Independent Labs, Institutes, and Centers (Dean of Research)


Showing 1-10 of 32 Results

  • Dáibhid Ó Maoiléidigh, PhD

    Dáibhid Ó Maoiléidigh, PhD

    Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS)

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Ó Maoiléidigh group employs mathematical and computational approaches to better understand normal hearing and hearing impairment. Because complete restoration of auditory function by artificial devices or regenerative treatments will only be possible when experiments and computational modeling align, we work closely with experimental laboratories. Our goal is to understand contemporary experimental observations, to make experimentally testable predictions, and to motivate new experiments. We are pursuing several projects.

    Hair-Bundle Mechanics

    Auditory and balance organs rely on hair cells to convert mechanical vibrations into electrical signals for transmission to the brain. In response to the quietest sounds we can hear, the hair cell's mechanical sensor, the hair bundle, moves by less than one-billionth of a meter. To determine how this astounding sensitivity is possible, we construct computational models of hair-bundle mechanics. By comparing models with experimental observations, we are learning how a hair bundle's geometry, material properties, and ability to move spontaneously determine its function.

    Cochlear Mechanics

    The cochlea contains the auditory organ that houses the sensory hair cells in mammals. Vibrations in the cochlea arising from sound are amplified more than a thousandfold by the ear's active process. New experimental techniques have additionally revealed that the cochlea vibrates in a complex manner in response to sound. We use computational models to interpret these observations and to make hypotheses about how the cochlea works.

  • Lucy Erin O'Brien

    Lucy Erin O'Brien

    Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMany adult organs tune their functional capacity to variable levels of physiologic demand. Adaptive organ resizing breaks the allometry of the body plan that was established during development, suggesting that it occurs through different mechanisms. Emerging evidence points to stem cells as key players in these mechanisms. We use the Drosophila midgut, a stem-cell based organ analogous to the vertebrate small intestine, as a simple model to uncover the rules that govern adaptive remodeling.

  • Anne Margaret Joseph O'Connell

    Anne Margaret Joseph O'Connell

    Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

    BioAnne Joseph O’Connell is a lawyer and social scientist whose research and teaching focuses on administrative law and the federal bureaucracy. Outside of Stanford, she is a contributor to the Center on Regulation and Markets at the Brookings Institution and an appointed senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency dedicated to improving regulatory procedures. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration, and an elected member of the American Law Institute.

    O’Connell has written on a number of topics, including agency rulemaking, the selection of agency leaders, and bureaucratic organization (and reorganization). Her publications have appeared in leading law and political science journals. She has co-edited a book (with Daniel A. Farber), Research Handbook on Public Choice and Public Law, and she joined the Gellhorn and Byse’s Administrative Law casebook as a co-editor with the twelfth edition.

    O’Connell’s research has received a number of awards. She is a two-time recipient of the ABA’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law for the best article or book published in the preceding year — for her 2014 article “Bureaucracy at the Boundary” and her 2009 article “Vacant Offices: Delays in Staffing Top Agency Positions.” She is also a two-time winner of the Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law from the American Constitution Society—for her article “Actings” (co-winner in 2020) and for her co-authored article (with Farber) “The Lost World of Administrative Law” (2014). Her article “Political Cycles of Rulemaking” was the top paper selected for the Association of American Law Schools’ 2007-2008 Scholarly Papers Competition for untenured faculty members. In addition, her research has been cited by Congress, the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit, and has been featured in the Washington Post and other national media.

    At Stanford Law School, O’Connell teaches administrative law, advanced administrative law, and constitutional law. The class of 2020 chose her to receive the Hurlbut Award, which is given to one professor “who strives to make teaching an art.” She currently co-chairs the school’s efforts to improve teaching and classroom climate and serves on the steering committee for Stanford University’s Faculty Women’s Forum. Prior to joining Stanford University in 2018, O’Connell was the George Johnson Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. While there, she received the Distinguished Teaching Award (the campus’s most prestigious honor for teaching) in 2016 and Berkeley Law’s Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction in 2012. From April 2013 to July 2015, she served as associate dean for faculty development and research, under three different deans. In 2013-2014, O’Connell was co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies (co-organizing the 2014 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies).

    Before joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 2004, O’Connell clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the Supreme Court’s October 2003 term. From 2001 to 2003, she was a trial attorney for the Department of Justice’s Federal Programs Branch where she received special commendation for her work. She clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 2000 to 2001. A Truman Scholar, O’Connell worked for a number of federal agencies in earlier years, including the Department of Defense (General Counsel and Inspector General), Federal Trade Commission (Bureau of Competition), Department of Justice (Office of Legal Counsel), and U.S. Army (RDE). She is a member of the New York bar and served as a volunteer for the Biden-Harris Campaign’s policy team.

  • Lauren O'Connell

    Lauren O'Connell

    Assistant Professor of Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe O'Connell lab studies how genetic and environmental factors contribute to biological diversity and adaptation. We are particularly interested in understanding (1) how behavior evolves through changes in brain function and (2) how animal physiology evolves through repurposing existing cellular components.

  • Ruth O'Hara

    Ruth O'Hara

    Director, Spectrum, Senior Associate Dean, Research and Lowell W. and Josephine Q. Berry Professor

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. O'Hara's research aims to investigate how cognitive information processing deficits subserve affective symptoms in psychiatric disorders, and interact with key brain networks integral to these disorders. To do so, she has implemented a translational, interdisciplinary program that encompasses cellular models, brain and behavioral assays of affective and cognitive information processing systems in psychiatric disorders across the lifespan.

  • Jelena Obradović

    Jelena Obradović

    Professor of Education

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAdaptation, resilience, and developmental psychopathology of disadvantaged children populations; Stress reactivity and biological sensitivity to contextual influences; Executive function and self-regulatory abilities; Effects of risk, adversity, and social status on children’s development.

  • Michelle Odden

    Michelle Odden

    Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMultilevel - from cells to society - epidemiologic study of healthy aging

  • Jean Oi

    Jean Oi

    William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPolitical economy and the process of reform in transitional systems, with particular focus on corporate restructuring and fiscal politics. Oi’s new project empirically assess the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by taking an institutional and micro-level approach to identify the key players and their interests. Is the BRI is a tightly coordinated central state effort, as some assert, or another example of local state development taking advantage of global opportunities?