Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
Showing 151-200 of 211 Results
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Xiwei She
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
BioDr. Xiwei She is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Neurology. He received his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2013, and his M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2016. Worked as a research assistant at the USC Neural Modeling and Interface Laboratory, he received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2022. After graduation, he joined Stanford University as a postdoctoral scholar at the Pediatric Neurostimulation Laboratory (Baumer Lab) and Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute.
His research interests are largely directed toward identifying the causal relationship of neurons/brain regions and understanding how information is encoded in neural signals by employing machine learning models. Specifically, his postdoc research focuses on applying machine learning modeling techniques on EEG and TMS-EEG data to better understand the impact of interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) on brain activity in children with childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (CECTS). -
Benjamin Singer
Member, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
BioBen Singer is a postdoctoral scholar with interests in mathematical epidemiology and global public health. Ben's research career began with an internship at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, where he applied quantitative skills he had learnt studying physics at the University of Oxford to the study of nematode locomotion. Ben further pursued quantitative methods in life sciences in the Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership at the University of Oxford, earning a DPhil (PhD equivalent) in mathematical methods for evaluating pandemic risk and control. During these studies he maintained an interest in global public health policy, interning with the UK government's Department for International Development, where he developed models of international COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Ben is now working in Nathan Lo's research group at Stanford, creating infectious disease models informing public health policy for schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, and other infections.
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Chelse Spinner, PhD, MPH
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neonatal and Developmental Medicine
BioAn Ohio native, Dr. Chelse Spinner obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences (Biomedical Studies) with a minor in Health Education from the University of Cincinnati. She earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Maternal & Child Health (MCH) from the University of South Florida. She received a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health Sciences with a concentration in Behavioral Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Spinner is certified in public health and has experience working across health systems. Her research interests include health disparities, women’s health, social determinants of health, domains of structural racism, and oral-systemic health within the MCH population. She employs quantitative and qualitative methods in the hopes of providing innovative and evidence-informed research to improve health outcomes for marginalized and underserved communities. Her research agenda intends to focus on the exploration of social and structural factors that impact health and well-being.
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Ashley Styczynski
Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, Medicine - Infectious Diseases
BioAshley Styczynski, MD, MPH, is an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases & Geographic Medicine and Global Health Faculty Fellow, and a Medical Officer in the International Infection and Control Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Styczynski's research interests are in infectious disease epidemiology, global health, emerging infections, and antimicrobial resistance. She holds an MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an MD from University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to coming to Stanford for her infectious disease fellowship, she spent two years as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at the CDC. During her time as an EIS officer, Dr. Styczynski conducted outbreak investigations on Zika virus, vaccinia virus, and rabies. She is currently conducting research on antimicrobial resistance and interventions to reduce nosocomial infections within low-resource healthcare facilities globally.
List of publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/ashley.styczynski.1/bibliography/public/ -
Ayesha Sujan
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
BioAyesha C. Sujan, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialized clinical training in pediatric pain psychology and extensive research experience in pharmacoepidemiology, particularly in using large administrative datasets to study central nervous system medication and substance use during pregnancy. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow under the primary mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Rabbitts, Chief of Pediatric Pain, in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is supported by an NIH T32 training grant (T32GM089626) focused on developing leaders in academic anesthesiology and pain medicine research. In addition to contributing to Dr. Rabbitts’ NIH-funded research on mechanisms and treatment of pain in youth undergoing surgery, she leads independent studies on pediatric chronic abdominal pain and disorders of gut–brain interaction, with a growing focus on central nervous system medication treatment for these conditions. Clinically, she conducts psychosocial assessments and provides evidence-based pain psychology treatment one day per week (20% FTE) in the outpatient pediatric pain management clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine, ensuring strong clinical grounding and translational relevance of her research program.
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Wenfei Sun
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe explore neural circuits regulating memory and systemic metabolism, integrating neuroscience and metabolic biology to tackle cognitive decline and metabolic disorders.
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Diana Tordoff
Instructor, Obstetrics & Gynecology - General
BioDiana M. Tordoff, PhD, MPH is an epidemiologist with expertise in LGBTQ+ health equity and gynecological health research. Dr. Tordoff completed her PhD and MPH in Epidemiology at the University of Washington and received a BA with honors in Mathematics from Vassar College. She is also an affiliated researcher with The PRIDE Study (pridestudy.org), where she recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship. Her current research focuses on the impact of exogenous hormones (gender affirming hormones and menopause hormone therapy) on sexual and gynecological health. Her research interests include sexual and reproductive health, menopause, the vaginal microbiome, molecular epidemiology, intersectionality, and community-engaged research methods.
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Allison Vreeland
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Child Development
BioDr. Allison Vreeland (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in working with children, teens, and families. Dr. Vreeland received her PhD in Clinical Psychological Science with a minor in Quantitative Studies at Vanderbilt University. She completed her predoctoral clinical internship in Child Psychology at UCSF with specialty training through the Child Trauma Research Program. She completed a research and clinical fellowship in the Immune Behavioral Health Clinic at Stanford University, where she focused her research efforts on examining neurological markers of patients diagnosed with pediatric acute neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS). Clinically, Dr. Vreeland’s program of clinical care is focused on the delivery of evidence-based clinical interventions for individuals with anxiety, OCD, PANS/PANDAS, mood disorders, and behavioral challenges.
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Bing Wang
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stem Cell Transplantation
BioMy academic training and research experience have equipped me with multidisciplinary skills and knowledge of molecular biology and immunology.
I led two projects when I was an undergraduate, in which I got primary academic learning. My team member and I investigated the bacteria content in drinking water from two types of machines that are commonly used in colleges under the guidance of our experimental microbiology teacher Zhihong Zhong. Secondly, we produced a hybridoma cell line secreting monoclonal antibody against the core antigen of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to develop an ELISA kit for the detection of HCV under the guidance of Dr. Rushi Liu and Minjing Liao.
Thereafter, as a Ph. D. candidate at Xiaoming Feng’s lab, my research primarily focused on understanding the biology of regulatory T cells (Treg) and CD11c+ myeloid cells using cutting-edge single-cell sequencing and conditional knockout mice under healthy and disease conditions. We first revealed the heterogeneity and bifurcated differentiation pathway of human Tregs from normal donors and transplanted patients at the single-cell transcriptome level. A subsequent first and corresponding author publication identified a key innate responsive protein in CD11c+ alveolar macrophages, NRP2, that protects mice from lung injury via promoting the phagocytosis of neutrophils. I also participated in two projects regarding the role of a serine/threonine kinase, LKB1, in mice CD11c+ dendritic cells from lymphoid tissues and adipose tissue with diet-induced obesity. These academic experiences guided me into a strong passion and independent capacities for biomedical studies.
For my postdoctoral training, I will focus on developing Treg therapies and genetic stem cell therapy to cure patients with IPEX syndrome (a severe autoimmune disease) at preclinical and clinical stages, and other immune disorders. My sponsor Dr. Rosa Bacchetta is a well-known leader in treating IPEX patients and developing Treg therapies. My co-mentor Dr. Maria Grazia Roncarolo is a well-recognized pediatric immunologist and also one of the pioneers in the stem cell and gene therapy field, who discovered the type 1 regulatory T cells or Tr1 cells and translate the scientific discoveries into novel Treg therapies. Both of them have an excellent record of training postdoctoral fellows. The proposed projects will provide me with great opportunities in cutting-edge technology and translational research and outline a set of career development including grant writing, public presentation, and lab management, which will enhance my ability to become an independent investigator and help me to reach my goal of developing efficient and safe Treg therapies for a wide range of immune disorders and associated human diseases. -
Wenjun Wang
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stem Cell Transplantation
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy postdoctoral research focuses on investigating novel therapy for childhood leukemias.
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Annika M. Weber
Postdoctoral Scholar, Gastroenterology
BioAnnika is a postdoctoral scholar in the Spencer Lab studying how gut microbes metabolize prebiotic fibers to produce bioactive metabolites linked to lowering disease risk. She holds an MS in Human Nutrition from the University of Sheffield and a PhD in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Colorado State University. Her work integrates multi-omic approaches to map diet-microbe-metabolite relationships. Annika aims to translate these mechanistic insights into microbiome-informed dietary strategies for reducing chronic diseases.
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Alexis Thomas Weiner
Postdoctoral Scholar, Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling pathway polarizes animal cells along an axis parallel to the tissue plane, and in so doing generates long-range organization that can span entire tissues. Although its core proteins and much about their interactions are known, how PCP signaling occurs at a mechanistic level remains fundamentally mysterious. In my current project I will employ novel genetic methods to dissect the logic underlying how cellular asymmetry arises at a molecular level.
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Yuyin Xiao
Postdoctoral Scholar, Economics
BioYuyin Xiao is the postdoctoral researcher of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She received her MS and PhD from Shanghai Jiaotong University. Her research focuses almost exclusively on low- and middle-income countries and is concerned with: health policy, including health equity, supply, demand and utilization of health service programs, and research on health service systems; health technology and innovation, including digital health, development of digital health tools, and evaluation of the effectiveness of digital interventions. Yuyin’s papers have been published in leading academic journals, including British Medical Journal, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, BMC Public Health and others.
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熊剑 (Jian Xiong)
Postdoctoral Scholar, Chemical Engineering
BioI thrive to understand the roles of lysosomes in physiological and pathological conditions. Lysosomes are both degradation compartment and metabolic controlling hub, and dysregulation of lysosomal functions are frequently implicated in a vast number of diseases including neurodegenerative diseases, however, the systematic knowledge of the molecular mechanism by which lysosomal contributes to these diseases is lacking. Ion channels are the primary mediators of neuronal activity, defects in neuronal ion channel activity are linked with many kinds of neurodegenerative diseases. Interestingly, besides typical ion channels that are involved in the neuronal activity, defects in lysosomal ion channels, such as TRPML1, CLN7 and CLC-7 are also implicated in neuropathy. My previous work as Ph.D student in University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center focused on regulation of lysosomal function by ion channels and metabolites. I discovered a mechanism of lysosomal Na+ channel regulate mTORC1 activation by regulating lysosomal amino acid accumulation. I also discovered role of glutamine in controlling lysosomal degradation capacity. In the meantime, I developed novel methods to isolate organelles. My ultimate research goal is to understand the key developmental pathways and how alterations in gene sequences and expression contribute to human disease, therefore, I am pursuing independent academic researcher as my career goal. Starting Feb 2022, I work with Dr. Monther Abu-Remaileh at Stanford University on role of lysosomes in neurodegenerative diseases. I use genetics, chemical biology and omics approaches to study lysosome function under various physiological and pathological conditions, especially age-associated neurodegenerative disorders, and monogenic neurodegenerative lysosome storage diseases. In Stanford, I aim to integrate ionic regulation, metabolomic regulation and functional proteomic regulation to systematically understand the biology of lysosome in physiological conditions and pathological conditions.
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Liu Yang
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy current focus lies in analyzing bedside monitoring waveforms and electronic health record data to understand their correlations with adverse conditions in premature infants, and to explore effective solutions that can enhance the outcomes for these vulnerable patients.
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Pourya Yarahmadi, MD
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiovascular Institute
BioI earned my MD from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Nguyen’s lab, and my main focus is on how the immune system contributes to the development of cardiovascular diseases, particularly atherosclerosis. I use cutting-edge technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing to explore the complex interactions between immune cells and the vascular system. Outside of work, I enjoy playing soccer, working out, hiking, and spending time with friends.
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Marwa Zafarullah
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
BioDr. Marwa Zafarullah is a dedicated neuroscientist with extensive interdisciplinary experience spanning over 8 years in clinical and pre-clinical research. She holds a Ph.D. in Integrative Genetics and Genomics (IGG) from the University of California Davis, focusing on neuroscience, human genetics, and functional genomics. Before joining Stanford, Dr. Zafarullah harnessed the power of molecular biology with advanced technologies to delve into biomarkers related to the prediction, development, progression, and severity of Fragile X Syndrome and associated disorders.
Dr. Zafarullah's career journey reflects her commitment to advancing scientific knowledge, improving patient care, and positively impacting society through her research and contributions. She thrives in multi-disciplinary teams, aiming to enhance the quality of life for all individuals affected by various neurological conditions. Beyond her professional endeavors, she enjoys communicating complex scientific concepts to diverse audiences. Her continuous pursuit of excellence and her drive to bridge clinical practice and scientific innovation make her a true trailblazer in the field. -
Astrid Nicole Zamora
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioDr. Zamora's work examines how social and environmental contexts shape the three pillars of health, diet, sleep, and physical activity, and influence chronic disease risk. Her research integrates epidemiologic methods with community-based participatory approaches to translate findings into evidence-based public health strategies. Her goal is to advance chronic disease prevention and promote heart-healthy aging among Latino/a communities and underserved populations.
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Chongyang Zhang
Postdoctoral Scholar, Cardiology
BioDr. Zhang is a Postdoctoral Scholar at RabLab in the cardiopulmonary division. She has a PhD in Pharmacology from University of Rochester, NY. She has research in cardiovascular research and chronobiology published in high impact peer-reviewed journals. She is recipient of honors including predoctoral fellowship from AHA, Travel Grant for Early Career Investigators from Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. She has served as ad hoc reviewer for more than 40 manuscripts for reputed journals.
