Our Team

Folasade (Fola) P. May, MD, PhD, MPhil
Associate Professor of Medicine, Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
Director, Melvin & Bren Simon GI Quality Improvement Program
Associate Director, UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, JCCC
Associate Director, UCLA Specialty Training & Advanced Research Program 
Staff Gastroenterologist, Division of Gastroenterology, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System 

Dr. May's team engages in health services research and quality improvement related to population health, preventive health, and health disparities at UCLA Health, in Federally Qualified Health Centers (community health centers), and in the Veterans Affairs. A major focus is reducing the impact of colorectal cancer through screening and early detection. As director of the Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program, Dr. May also oversees a portfolio of quality improvement projects at UCLA Health to improve the quality of care for patients with gastrointestinal and liver conditions. Dr. May is passionate about improving awareness about preventive health and health equity and is involved in advocacy at the state and national level to develop and encourage policy to improve healthcare delivery. She has received numerous awards for her research, community engagement, and advocacy, including recognition from the American Cancer Society, National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, American College of Gastroenterology, American Gastroenterological Association, and the Biden Cancer Moonshot. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Tobacco Related Disease Research Program, Broad Stem Cell Research Center, and Stand Up to Cancer. In 2025, she was elected and inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation. 

Arpan A. Patel, MD, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Chief of Hepatology, Division of Gastroenterology, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Senior Quality Officer, UCLA Health

Dr. Patel is the director of the Patel Laboratory, where the core mission is to ensure that every individual affected by liver disease receives high-value, patient-centered care. His research and quality improvement initiatives span the identification of care gaps—such as patient-physician communication challenges, limited access to substance use disorder treatment, unmet symptom needs, and caregiver burden—to the development and implementation of evidence-based interventions using implementation and improvement science.

Dr. Patel holds multiple national leadership roles, including serving as the incoming chair of the Public Health and Healthcare Delivery Special Interest Group for the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. He is internationally recognized for advancing the integration of palliative care principles into the management of liver disease. His work has been supported by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Palliative Care Research Consortium, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Jennifer Kolb, MD, MS
Health Sciences Assistant Professor of Medicine
Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Staff Physician, Division of Gastroenterology, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

Dr. Kolb’s research focuses on increasing the evidence base for a broad set of interventional endoscopy procedures that can be used to treat adults with chronic gastrointestinal conditions, including EUS, ERCP, advanced resection, luminal stenting, endobariatrics and third space endoscopy. She has a particular interest in managing foregut diseases, such as esophageal motility disorders, Barrett’s esophagus, GERD, and obesity. Dr. Kolb’s main area of research interest is improving the care delivered to adults with Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. Specifically, she works on ways to improve early detection and screening of these conditions. She is also interested in improving the quality of endoscopy in Barrett's esophagus related to lesion identification and resection techniques to decrease the rates of missed cancers. Dr. Kolb is actively involved at a national level and currently serves as a GRADE methodologist on the ACG Clinical Practice Parameters Committee and an associate editor for Foregut, the journal of the American Foregut Society. She is funded by the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

Carrie R. Wong, MD, PhD 
Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
Pfleger Liver Institute
Dumont-UCLA Liver Transplant Center
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Wong’s research aims to improve early detection of steatotic liver disease (formerly known as fatty liver disease). Her research leverages epidemiological and health services research methods to evaluate health, behavioral, and environmental data to improve risk stratification and early detection of steatotic liver disease among high-risk groups. Through these evaluations, her research team develops and tests multilevel, pragmatic health interventions to improve early detection of liver disease.   She has received funding from the UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research and Ruth L. Kirshstein National Research Service Award.