AdventHealth Presenting Experts

Get to know our presenting experts at this year's conference. Check back soon for more information on our other speakers. If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at this event, please contact Nicole Hadley at [email protected] for more information.

  • Lara Witten

    Lara Wittine, MD, FCCP
    AdventHealth Medical Group
    Medical Director, AdventHealth Tampa Sleep Center

    Lara Wittine, MD, FCCP, is a fellowship-trained physician with board certifications in Pulmonary and Critical Care from the University of California and Sleep Medicine from the Mayo Clinic. She provides a wide array of consultative, diagnostic and therapeutic services for adult sleep-related disorders.

    Dr. Wittine advocates for the benefits of sleep on a local and national level in a leadership role at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). As the Medical Director of the AASM-accredited AdventHealth Tampa Sleep Center, Dr. Wittine provides compassionate care, working with patients to build personalized treatment plans for their whole health.

  • Rodney Bevis

    Rodney Bevis, MBA, MA, RRT, CSSGB
    Operations Director of Respiratory Services and Sleep Center, AdventHealth Tampa Sleep Center

    Rodney Bevis, MBA, MA, RRT, CSSGB, is an accomplished and highly qualified professional and veteran who leads operational teams and administrative support functions at AdventHealth. He is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and is a Certified Six Sigma Green Belt.

    At AdventHealth Tampa, Rodney is the Operations Director of Respiratory Services and Sleep Center, and is passionate about raising awareness for and educating the community on pulmonary diseases. Rodney holds a Master of Business Administration degree, a master's degree in Leadership, a bachelor's degree in Human Services and a Respiratory Therapist Certificate.

  • Anuja Bandyopadhyay

    Anuja Bandyopadhyay, MBBS, MD
    Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics

    The overarching goal of Dr. Anuja Bandyopadhyay’s research work is to integrate advanced technology to facilitate personalized treatment of sleep disordered breathing. Having completed her medical school training in India and subsequent training in the United States, she has the experience of conducting research in various settings and infrastructure. She secured a competitive national grant as a medical student in India and through the project, learned patient recruitment and data collection skills.

    Over the past few years, Dr. Banyopadhyay’s area of interest has been focused towards utilizing innovative research tools such as machine learning and -omics technology to the field of sleep medicine, particularly sleep disordered breathing. Her current research interest includes studying transcriptomics associated with obstructive sleep apnea in obese population. Identification of such a transcriptomic panel can be used in a clinical setting for early diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing.

  • Anna Chang

    Anna Chang, MD
    Professor of Medicine

    Dr. Anna Chang is Professor of Medicine in the UCSF Division of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine. She is an educator, a mentor, a clinician, and a leader. She is board certified in Geriatric Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Chang directs the UCSF School of Medicine Bridges Curriculum Clinical Microsystems Clerkship, the integrated clinical skills and health systems curriculum for all first- and second-year medical students. She is Associate Chief for Education in the Division of Geriatrics, and Director of the Tideswell and American Geriatrics Society national Emerging Leaders in Aging Program. Dr. Chang served as the Gold-Headed Cane Endowed Education Chair in Internal Medicine, and as member of the National Board of Medical Examiners. She is active in the American Geriatric Society.

  • Jaclyn Lewis Headshot

    Jaclyn Lewis-Croswell, PsyD
    Licensed Clinical Psychologist

    Dr. Jaclyn Lewis-Croswell is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in treatment of sleep disorders such as insomnia, nightmare, sleep walking, acute and chronic medical conditions, cancer, somatic symptoms, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and trauma (PTSD).

    Dr. Lewis-Croswell graduated with her master’s degree in counseling in 2005 and doctorate degree in clinical psychology in 2007. Dr. Lewis-Croswell had a previous career as a registered respiratory therapist and worked in the Chicago Land area hospitals for 10 years spending much of her career at RUSH University in the PICU and NICU. Dr. Lewis-Croswell was always interested in sleep and studied to be a sleep tech but then took the day time schedule at RUSH in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit instead. She was always interested in sleep and fascinated by the power of dreams and then later in life how important good sleep was for overall health. As Dr. Lewis-Croswell became more passionate about health and wellness and she learned the impact of poor sleep on overall health she decided to focus on treating sleep disorders over the last decade of her psychology career.

  • Raman Malhotra Headshot

    Raman Malhotra, MD
    Professor of Neurology at the Sleep Medicine Center at Washington University in St. Louis

    Dr. Raman Malhotra is currently Professor of Neurology at the Sleep Medicine Center at Washington University in St. Louis. He serves as the Program Director of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Raman Malhotra attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City for his undergraduate degree and medical school. He then completed his neurology residency and sleep medicine fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is board certified in Neurology and Sleep Medicine. He served as the President for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) for 2021-22 and has served on the Board of Directors for the AASM since 2015. His academic interest is focused on sleep medicine education for medical professionals and has written numerous chapters, review articles, and authored a book for those training in sleep medicine.

  • Edward Mezerhane

    Edward Mezerhane, MD, FAASM, FACP
    Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MonitAir, Medical Director/Principal Investigator at Sleep Medicine Specialists of South Florida

    Edward Mezerhane, MD, FAASM, FACP is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MonitAir. He is also a practicing board-certified sleep medicine physician and serves as Medical Director/Principal Investigator at his own practice Sleep Medicine Specialists of South Florida. His passion for digital health and chronic care management, along with his expertise in sleep medicine allowed him to recognize the need for a dedicated remote patient monitoring platform in sleep and respiratory care. With the use of MonitAir, physicians will be able to harness all the therapeutic sleep data available to them to make actionable care management interventions resulting in improved patient-physician engagement and improved patient outcomes. Edward obtained his B.S. in Microbiology and B.A. in Spanish at the University of Miami, and his M.D. at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American College of Physicians.

  • Jay A Nelason, DMD

    Jay A. Nelson, DMD
    Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, The American Academy of Craniofacial Dental Sleep Medicine, and the American Board of Sleep and Breathing

    Jay A. Nelson, DMD is a diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, The American Academy of Craniofacial Dental Sleep Medicine, and the American Board of Sleep and Breathing. He currently serves as dental director of the first facility fully accredited by the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine in the state of Florida.

    He received his B.S. summa cum laude from Rutgers University and his DMD from the University of Pennsylvania. A practicing general dentist since 1981, his passion in dental sleep medicine was ignited by a course he attended in 2009. Since then, he has amassed over 500 hours of education in that subject and has treated over 1000 patients for sleep breathing disorders. He had served on the education committee of the AADSM for three years, co-authored an online educational program for new members, and contributed the chapter on side effects of oral appliances to the Academy's power point presentation to physicians. He currently serves on the AADSM’s Annual Meeting committee. He also regularly attends the monthly sleep journal club at James Haley VA Hospital with the incoming sleep fellows and is a strong believer in the team approach to solving patient’s sleep breathing disorders.

  • Andrew Spector Headshot

    Andrew Spector, MD
    Associate Professor of Neurology at the Duke University School of Medicine

    Dr. Andrew Spector is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Duke University School of Medicine. Originally from Michigan, Dr. Spector received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University before attending medical school at the University of Michigan. He did his residency in neurology at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville before completing his sleep medicine fellowship at Boston Medical Center. He joined the Duke faculty in 2013 and has served as the Vice Chair of Inclusion, Diversity, and Empowerment for the past 4 years. He is also the sleep medicine fellowship program director and associate program director of the neurology residency. He chaired the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee from 2019-2022 and was a member of the AAN’s Special Commission on Racism, Inequity, and Social Justice. He is currently a member of the AAN’s Diversity Officers Subcommittee and was a co-founder of the AAN’s Underrepresented in Neurology Section and of the Society of Black Neurologists.

  • Lynn Marie Trotti

    Lynn Marie Trotti, MD, MSc
    Associate Professor of Neurology, with tenure

    Dr. Lynn Marie Trotti is a physician-scientist specializing in the disorders of excessive daytime sleepiness, particularly idiopathic hypersomnia and narcolepsy type 2. She is board certified in Neurology and Sleep Medicine by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Her research program is informed by my clinical practice, which has shown first-hand the devastating impact of pathologic daytime sleepiness and the urgent need for both better diagnostic algorithms and more effective treatment options. Dr. Trotti’s experience as PI of several clinical trials, including an NINDS-funded mechanistic trial of clarithromycin (R01 NS111280) and an ongoing foundation-funded clinical trial of other wake-promoting agents. More broadly, her research encompasses the interface of sleep and neurologic disorders, particularly neurodegenerative diseases.