School of Medicine
Showing 1-10 of 14 Results
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Latha Palaniappan, MD, MS
Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Palaniappan has published over 200 peer reviewed manuscripts, abstracts, and book chapters over the last 20 years in the areas of chronic disease prevention and treatment in diverse populations. She has expertise in epidemiological research using big data, use of electronic health records for research, and clinical trials.
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Lesley Park
Senior Research Scientist, Epidemiology and Population Health
BioStanford Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (AHEaD)
ahead.stanford.edu
Founding Co-Director (2020-present)
Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS)
Executive Director (2022-present)
Cancer Core Co-Director (2016-present)
International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD)
iwhod.org
Chair, Scientific Secretariat (2024-present)
Dr. Lesley Park is a co-founding director of the Stanford AHEaD summer research program for college students from underrepresented and historically excluded groups in the health sciences. She is also the Executive Director of the VACS consortium, an international collaboration of methodologists, clinicians, and trainees who utilize the rich and valuable data from the Veterans Health Administration to do impactful research. VACS has been at the forefront of research to understand aging with HIV to improve patient care, particularly with respect to alcohol and other substance use, physiologic frailty, and polypharmacy. In recent years, the VACS mission has expanded to encompass other foci, including genomic research and most recently COVID-19.
Within the VACS, Dr. Park oversees cancer and COVID-19 outcomes research in persons with HIV/AIDS (PWH). Her research experience has focused on the intersection of cancer and HIV, examining epidemiologic methods for cancer research, cancer incidence trends, and cancer (particularly hepatocellular carcinoma) prevention in PWH. Dr. Park is an experienced epidemiologist, skilled in "big data" observational research, survival analysis, and SAS programming. She teaches courses in computing, data management, and epidemiologic analysis methods. Her prior experience includes research at the Yale School of Medicine and at the Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research (CBAR) at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD) is an established scientific forum for the appropriate application of real-world data to emerging issues in infectious disease. Dr. Park leads the IWHOD scientific committee of internationally reknowned experts in infectious disease and is responsible for administrative and scientific coordination of IWHOD.
Previously, Dr. Park was one of the leaders of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences (PHS). PHS aims to improve the health of populations by bringing together diverse disciplines and data to understand and address social, environmental, behavioral, and biological factors. She oversaw all of the educational and training initiatives at PHS and was one of the founding directors of the PHS Data Center and PHS Postdoctoral Fellowship program. -
Julie Parsonnet
George DeForest Barnett Professor of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
On Partial Leave from 01/06/2025 To 10/14/2025Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has done large field studies in both the US and developing countries. We research the long-term consequences of chronic interactions between the human host and the microbial world. My lab has done fundamental work establishing the role of H. pylori in causing disease and understanding its epidemiology. Currently, our research dissects how and when children first encounter microbes and the long term effects of these exposures on health.
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Anisha I Patel
Professor of Pediatrics (General Pediatrics) and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Patel is a physician-scientist with a focus on community-engaged research (CEnR). She works to translate evidence to impact policies that can benefit children facing inequities due to their racial/ethnic background, poverty, and/or geography.
She leads the independently-funded research program, Partnerships for Research in Child Health, which collaborates with community partners to co-develop, implement, and evaluate innovative interventions aimed at preventing obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in low-income, minoritized populations. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Patel has led numerous studies to encourage healthy beverage intake among children and adolescents. These studies include analyses of large national data sets, conduct of randomized controlled trials in schools, child care, and community settings to examine how interventions to increase children’s intake of water instead of sugar-sweetened beverages impact child health, and the evaluation of policy efforts to improve the healthfulness of beverages offered in schools and community settings.
Long before the Flint water crisis, Dr. Patel was working with partners to address nitrate and arsenic contamination in drinking water supplies in California’s San Joaquin Valley, a rural region home to many low-income Latinx farm-working families. She secured funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to collaborate with researchers, nonprofits, water utilities, families, and advocates to develop innovative solutions to drinking water contamination in the region, helping to lead to the Agua4All program. The Agua4All initiative increased access to safe drinking water by installing filtered water stations in schools and community sites. The program’s success led to its national expansion and informed a $16.3 million-dollar water in schools grant program as well as California legislation to improve safe water access in public schools. Dr. Patel’s work with collaborators and communities was recognized by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Drink Up campaign and featured in Stanford Medicine’s award-winning magazine.
As an expert in CEnR, Dr. Patel leads initiatives at Stanford. She is Director of the Office of Community-Engaged Research at Stanford's Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. In this role, she is helping to lead several initiatives, including expanding grant funding for CEnR and implementing capacity-building training programs for both community partners and the Stanford community. She also serves as Associate Dean of Research in Stanford’s School of Medicine, where she works to enhance community engagement across the university. Dr. Patel is a Co-Investigator on Stanford’s Clinical Translational Sciences Award. She also helps lead mentoring of fellows and junior faculty in CEnR.
Dr. Patel has a diverse funding portfolio ranging from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research Program, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Patel has presented her research to local, national and international audiences. She has also been recognized for her research with awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill School of Public Health. -
Javier Perez-Garcia
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioJavier Perez-Garcia is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University. His research has been focused on the integration of multi-omic data (e.g., genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, and microbiome) to identify potential biomarkers of treatment response for complex diseases like asthma. His research background includes experience both in molecular biology techniques (e.g., DNA extraction and sequencing libraries preparation) and bioinformatic analyses (e.g., processing of raw omic data, association studies at genomic scale, or multi-omic integration through machine learning and quantitative trait loci analyses). He holds a Ph.D. in Health Sciences and a B.Sc. in Pharmacy from the University of La Laguna (Spain).
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Rachel Pham
Educational Program Manager, Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Role at StanfordEducational Program Manager
