School of Medicine
Showing 1-4 of 4 Results
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Amin Sadeghi
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsApplications of artificial intelligence in medicine
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Pilleriin Sikka
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWhat makes certain experiences transformative, and how can we harness them to support resilience and mental health? I explore this question by studying emotions across various states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, anesthesia, psychedelics, and meditation. With a background in psychology, neuroscience, and anesthesiology, I bring together methods that are rarely combined: daily diaries and surveys, language and narrative analysis, neurophysiological recordings, lab experiments, and clinical trials. My work has three main aims: (1) to understand how affective experiences unfold across states; (2) to test whether these experiences can be deliberately shaped to support mental health; and (3) to identify the mechanisms that make them transformative. This interdisciplinary approach has led to the first controlled studies of anesthesia-induced dreams for trauma, new insights into peace of mind and emotion regulation, and cross-state comparisons showing how affective experiences in altered states can foster resilience. My long-term goal is to develop a new frontier in affective science: the study of how transformative experiences across different states of mind can improve well-being.
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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.
