McKenzie Vater is from Alexandria, Kentucky. She earned her undergraduate degree at Northern Kentucky University (go Norse!) and attended medical school at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, while maintaining her devotion to the Kentucky Wildcats. She completed her residency and chief residency at Vanderbilt and worked as a pediatric hospitalist for a year at Monroe Carell Jr Children's Hospital prior to starting rheumatology fellowship. In addition to clinical rheumatology, she hopes to continue her scholarly work in medical education and health equity.

Her hobbies include biking, running, reading, and spending time with her husband, daughter, son, and cat.

Dr. Pastakia received his medical degree from New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey and completed his pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. He remained in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area for his Pediatric Hematology-Oncology fellowship in the combined NIH/Johns Hopkins program and then joined the VUMC faculty in 2011.

Dr. Pastakia's main clinical focus is pediatric neuro-oncology, and he has worked closely with multiple subspecialists to help build the pediatric brain tumor program at Vanderbilt. He has been involved in medical education since joining the faculty. He is currently the faculty co-lead for the medical education academic community for the pediatric residency program. He works closely with the pediatric hematology fellows as the associate fellowship director and clinical mentor. He looks forward to becoming more involved in resident recruitment, education, and career development as assistant director for the pediatric residency program.

In his free time, Dr. Pastakia spends as much time as possible with his wife and two boys enjoying sports and all that Nashville has to offer.

After completing undergraduate and medical studies at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Browning moved to Nashville for pediatric residency at Vanderbilt where she also served as chief resident. Following training, Dr. Browning remained at Vanderbilt as faculty in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Her clinical interests include caring for children with a wide variety of inpatient pediatric conditions and exploring ways to ensure quality, evidence-based care through quality improvement initiatives such as development of clinical practice guidelines. Dr. Browning has always had a great interest in resident education, especially in the clinical setting, and was excited to take on the role of Program Director of the Pediatric Residency in July 2021 after serving as Associate Director for nine years.

In her spare time, she enjoys Nashville's amazing food and music scenes, outdoor activities, and SEC sporting events.