School of Medicine
Showing 1-20 of 59 Results
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Saraswati Kache
Clinical Professor, Pediatrics - Critical Care
BioDr. Kache is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Critical Care Medicine whose work spans pediatric transport, device innovation, global health, and sustainability. A recent Stanford Biodesign Faculty Fellow and recognized educator with multiple teaching awards, she is engaged in device development, building on a career devoted to critically ill children through innovation, education, and global collaboration.
She chairs the Sepsis Steering Committee at LPCH, which she helped launch in 2017 to develop a hospital-specific pathway from international guidelines, identify improvement opportunities, and drive better outcomes through education and evaluation of clinical data. She previously served on the American College of Critical Care Medicine committee that authored the Pediatric Sepsis Guidelines, shaping national and international standards.
As Medical Director of the Transport Program, she focuses on team education and standardized processes to build a high-functioning pediatric critical care transport team dedicated to safe inter-facility transport of critically ill children. She is also partnering with the American Academy of Pediatrics on a national multidisciplinary pediatric transport curriculum.
As a Stanford Innovations in Global Health Faculty Fellow, she founded the pediatric residency's Global Health Track to train physicians in equitable, sustainable pediatric care. Internationally, she has helped establish and support PICUs in Nepal, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, introduced CPAP in low-resource settings, and led PICU education and capacity-building to strengthen critical care infrastructure.
A member of the Maternal Child Health Research Institute, her research integrates guideline development, systems improvement, and global implementation of evidence-based pediatric critical care. She has recently begun examining how healthcare systems affect climate change and how to improve sustainability. -
Alexander D. Kaiser
Instructor, Cardiothoracic Surgery
BioAlexander Kaiser, PhD, is an applied mathematician and computational scientist who researches modeling and simulation of heart valves, focused on congenital heart valve disease and its surgical treatment. His recent research explores simulation-guided design of aortic valve repair of complex congenital heart defects. He has developed novel, nearly first-principles modeling methods for heart valves called elasticity-based design. These methods produce robust and realistic flows in fluid-structure interaction simulations. Dr. Kaiser is an Instructor in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University working with Michael Ma and Alison Marsden. He completed his PhD in Mathematics with Charles Peskin at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, where he was awarded the Kurt O. Friedrichs Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in Mathematics.
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Pooja Kakar
Member, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAs a breastfeeding medicine physician, I am passionate about advocating for mother-infant dyads and supporting their breastfeeding journeys. Additionally, I am interested studying and addressing disparities in initiation and duration of breastfeeding, particularly in lower-resourced populations, by building and advancing community partnerships.
I am also interested in the use of digital health tools to advance upstream determinants of health in community-based settings. My current funded research projects include: 1) Providing a telehealth-based, weight control program to children with obesity from lower-income, racial and ethnic minority families (Gardner GOALS) and 2) Assessing and addressing disparities in healthy behaviors in families from under-resourced settings through the use of a secure, multilingual mobile neighborhood app (Our Voice: Beyond Clinic Walls). -
Julia Kaltschmidt
Professor of Neurosurgery
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe lab’s primary research interest is to understand how specific neuronal circuits are established. We use mouse genetics, combinatorial immunochemical labeling and high-resolution laser scanning microscopy to identify, manipulate, and quantitatively analyze synaptic contacts within the complex neuronal milieu of the spinal cord and the enteric nervous system.
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Kathleen Kan
Assistant Professor of Urology
BioDr. Kathleen Kan is a fellowship-trained pediatric urologist with a clinical practice based at LPCH and additional outreach programs in the South Bay. Her current practice includes general, endoscopic and complex reconstructive procedures and a clinical counseling interest in kidney stone disease and differences in sexual differentiation. She currently serves as the Associate Program Director of the Urology residency program.
Her current research is focused on understanding why health elementary schoolchildren develop new bladder and bowel problems. -
Matthew Kanan
Professor of Chemistry and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioMatt Kanan is a Professor of Chemistry and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford. Matt’s research group works across multiple fields of chemistry and engineering with applications for sustainable plastics, critical mineral recovery, and carbon management. Their work has led to several inventions in these areas, including new performance-advantaged bioplastics, electrochemical systems to recycle acid and base, metal-free catalysts for C1 transformations, and thermal mineral conversion processes. Matt is the co-founder of ReSource Chemical Corp., an Oakland-based start-up commercializing manufacturing technology developed in his lab, and Mafix, Inc., a spin-out developing mineral fertilizers that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2009, Matt did his Ph.D. studies in organic chemistry at Harvard and postdoctoral research at MIT in inorganic chemistry. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Rice University in 2000.
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Pankaj Kapahi
Professor (Research) of Medicine (Endocrinology)
BioPankaj Kapahi is a Professor and aging researcher whose laboratory seeks to understand why organisms age and why the rate and consequences of aging differ so dramatically between individuals, sexes, and species. The lab approaches aging through the lens of evolution, asking how pathways that evolved to optimize growth, reproduction, and survival early in life can shape health and disease later in life.
A major focus of the laboratory is the interaction between nutrition, metabolism, reproduction, and aging. The lab has helped define how nutrient-sensing pathways, including TOR, dietary restriction, circadian biology, and metabolic adaptation regulate lifespan and age-related disease. More recently, this work has expanded to reproductive aging and the Reproductive Resilience Hypothesis, the idea that evolutionary pressures linking reproductive success to prolonged survival, repeated reproduction, and caregiving may have selected for biological programs that simultaneously support reproduction and somatic resilience.
Using comparative and experimental approaches across flies, worms, mice, and humans, the lab studies how these evolutionarily conserved programs influence brain aging, neurodegeneration, metabolic disease, reproductive aging, cell senescence, and resilience. The broader philosophy of the laboratory is that aging is best understood not as an isolated biological program, but as an emergent consequence of the evolutionary trade-offs among reproduction, nutrition, growth, maintenance, and survival. -
Cynthia Kapphahn
Clinical Professor, Pediatrics - Adolescent Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAccess to health care services for adolescents.
Confidentiality.
Mental Health Financing.
Eating disorders. -
Ioannis Karakikes
Associate Professor (Research) of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Karakikes Lab aims to uncover fundamental new insights into the molecular mechanisms and functional consequences of pathogenic mutations associated with familial cardiovascular diseases.
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Maya M. Kasowski
Assistant Professor of Pathology, of Medicine (Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine) and, by courtesy, of Genetics
BioI am a clinical pathologist and assistant professor in the Departments of Medicine, Pathology, and Genetics (by courtesy) at Stanford. I completed my MD-PhD training at Yale University and my residency training and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University. My experiences as a clinical pathologist and genome scientist have made me passionate about applying cutting-edge technologies to primary patient specimens in order to characterize disease pathologies at the molecular level. The core focus of my lab is to study the mechanisms by which genetic variants influence the risk of disease through effects on intermediate molecular phenotypes.
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Tamiko Robin Katsumoto MD, DipABLM
Clinical Associate Professor, Medicine - Immunology & Rheumatology
BioTamiko Katsumoto, MD, DipABLM is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford University and is board certified in lifestyle medicine. She earned her MD from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed her internal medicine residency and rheumatology fellowship at UCSF, including a postdoc in immunology. Deeply committed to human and planetary health, she is passionate about educating her patients, her colleagues, and the general public on the merits of sustainable whole food plant-centered diets as a strategy to both improve individual health and mitigate climate change and environmental degradation. She is fascinated by the impact of diet and lifestyle on inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer. She directs the Rheumatology Oncology Clinic and serves as a co-director of the Stanford Immune Related Toxicity Working Group, a multidisciplinary group which aims to improve the quality of care of cancer patients on immune checkpoint inhibitors. She is involved in several clinical trials at Stanford and has spent time at Genentech, where she led several global clinical trials in immunology. She co-chaired the American College of Rheumatology Climate Change Task Force. She is working closely with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and serves on the steering committee for the Center for Human and Planetary Health where she co-leads the Food Systems, Health and Environment Working Group.
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Makoto Kawai
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Sleep Medicine
BioI am a physician scientist in the field of sleep medicine in aging and brain function. Using combined polysomnogram and novel neuroimaging technology, I aim to identify potential sleep biomarkers to investigate the mechanism of progression from normal aging to Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or dementia. I also investigate the impact of sleep on cognitive/affective function or behavior abnormality in various neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.
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Mark A. Kay, M.D., Ph.D.
Dennis Farrey Family Professor of Pediatrics, and Professor of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMark A. Kay, M.D., Ph.D. Director of the Program in Human Gene Therapy and Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics. Respected worldwide for his work in gene therapy for hemophilia, Dr. Kay and his laboratory focus on establishing the scientific principles and developing the technologies needed for achieving persistent and therapeutic levels of gene expression in vivo. The major disease models are hemophilia, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B viral infections.
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Debra Lee Kaysen
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMuch of my current research focus is on the development of testing of accessible, scaleable, and effective treatments for trauma-related disorders and related comorbidities (e.g. substance use disorders, HIV, mood disorders). This work has focused on addressing trauma-related disorders especially in underserved populations and settings. This includes research in rural communities, with Native American communities, and with sexual minorities. My research has had a strong impact on building an evidence base on adaptations of psychotherapies for PTSD and substance use disorders for diverse populations both within and outside the United States. Our findings demonstrate that complex cognitive behavioral psychotherapies like Cognitive Processing Therapy can be culturally adapted and delivered in challenging settings (conflict settings, high poverty environments) with significant and lasting change in PTSD, depression, and functioning. This has led to work adapting CPT for diverse populations within the United States (rural Native Americans, urban Latinos) and outside of it (Iraq, DRC). Other research has focused on treatment for PTSD/SUD. My research has also found support for the use of brief telehealth interventions to build treatment engagement and to reduce drinking among trauma-exposed populations. In addition, my work has been critical in testing the feasibility of novel trauma-focused interventions for use by those with PTSD and SUD, thus paving the road for more rigorous research studies.
Current PI'ed research studies include: 1) developing and evaluating a brief motivational interviewing intervention designed to increase treatment-seeking among military personnel with untreated PTSD; a two-arm randomized comparative effectiveness trial to evaluate prevention of HIV/STI sexual risk behavior by addressing PTSD through Narrative Exposure Therapy or substance use through Motivational Interviewing among Native American men and women with PTSD; and 3) a comparison of outcomes among patients randomized to initially receive pharmacotherapy or Written Exposure Therapy delivered in primary care as well as comparing outcomes among patients randomized to treatment sequences (i.e., switching and augmenting) for patients who do not respond to the initial treatment. -
Kevin Kelley
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry and Psychology)
BioAs a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, I am motivated by how little we understand about the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders and hope that further knowledge will help to alleviate the ongoing distress of many of our patients. My research program leverages computational genomics, human brain cellular models, and molecular neuroscience techniques to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of human brain development and how dysfunction in these processes lead to psychiatric disorders.
