Alan Zambeli-Ljepovic, MD, MHS
Resident Physician
Surgery
School of Medicine

Originally from Croatia, he earned a BS in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and an MD and MHS (Master's of Health Sciences) from Duke University. At Columbia, he established the first biomedical engineering collaboration between Makerere (Kampala, Uganda) and Columbia Universities, resulting in a joint grant for sustainable medical device development for Ugandan hospitals.

A fellow of the National Clinician Scholars Program and the UCSF Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia, his interest in global health has taken him to Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. In each country, he has partnered with transplant physicians and surgeons to build a multinational group of doctors and health economists that is generating the evidence to guide safe and ethical expansion of kidney transplantation in low- and middle-income countries.

Outside of the hospital, Alan is one of the founding members of the Buck Fellows Program, through which he mentors local high school students applying to college. A competitive swimmer of 15 years, he lives by the principle that physical and mental health go hand-in-hand. He speaks Croatian/Serbian and Spanish.

• Malakoplakia among kidney transplant recipients: case series and literature review.
  Frontiers in immunology 2025 Abbasi AB, Gamino G, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Whelan AM, Roll GR, Altshuler PJ
• Progress Update on the Transplant Surgery Training Pipeline in the United States.
  Transplantation 2025 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Kling CE, Dageforde LA, Lemon K, Quillin RC, Cortez AR
• Ugandan Physician Attitudes towards a Potential, Local Trauma Fellowship Program.
  Research square 2025 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Ibingira T, Stephens C, Koch R, Boeck MA, Ozgediz D, Namugga M
• Predicting Over-immunosuppression in Kidney Transplant Recipients: Steps Toward Precision Medicine.
  Transplantation 2024 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Abbasi AB, Altshuler PJ
• Don't Ask Us to Stop Cycling: A Surgical Perspective.
  Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches 2024 Abbasi AB, Zambeli-Ljepovic A
• Gaps and priorities in innovation for children's surgery.
  Seminars in pediatric surgery 2023 Fitzgerald TN, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Olatunji BT, Saleh A, Ameh EA
• Inadequate Lymph Node Yield: An Inadequate Indication for Adjuvant Chemotherapy in Stage II Colon Cancer.
  Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches 2023 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Hoffman D, Barnes KE, Romero-Hernandez F, Ashraf Ganjouei A, Adam MA, Sarin A
• Exploring the complexity and spectrum of racial/ethnic disparities in colon cancer management.
  International journal for equity in health 2023 Greenberg AL, Brand NR, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Barnes KE, Chiou SH, Rhoads KF, Adam MA, Sarin A
• Health care utilization in young adults with childhood physical disabilities: a nationally representative prospective cohort study.
  BMC pediatrics 2022 Fergus KB, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Hampson LA, Copp HL, Nagata JM
• Severe Hypocalcemia After Thyroidectomy: An Analysis of 7366 Patients.
  Annals of surgery 2021 Kazaure HS, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Oyekunle T, Roman SA, Sosa JA, Stang MT, Scheri RP
• Postoperative Surveillance in Older Adults With T1N0M0 Low-risk Papillary Thyroid Cancer.
  The Journal of surgical research 2021 Pradhan MC, Kazaure HS, Wang F, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Perkins JM, Stang MT, Scheri RP
• Extent of surgery for low-risk thyroid cancer in the elderly: Equipoise in survival but not in short-term outcomes.
  Surgery 2019 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Wang F, Dinan MA, Hyslop T, Stang MT, Roman SA, Sosa JA, Scheri RP
• Low-Risk Thyroid Cancer in Elderly: Total Thyroidectomy/RAI Predominates but Lacks Survival Advantage.
  The Journal of surgical research 2019 Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Wang F, Dinan MA, Hyslop T, Roman SA, Sosa JA, Scheri RP
• Predicting recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer using the eighth edition of the AJCC/UICC staging system.
  The British journal of surgery 2019 Chereau N, Oyekunle TO, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Kazaure HS, Roman SA, Menegaux F, Sosa JA
• Prediction of primary breast cancer size and T-stage using micro-computed tomography in lumpectomy specimens.
  Journal of pathology informatics 2015 Sarraj WM, Tang R, Najjar AL, Griffin M, Bui AH, Zambeli-Ljepovic A, Senter-Zapata M, Lewin-Berlin M, Fernandez L, Buckley J, Ly A, Brachtel E, Aftreth O, Gilbertson J, Yagi Y, Gadd M, Hughes KS, …
• Pulmonary Microvascular Blood Flow in Mild Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Emphysema. The MESA COPD Study.
  American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine 2015 Hueper K, Vogel-Claussen J, Parikh MA, Austin JH, Bluemke DA, Carr J, Choi J, Goldstein TA, Gomes AS, Hoffman EA, Kawut SM, Lima J, Michos ED, Post WS, Po MJ, Prince MR, Liu K, Rabinowitz D, Skrok J, …