School of Medicine
Showing 151-200 of 226 Results
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Michelle Odden
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMultilevel - from cells to society - epidemiologic study of healthy aging
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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. -
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
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Rita Popat
Associate Professor (Teaching) of Epidemiology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interest focuses on the epidemiology of Parkinsons disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, specifically evaluating the genetic and environmental contributions to these neurodegenerative disorders. I am also interested in studying the relation of cognition, estradiol exposure (endogenous and exogenous), and genetic factors.
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Alexis Reeves
Instructor, Epidemiology and Population Health
BioAlexis is a Propel postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Medicine with Dr. Michelle Odden’s lab. Her research is broadly focused on the causes and consequences of racial disparities in accelerated aging. She is particularly interested in the interplay of structural and interpersonal racism, and the psychobiological mechanisms in which they produce early health declines in minoritized populations. Her work to date has focused on the health of Black women as they enter into life-stages, such as the midlife menopausal transition, where cardio-metabolic risk is high. Alexis also has a strong interest in causal inference, and applies causal inference theory and methods to these areas of research to mitigate and quantify bias.
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David Rehkopf
Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Medicine (Primary Care and Population Health) and, by courtesy, of Pediatrics, of Health Policy and of Sociology
BioI am a social epidemiologist and serve as a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and in the Department of Medicine in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health. I joined the faculty at Stanford School of Medicine in 2011.
I am Director of the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences. In this position, I am committed to making high-value data resources available to researchers across disciplines in order to better enable them to answer their most pressing clinical and population health questions.
My own research is focused on understanding the health implications of the myriad decisions that are made by corporations and governments every day - decisions that profoundly shape the social and economic worlds in which we live and work. While these changes are often invisible to us on a daily basis, these seemingly minor actions and decisions form structural nudges that can create better or worse health at a population level. My work demonstrates the health implications of corporate and governmental decisions that can give the public and policy makers evidence to support new strategies for promoting health and well-being. In all of his work, I have a focus on the implications of these exposures for health inequalities.
Since often policy and programmatic changes can take decades to influence health, my work also includes more basic research in understanding biological signals that may act as early warning signs of systemic disease, in particular accelerated aging. I examine how social and economic policy changes influence a range of early markers of disease and aging, with a particular recent focus on DNA methylation. I am supported by several grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to develop new more sensitive ways to understand the health implications of social and economic policy changes. -
Zachary T Renfro
MD Student with Scholarly Concentration in Clinical Research / Immunology, expected graduation Spring 2026
Masters Student in Epidemiology and Clinical Research, admitted Autumn 2023BioZachary studied biology at the University of Arkansas where he researched the impact of temperature on macrophage cytokine production across animal species as well as the neural basis of saccadic mislocalization. After graduation, he worked at the Arkansas Department of Health where he developed and implemented Arkansas' first plan to eliminate tuberculosis. Additionally he researched the contribution of epigenetic regulation on the susceptibility, development, and maintenance of chronic pain at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and participated in the front line response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At Stanford, he is enrolled in the MD and MS in epidemiology and clinical research programs. His current research interests include emerging infectious diseases, immunological response to infection, queer health broadly and queer sexual health specifically. -
Thomas Robinson
The Irving Schulman, M.D. Professor of Child Health, Professor of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research Center) and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Robinson originated the solution-oriented research paradigm and directs the Stanford Solutions Science Lab. He is known for his pioneering obesity prevention and treatment research, including the concept of stealth interventions. His research applies social cognitive models of behavior change to behavioral, social, environmental and policy interventions for children and families in real world settings, making the results relevant for informing clinical and public health practice and policy.
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Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
BioDr. Patricia Rodriguez Espinosa, PhD., MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and also serves as the Associate Director of Research for the Office of Community Engagement at Stanford Medicine. Dr. Rodriguez Espinosa is also the Associate Core Lead for the Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core of the Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. The ultimate goal of her research is to improve the health of diverse populations - including Latinxs, under-resourced communities, and older adults - through transdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship. Her research aims to develop novel multi-level interventions and health promotion programs to improve health outcomes (e.g., around aging, multiple chronic conditions, cardiovascular disease) and that include multi-sectoral collaborations. Dr. Rodriguez Espinosa's research has also centered around developing the science of Community-Based Participatory Research, citizen/community science, and other participatory research approaches.
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Lisa Goldman Rosas
Associate Professor (Research) of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Medicine (Primary Care and Population Health) and, by courtesy, of Pediatrics
BioLisa Goldman Rosas, PhD MPH is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and the Department of Medicine, Division of Primary Care and Population Health at Stanford School of Medicine. An epidemiologist by training, Dr. Goldman Rosas’ research focuses on addressing disparities in diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, depression, and cancer especially for those who face food insecurity. This research features rigorous quantitative and qualitative methodologies, participatory qualitative approaches, and shared leadership with patient and community partners. She is passionate about integrating patients, caregivers, community organizations, and other key stakeholders in the research process in order to affect the greatest improvements in health and well-being. As a reflection of this passion, Dr. Goldman Rosas serves as the Faculty Director for the School of Medicine Office of Community Engagement, Co-Director of Community-Engaged Research for the Office of Cancer Health Equity, and Director of the Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core for the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. In these roles, she supports other faculty and patient and community partners to develop sustainable and meaningful partnerships to support transformative research. In addition to research, she teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has a special focus on increasing capacity in community engagement methods.
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Kristin Sainani (n e Cobb)
Professor (Teaching) of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsScience writing, science communication, biostatistics. Research areas: osteoporosis, stress fractures, sports injuries, female athlete triad.
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Lee M. Sanders, MD, MPH
Professor of Pediatrics (General Pediatrics), of Health Policy and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
On Partial Leave from 01/05/2026 To 03/27/2026Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI conduct interdisciplinary research to understand literacy as potentially modifiable lens for addressing maternal and child health disparities from birth through early adulthood. Applying mixed methods approaches (health-services, epidemiology, ethnography), I have been principal investigator on extramurally-funded research projects (NIH, PCORI, FDA) that aim to examine "natural experiments" in policy and/or to design, implement and test novel system-level interventions.
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Clea Sarnquist, DrPH, MPH
Clinical Professor, Pediatrics - Infectious Diseases
Clinical Professor (By courtesy), Epidemiology and Population HealthBioDr. Sarnquist focuses on applied teaching and research on the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to decrease gender-based violence, improve mental health, and prevent HIV infection, especially among adolescents and children. She is particularly interested in rights-based approaches that tackle the complex interplay of factors that lead to poor health for many children and families. All of her work is applied, with direct links health practice and policy, and usually performed in conjunction with non-governmental organization and government partners. She works both globally and in the U.S., with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. She is also a medical educator, directing the scholarly concentrations program of the pediatric residency at Stanford, co-directing the global health concentration for residents, and teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in global health with a focus on children and women’s health.
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Gary M. Shaw
Rosemarie Hess Professor and Professor (Research), by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health and of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Maternal Fetal Medicine)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPrimary research interests include 1) epidemiology of birth defects, 2) gene-environment approaches to perinatal outcomes, and 3) nutrition and reproductive outcomes.
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Julia Fridman Simard
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Medicine (Immunology & Rheumatology) and, by courtesy, of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Maternal Fetal Medicine)
BioJulia Fridman Simard, ScD, is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health, and of Medicine in Immunology and Rheumatology and Obstetrics and, by courtesy, Gynecology in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Simard earned her Masters and Doctorate of Science in Epidemiology degrees at the Harvard School of Public Health. During that time she trained with investigators at the Section of Clinical Sciences, Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 2008, Dr. Simard relocated to Sweden to begin a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She became an Assistant Professor in their Clinical Epidemiology Unit in 2011, and was later honored with a Karolinska Institutet Teaching Award. Leveraging the population-based registers of Sweden, Dr. Simard initiated a national register linkage study to examine the utility of registers in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) research and develop an extensive data repository for future epidemiologic investigations.
While maintaining a close collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet, she joined Stanford’s Epidemiology faculty in 2013. Dr. Simard studies outcomes such as malignancy, stroke, infection, and mortality, in patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases with a focus on systemic lupus erythematosus. Recently her primary research focus has shifted to the intersection between reproductive epidemiology and rheumatic disease fueled by a K01 career development award from the NIH (NIAMS) to study maternal and fetal outcomes in systemic lupus pregnancy. This led to collaborations with colleagues at Stanford, throughout the US, and abroad, and a series of projects focused on the diagnosis of preeclampsia and associated risks in pregnant women with systemic lupus. Dr. Simard was awarded a Peter Joseph Pappas Research Grant from the Preeclampsia Foundation for her lab's work examining preeclampsia risk in high-risk populations, and a McCormick Faculty Award from Stanford Medicine to take important steps towards disentangling preeclampsia from lupus nephritis. Dr. Simard is leading an international study of hydroxychloroquine in lupus pregnancy leveraging mixed methods in partnership with qualitative researchers, patients, clinicians, and epidemiologists in Sweden, Canada, and in the United States.
In addition to these issues of misclassification in reproductive rheumatology questions, Dr. Simard's lab is also interested in how misclassification, missed opportunities, and misdiagnosis contribute to disparities in complex conditions such as systemic lupus. In addition to methodologic issues around misclassification and bias and the largely clinical epidemiology focus of her work, Dr. Simard's work examines social determinants of health and health disparities. Dr. Simard was recently awarded an R01 from NIH (NIAID) to study the role of cognitive errors in clinical decision making for female-predominant diseases including lupus and multiple sclerosis. This work evaluates this bias in multiple clinical specialties, including rheumatology, neurology, and primary care, and uses mixed methods. -
Shamsi Soltani
Ph.D. Student in Epidemiology and Clinical Research, admitted Autumn 2021
BioShamsi Soltani is a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and a trainee with the Center for Population Health Sciences, both in the Stanford School of Medicine. For three years, she was a fellow in the Training in Advanced Data Analytics for Behavioral and Social Sciences (TADA-BSSR) program, supervised by Drs. Abby King and Lorene Nelson. Her dissertation work revolves around modifiable risk factors for suicide in LGBTQ+ populations and is mentored by Dr. Mitchell Lunn.
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Marcia L. Stefanick, Ph.D.
Professor (Research) of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research Center), of Obstetrics and Gynecology and, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMarcia L. Stefanick, Ph.D is a Professor of Medicine Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and by courtesy, Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Stefanick’s research focuses on chronic disease prevention (particularly, heart disease, breast cancer, osteoporosis, and dementia) in both women and men. She is currently the Principal Investigator the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Extension Study, having been the PI of the Stanford Clinical Center of the landmark WHI Clinical Trials and Observational Study since 1994 and Chair of the WHI Steering and Executive Committees from 1998-2011, as well as PI of the WHI Strong and Healthy (WHISH) Trial which is testing the hypothesis that a DHHS-based physical activity intervention, being delivered to a multi-ethnic cohort of about 24,000 WHI participants across the U.S., aged 68-99 when the trial started in 2015, will reduce major cardiovascular events over 8 years, compared to an equal number of “usual activity” controls. Dr. Stefanick is also PI of the Osteoporotic Study of Men (MrOS) which is continuing to conduct clinical assessments of bone and body composition in survivors of an original cohort of nearly 6000 men aged 65 and over in 2001. As founding Director of the Stanford Women’s Health and Sex Differences in Medicine (WHSDM, “wisdom”) Center, she plays a major role in promoting research and teaching on Sex and Gender in Human Physiology and Disease, Women’s Health and Queer Health and Medicine. Dr. Stefanick also plays major leadership roles at the Stanford School of Medicine, including as co-leader of the Population Sciences Program of the Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford’s NCI-funded comprehensive cancer center.
Dr. Stefanick obtained her B.A. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (1974), then pursued her interest in hormone and sex difference research at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, after which she obtained her PhD in Physiology at Stanford University, focusing on reproductive physiology and neuroendocrinology, with exercise physiology as a secondary focus. Her commitment to human research led to a post-doctoral fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, which has been her academic home for nearly 40 years.
