Board’s Outcomes & Quality taskforce. Dr. Cioffi, a physician for more than 30 years, has published over 250 articles, has enjoyed support from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health for more than two decades. He has delivered numerous named lectures and has received the Honor Award, the Senior Honor Award and two Secretariat Awards from the AAO. He has mentored more than 50 clinical and post-doctoral fellows over his career. These clinicians and scientists are now at academic institutions and in practices around the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.