Optimal Strategies for Your Residency Application, with a focus on Pediatrics - June 3

Join us for this AAMC-hosted Specialty Spotlight webinar featuring Pediatrics, a participating specialty in the ERAS® application process. During this session, ERAS applicants and medical school advisors will hear directly from a Pediatrics program director and advisor who will share key insights, helpful practices, and valuable resources to support preparation for the 2025-2026 application season.

Richard Peng
Director of Outreach and Engagement, ERAS Program

Richard Peng is a Director for ERAS Outreach and Engagement. He was previously a manager for that team. Before joining Outreach and Engagement, he was an ERAS Senior Account Relationship Management Specialist, a Lead Program Relations Specialist and a Training Senior Specialist. After 10 years with the AAMC he has a deep and thorough understanding of the ERAS systems, an appreciation for the needs of individuals across medical education and a desire to ensure that they receive timely and accurate information and guidance.

Stephanie Zia, MD, MACM
Assistant Dean for Career Advising, Office of Student Affairs
Clinical Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Medical Education
Keck School of Medicine of USC

Dr. Stephanie Zia is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Medical Education and Assistant Dean for Career Advising at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. A Med/Peds hospitalist who works with the underserved adult and pediatrics populations at Los Angeles General Medical Center, she is involved in medical student and residency education. Dr. Zia has held a variety of roles at the undergraduate and graduate medical educations levels including: assistant program director for the Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program at LAC+USC, co-director of the Professionalism and the Practice of Medicine course for first year medical students, and Assistant Dean for Career Advising in the Office of Student Affairs.

In her current role as the Assistant Dean for Career Advising, she helps oversee the activities that support specialty exploration, career advising, and the residency application and selection process at Keck. As the director of Keck’s medical student coaching program, she trains faculty coaches in their role and partners with them in supporting students in their academic and professional growth. She serves as the AAMC western regional representative on the Committee of Student Affairs (COSA) and on the Careers in Medicine (CiM) Advisory Committee - as the COSA-CiM liaison.

Maya Neeley, MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Hospital Medicine
Director, Pediatric Medical Student Education
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Maya Neeley is an associate professor of pediatrics at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. For the past decade, she has worked within the pediatrics clerkship and mentored students applying into Pediatrics residency. Dr Neeley serves on the Career Advising Collaborative at the Council for Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP).

Joanna Lewis, MD
Program Director, Pediatric Residency Program
Advocate Children’s Hospital
Chair of the APPD Residency Recruitment Action Team

Dr. Joanna Lewis received her MD from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Chicago Medical School in 2005.  She completed both residency and chief residency at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.  She now serves as the pediatric residency program director at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.  She has been in this role for 10 years.   Her clinical focus is general pediatrics and school health and her research focus is on innovations in medical education with a recent focus on X+Y scheduling.  She is proud to run a program with a great mix of DO and MD residents that go on to pursue both general pediatrics and pediatric subspecialty careers.  Dr. Lewis is the Chair of the APPD Residency Recruitment Action Team, a group that brings together leaders from UME and GME along with medical students and current residents to develop best practices in pediatric residency recruitment.