Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute


Showing 1-20 of 38 Results

  • Stephen A. Baccus

    Stephen A. Baccus

    Professor of Neurobiology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study how the neural circuitry of the vertebrate retina encodes visual information and performs computations. To control and measure the retinal circuit, we present visual images while performing simultaneous two-photon imaging and multielectrode recording. We perturb the circuit as it operates using simultaneous intracellular current injection and multielectrode recording, and use the resulting large data sets to construct models of retinal computation.

  • Jeremy Bailenson

    Jeremy Bailenson

    Thomas More Storke Professor, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Education

    BioJeremy Bailenson is founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication, Professor (by courtesy) of Education, Professor (by courtesy) Program in Symbolic Systems, and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. He has served as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication for over a decade. He earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1994 and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Northwestern University in 1999. He spent four years at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and then an Assistant Research Professor.

    Bailenson studies the psychology of Virtual and Augmented Reality, in particular how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. His lab builds and studies systems that allow people to meet in virtual space, and explores the changes in the nature of social interaction. His most recent research focuses on how virtual experiences can transform education, environmental conservation, empathy, and health. He is the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford. In 2020, IEEE recognized his work with “The Virtual/Augmented Reality Technical Achievement Award”.

    He has published more than 200 academic papers, spanning the fields of communication, computer science, education, environmental science, law, linguistics, marketing, medicine, political science, and psychology. His work has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation for over 25 years.

    His first book Infinite Reality, co-authored with Jim Blascovich, emerged as an Amazon Best-seller eight years after its initial publication, and was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court. His new book, Experience on Demand, was reviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Nature, and The Times of London, and was an Amazon Best-seller.

    He has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Wired, National Geographic, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and has produced or directed six Virtual Reality documentary experiences which were official selections at the Tribeca Film Festival. His lab has exhibited VR in hundreds of venues ranging from The Smithsonian to The Superbowl.

  • Zhenan Bao

    Zhenan Bao

    K. K. Lee Professor, Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Professor, by courtesy, of Materials Science and Engineering and of Chemistry

    BioZhenan Bao joined Stanford University in 2004. She is currently a K.K. Lee Professor in Chemical Engineering, and with courtesy appointments in Chemistry and Material Science and Engineering. She was the Department Chair of Chemical Engineering from 2018-2022. She founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR) and is the current faculty director. She is also an affiliated faculty member of Precourt Institute, Woods Institute, ChEM-H and Bio-X. Professor Bao received her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from The University of Chicago in 1995 and joined the Materials Research Department of Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. She became a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 2001. Professor Bao currently has more than 700 refereed publications and more than 80 US patents with a Google Scholar H-index 226.

    Bao is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. Bao was elected a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Science in 2021. She is a Fellow of AAAS, ACS, MRS, SPIE, ACS POLY and ACS PMSE.

    Bao is a member of the Board of Directors for the Camille and Dreyfus Foundation from 2022. She served as a member of Executive Board of Directors for the Materials Research Society and Executive Committee Member for the Polymer Materials Science and Engineering division of the American Chemical Society. She was an Associate Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Chemical Science, Polymer Reviews and Synthetic Metals. She serves on the international advisory board for Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, ACS Nano, Accounts of Chemical Reviews, Advanced Functional Materials, Chemistry of Materials, Chemical Communications, Journal of American Chemical Society, Nature Asian Materials, Materials Horizon and Materials Today. She co-founded C3 Nano Co. and PyrAmes, which have produced products used in commercial smartphones and hospitals, respectively. Multiple inventions from her lab have been licensed and served as foundational technologies for several additional start-ups.

    Bao was a recipient of the VinFuture Prize Female Innovator 2022, ACS Award of Chemistry of Materials 2022, MRS Mid-Career Award in 2021, AICHE Alpha Chi Sigma Award 2021, ACS Central Science Disruptor and Innovator Prize in 2020, ACS Gibbs Medal in 2020, the Wilhelm Exner Medal from the Austrian Federal Minister of Science in 2018, the L'Oreal UNESCO Women in Science Award North America Laureate in 2017. She was awarded the ACS Applied Polymer Science Award in 2017, ACS Creative Polymer Chemistry Award in 2013 ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2011. She is a recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry Beilby Medal and Prize in 2009, IUPAC Creativity in Applied Polymer Science Prize in 2008, American Chemical Society Team Innovation Award 2001, R&D 100 Award, and R&D Magazine Editors Choice Best of the Best new technology for 2001.

  • Maria Barna

    Maria Barna

    Associate Professor of Genetics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur lab studies how intricate control of gene expression and cell signaling is regulated on a minute-by-minute basis to give rise to the remarkable diversity of cell types and tissue morphology that form the living blueprints of developing organisms. Work in the Barna lab is presently split into two main research efforts. The first is investigating ribosome-mediated control of gene expression genome-wide in space and time during cellular differentiation and organismal development. This research is opening a new field of study in which we apply sophisticated mass spectrometry, computational biology, genomics, and developmental genetics, to characterize a ribosome code to gene expression. Our research has shown that not all of the millions of ribosomes within a cell are the same and that ribosome heterogeneity can diversify how genomes are translated into proteomes. In particular, we seek to address whether fundamental aspects of gene regulation are controlled by ribosomes harboring a unique activity or composition that are tuned to translating specific transcripts by virtue of RNA regulatory elements embedded within their 5’UTRs. The second research effort is centered on employing state-of-the-art live cell imaging to visualize cell signaling and cellular control of organogenesis. This research has led to the realization of a novel means of cell-cell communication dependent on a dense network of actin-based cellular extension within developing organs that interconnect and facilitate the precise transmission of molecular information between cells. We apply and create bioengineering tools to manipulate such cellular interactions and signaling in-vivo.

  • Annelise E. Barron

    Annelise E. Barron

    Associate Professor of Bioengineering

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBiophysical mechanisms of host defense peptides (a.k.a. antimicrobial peptides) and their peptoid mimics; also, molecular and cellular biophysics of human innate immune responses.

  • Michael Bassik

    Michael Bassik

    Associate Professor of Genetics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe are an interdisciplinary lab focused on two major areas:(1) we seek to understand mechanisms of cancer growth and drug resistance in order to find new therapeutic targets(2) we study mechanisms by which macrophages and other cells take up diverse materials by endocytosis and phagocytosis; these substrates range from bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells to drugs and protein toxins. To accomplish these goals, we develop and use new technologies for high-throughput functional genomics.

  • Fiona Baumer

    Fiona Baumer

    Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences (Pediatric Neurology) and of Pediatrics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCauses of Disturbed Cognition in Pediatric Epilepsy

  • Philip Beachy

    Philip Beachy

    The Ernest and Amelia Gallo Professor, Professor of Urology, of Developmental Biology and, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsFunction of Hedgehog proteins and other extracellular signals in morphogenesis (pattern formation), in injury repair and regeneration (pattern maintenance). We study how the distribution of such signals is regulated in tissues, how cells perceive and respond to distinct concentrations of signals, and how such signaling pathways arose in evolution. We also study the normal roles of such signals in stem-cell physiology and their abnormal roles in the formation and expansion of cancer stem cells.

  • Gill Bejerano

    Gill Bejerano

    Professor of Developmental Biology, of Computer Science, of Pediatrics (Genetics) and of Biomedical Data Science

    Current Research and Scholarly Interests1. Automating monogenic patient diagnosis.
    2. The genomic signatures of independent divergent and convergent trait evolution in mammals.
    3. The logic of human gene regulation.
    4. The reasons for sequence ultraconservation.
    5. Cryptogenomics to bridge medical silos.
    6. Cryptogenetics to debate social injustice.
    7. Managing patient risk using machine learning.
    8. Understanding the flow of money in the US healthcare system.

  • Sean Bendall

    Sean Bendall

    Associate Professor of Pathology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur goal is to understand the mechanisms regulating the development of human systems. Drawing on both pluripotent stem cell biology, hematopoiesis, and immunology, combined with novel high-content single-cell analysis (CyTOF – Mass Cytometry) and imagining (MIBI-Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging) we are creating templates of ‘normal’ human cellular behavior to both discover novel regulatory events and cell populations as well as understand dysfunctional processes such as cancer.

  • Jonathan Berger

    Jonathan Berger

    Denning Family Provostial Professor

    BioJonathan Berger is the Denning Family Provostial Professor in Music at Stanford University, where he teaches composition, music theory, and cognition, and directs the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
    Jonathan is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2016 winner of the Rome Prize.
    He was the founding co-director of the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SICA, now the Stanford Arts Institute) and founding director of Yale University’s Center for Studies in Music Technology
    Described as “gripping” by both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, “poignant”, “richly evocative” (San Francisco Chronicle), “taut, and hauntingly beautiful” (NY Times), Jonathan Berger’s recent works deal with both consciousness and conscience. His monodrama, My Lai, toured internationally. The Kronos Quartet's recording was released by Smithsonian/Folkways. His opera, The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist was performed at Lincoln Center in July 2024. Other recent premiers include Hajar Yasini for narrator, string quartet and video (premiered by the Kronos Quartet), and Mekong:Soul (co-composed with Van Anh Vo) which was performed at the Kennedy Center and in Houston.
    Thrice commissioned by The National Endowment for the Arts, Berger’a recent commissions include The Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations, Chamber Music Society, Lincoln Center, and Chamber Music America.

    In addition to composition, Berger is an active researcher with over 80 publications in a wide range of fields relating to music, science and technology and has held research grants from DARPA, the Wallenberg Foundation, The National Academy of Sciences, the Keck Foundation, and others.
    Berger is the PI of a major grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to study how music and architecture interact to create a sense of awe.

  • Edward Bertaccini

    Edward Bertaccini

    Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine (MSD)
    On Partial Leave from 01/26/2025 To 01/27/2026

    Current Research and Scholarly Interestsmolecular modeling of anesthetic-protein interactions, molecular modeling of the ligand-gated ion channels

  • Carolyn Bertozzi

    Carolyn Bertozzi

    Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Radiology

    BioCarolyn Bertozzi is the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Radiology at Stanford University, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She completed her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1988 and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1993. After completing postdoctoral work at UCSF in the field of cellular immunology, she joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1996. In June 2015, she joined the faculty at Stanford University and became the co-director and Institute Scholar at Sarafan ChEM-H.

    Prof. Bertozzi's research interests span the disciplines of chemistry and biology with an emphasis on studies of cell surface glycosylation pertinent to disease states. Her lab focuses on profiling changes in cell surface glycosylation associated with cancer, inflammation and bacterial infection, and exploiting this information for development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, most recently in the area of immuno-oncology.

    Prof. Bertozzi has been recognized with many honors and awards for both her research and teaching accomplishments. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Some awards of note include the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Lemelson-MIT award for inventors, Whistler Award, Ernst Schering Prize, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award, and Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award of the Protein Society. Her efforts in undergraduate education have earned her the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award and the Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

  • Richa Bhatia, MD

    Richa Bhatia, MD

    Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

    BioDr. Bhatia is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a dual Board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, specializing in treating anxiety disorders. Her work has been cited in Time magazine and Scientific American, and her professional opinions have been quoted in media such as CNBC, The Guardian, U.S. News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Bay Area, WUCF-TV (PBS), and others. Dr. Bhatia is President-Elect of Northern California Psychiatric Society. She is an avid advocate of improving mental health awareness and reducing the stigma surrounding psychiatric conditions and treatments. For her work in this arena, she was awarded the 2021 Jerilyn Ross Clinician Advocate Award by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the Marian Butterfield award by the Association of Women Psychiatrists in 2018. Her other roles include serving as Section Editor for Current Opinion in Psychiatry, a Wolters Kluwer journal, for the last 7 years. She also served as Associate Editor of Current Psychiatry for 6 years. Additionally, she is a Compassion Educator and has received Teacher's Training in Compassion Cultivation Training. She is often invited to give talks at national, regional and local conferences and organizations.

    She takes a whole-person approach, utilizing active, empathic listening and aimed at understanding the biological, psychological, social, and other factors affecting an individual’s mental health. She integrates medication management (where needed) with psychotherapy. Her psychotherapy approach is informed by various evidence-based psychotherapies such as psychodynamic therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness-based, compassion-focused interventions. Dr. Bhatia’s other professional interests include ruling out medical conditions mimicking psychiatric disorders, mindfulness, bullying prevention, and compassion and empathy cultivation.

  • Achintya K. Bhowmik, PhD

    Achintya K. Bhowmik, PhD

    Adjunct Professor, OHNS/Otology & Neurotology Division

    BioDr. Achin Bhowmik serves on the faculty of Stanford University as an adjunct professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, where he advises research and lectures in the areas of sensory augmentation, computational perception, cognitive neuroscience, and intelligent systems. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Human Performance Alliance, and a mentor for the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program.

    Dr. Bhowmik is the chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering at Starkey Hearing Technologies, a privately-held medical devices company with over 5,000 employees and operations in over 100 countries worldwide. In this role, he is responsible for the company’s technology strategy, research and development, engineering and program management departments, and leading the drive to transform hearing aids into multifunction wearable health and communication devices with advanced sensors and artificial intelligence.

    Previously, Dr. Bhowmik was the vice president and general manager of the Perceptual Computing Group at Intel Corporation, where he was responsible for the R&D, engineering, operations, and businesses in the areas of 3D sensing and interactive computing, computer vision and artificial intelligence, autonomous robots and drones, and immersive virtual and merged reality devices.

    Dr. Bhowmik is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, board of trustees for the National Captioning Institute, board of directors for Mojo Vision and OpenCV, board of advisors for the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley, and industry advisory board for the Institute for Engineering in Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He is also on the board of advisors for several technology startup companies.

    He has also held adjunct and guest professor positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Liquid Crystal Institute of the Kent State University, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. He received his Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, PhD from Auburn University, and attended the Executive Program at Stanford University. He has authored over 200 publications, including two books and over 80 granted patents.

    His awards and honors include Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), President and Fellow of the Society for Information Display (SID), Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA), Artificial Intelligence Excellence award by the Business Intelligence Group, Gold Globee award for “Most Innovative Person of the Year in Healthcare”, Top 25 Healthcare Technology CTOs by the Healthcare Technology Report, Notable Leaders in Healthcare by Twin Cities Business, Healthcare Heroes award by the Business Journals, Industrial Distinguished Leader award from the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association, TIME’s Best Inventions, and the Red Dot Design award.

    Dr. Bhowmik and his work have been covered in numerous press articles, including TIME, Fortune, Wired, USA Today, US News & World Reports, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, BBC, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, MIT Technology Review, EE Times, The Verge, etc.

  • Sandip Biswal, MD

    Sandip Biswal, MD

    Adjunct Clinical Professor, Radiology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe management of individuals suffering from chronic pain is unfortunately limited by poor diagnostic tests and therapies. Our research group is interested in 'imaging pain' by using novel imaging techniques to study peripheral nociception and inflammation with the goal of accurately identifying the location of pain generators. We are developing new approaches with positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (PET/MRI) and are currently in clinical trials.

  • Jose H. Blanchet

    Jose H. Blanchet

    Professor of Management Science and Engineering
    On Partial Leave from 01/01/2025 To 06/30/2025

    BioJose Blanchet is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford. Prior to joining MS&E, he was a professor at Columbia (Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and Statistics, 2008-2017), and before that he taught at Harvard (Statistics, 2004-2008). Jose is a recipient of the 2010 Erlang Prize and several best publication awards in areas such as applied probability, simulation, operations management, and revenue management. He also received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010. He worked as an analyst in Protego Financial Advisors, a leading investment bank in Mexico. He has research interests in applied probability and Monte Carlo methods. He is the Area Editor of Stochastic Models in Mathematics of Operations Research. He has served on the editorial board of Advances in Applied Probability, Bernoulli, Extremes, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Journal of Applied Probability, Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, and Stochastic Systems, among others.

  • Helen M. Blau

    Helen M. Blau

    Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor, Director, Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology and Professor, by courtesy, of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProf. Helen Blau's research area is regenerative medicine with a focus on stem cells. Her research on nuclear reprogramming and demonstrating the plasticity of cell fate using cell fusion is well known and her laboratory has also pioneered the design of biomaterials to mimic the in vivo microenvironment and direct stem cell fate. Current findings are leading to more efficient iPS generation, cell based therapies by dedifferentiation a la newts, and discovery of novel molecules and therapies.