School of Medicine
Showing 9,801-9,850 of 13,128 Results
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Alejandra Ruiz
Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery
BioDr. Alejandra Ruiz is a physician-scientist working at the intersection of clinical medicine, health services research, and community-engaged intervention design. Based on her clinical experience in high-complexity settings, she works to optimize integrative care models that address both physical and mental health needs.
She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and General Surgery, where she examines structural barriers to care among underserved populations and develops pathways to improve access and care delivery. Her work is grounded in community-based participatory research, through which she designs, implements, and evaluates culturally responsive interventions. Dr. Ruiz is committed to advancing equitable, sustainable models of care that improve access, engagement, and patient outcomes. -
Cristin Runfola
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Runfola's research focuses on the epidemiology of dysregulated eating and weight concerns in undeserved populations and her primary interest is in developing and testing the efficacy of clinical interventions designed to improve outcome for eating disorders.
With support from GFED, Dr. Runfola adapted the Uniting Couples in the treatment of Anorexia Nervosa (UCAN) therapy manual for couples in which one or both members have binge-eating disorder (UNITE) and recently completed pilot testing on this treatment. She is in the process of expanding this treatment for all couples affected by binge eating, and is submitting a grant to fund future work testing efficacy. -
Stephen Ruoss
Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary and Critical Care)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe have an active collaborative project examining basic and clinical aspects of non-tuberculous mycobacterial lung infection in non-immune compromised adults. Studies have examined possible cellular immune mechanisms for increased susceptibility to these infections, and are also investigating aspects of optimal diagnosis and treatment. In addition, a clinical and translational research program is investigating the causes and genetic factors underlying the evolution of bronchiectasis.
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Michal Ruprecht
Affiliate, Senior Associate Dean for Global Health
BioMichal Ruprecht is a health journalist and fourth-year medical student at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is the 2025 AAAS Mass Media Fellow at NPR and the Stanford University School of Medicine Global Health Media Fellow. He will join the Journalism Program this fall as part of the master's cohort, followed by an internship at CNN Health.
He is particularly interested in how disruptive medical journalism improves scientific and medical understanding. He previously interned at ABC News, MedPage Today and the American Public Health Association.
At ABC News, he led coverage of maternal mortality among Black women, childhood bereavement and gun violence. While at MedPage, he was the first reporter to cover Stanford’s incoming class of surgery residents, highlighting the attention they received for being nearly all women. He also published an investigation into the widespread culture of piracy among medical students.
Prior to that, Michal was a beat reporter, assistant editor and investigative reporter for The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan’s independent daily student newspaper. At The Daily, he spearheaded a seven-month investigation into the culture of silence among student researchers and led the paper’s research beat.
Beyond reporting, Michal was an Association of Health Care Journalists American Cities Health Journalism Fellow and serves on the Society of Professional Journalists Student Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists Membership Committee and was a STAT News Summit Fellow.
His research explores interventions rooted in equity and inclusion to drive positive change in underserved communities.
Michal graduated with honors and a B.S. in neuroscience from the University of Michigan in 2022, where he leveraged community action and social change to partner with individuals affected by the Flint water crisis. He wrote his senior thesis on a membrane protein and created three ceramic sculptures of the channel.
Michal is a member of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society. He serves on the boards of the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Riley’s Way Foundation.
He can be reached at mruprecht@umich.edu, on Bluesky @michalruprecht.com or on Signal at @mrup.01. -
Christopher John Russell
Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Hospital Medicine)
BioDr. Russell is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine and a board-certified academic pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. His clinical responsibilities include caring for children hospitalized for a variety of illnesses. His research focuses on developing evidence-based care for hospitalized children with medical complexity, including acute respiratory infections (such as pneumonia and bacterial tracheitis). His research efforts have been recognized through receipt of the University of Southern California’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Award (2014-16), the Academic Pediatric Association’s Young Investigator Award (2015-16), the NIH Loan Repayment Program (2017-2021) and a large grant from the Gerber Foundation (2020-2022). In August 2021, he received a five-year R01 award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study bacterial respiratory infections in children with tracheostomy. Outside of his clinical and research responsibilities, Dr. Russell focuses on research mentorship of medical students, pediatric residents, and pediatric hospital medicine fellows as well as improving representation of underrepresented minorities in medicine throughout the continuum of physician training. Dr. Russell completed a term as the chair of the Academic Pediatric Association’s Membership, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee (2022-2025) and is on the Executive Committee for the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings research network. Dr. Russell is active in the AAP and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Hospital Pediatrics.
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Mirabela Rusu
Assistant Professor of Radiology (Integrative Biomedical Imaging Informatics) and, by courtesy, of Biomedical Data Science and of Urology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Mirabela Rusu focuses on developing analytic methods for biomedical data integration, with a particular interest in radiology-pathology fusion. Such integrative methods may be applied to create comprehensive multi-scale representations of biomedical processes and pathological conditions, thus enabling their in-depth characterization.
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Florentine Rutaganira
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and of Developmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe use chemical tools to decipher the roles of key signaling networks in choanoflagellates, single-celled organisms that are the closest living relatives of animals. Choanoflagellates produce molecular signals essential for intercellular communication in animals and the presence of these molecules in choanoflagellates suggests that signaling components needed to communicate between cells is evolutionarily ancient. We aim to uncover new understanding of animal development, physiology and disease.
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Erica Marie Rutherford
Data Wrangler, Biomedical Data Science
BioMy career spanning nine years as a data curator has given me a lot of experience and perspective into the workings of scientific data and metadata, and its organization. During my time before graduate school, I attained experience on a variety of fieldwork projects in ecology (2008-2013). During these temporary seasonal assignments, the importance of precision and care in data collection was impressed in me. When I went to graduate school at San Francisco State University (2013-2016), I gained experience in all parts of a molecular biology experiment, from fieldwork to labwork to data analysis. After graduation, I worked at a microbiome focused startup company, Second Genome, as their data curator (2016-2021). While there, I was responsible for curation of metadata for both internal studies for R&D and for clients, and for external studies being brought in for our internal Knowledgebase. While there, I developed an appreciate for ontologies, and developed a custom Second Genome Ontology to handle our metadata. I moved on to the Lattice group, located at Stanford University, where I continued to expand my skills in data curation (2021-present). I have gained experience in handling single cell datasets and their associated metadata, and curating them to meet precise standards. I strive to work collaboratively with data contributors in order to ensure FAIR data standards.
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Brian Rutt
Professor of Radiology (Radiological Sciences Lab), Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interests center on MRI research, including high-field and high-resolution MRI technology development as well as applications of advanced MRI techniques to studying the brain, cardiovascular system and cancer.
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maura ruzhnikov
Member, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
BioChild neurologist and medical geneticist focusing on the diagnosis and management of rare neurologic disorders. Specific interests are in genetic epilepsy syndromes, childhood neurodegenerative and neurometabolic diseases and undiagnosed suspected genetic conditions.
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Charles William Ryan
Postdoctoral Scholar, Ophthalmology
BioI was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. I first attended Onondaga Community College, where I developed a fascination with the development of complex biological systems, and then transferred to Syracuse University where I completed my B.S. in biochemistry. I next attended the University of Michigan MD/PhD program, where I used in-vitro models of human neurodevelopment to study to role of epigenetic marks in guiding neurogenesis. While at Michigan, I became interested in the prospect of harnessing in-vitro differentiation to cultivate functional tissues that can be transplanted to replace what is lost in degenerative conditions. Ophthalmology, with its microsurgical access to functionally critical cell layers, is well-positioned to capitalize on this emerging field of science to treat degenerative conditions. I am humbled and incredibly thankful to have the opportunity to pursue this aim as a SOAR resident at Stanford.
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Katherine Jane Ryan
Clinical Assistant Professor, Pediatrics - Hematology & Oncology
Clinical Assistant Professor (By courtesy), Adult NeurologyCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Katherine “Katie” Ryan is a pediatric neuro-oncologist whose research focuses on developing and translating cellular immunotherapies for children with malignant brain tumors. She leads the first-in-human trial of GPC2-directed CAR T cells for CNS Embryonal Tumors. As a member of Stanford Children’s world-renowned pediatric brain tumor team, she diagnoses and treats children with CNS tumors while advancing innovative trial design, intracerebroventricular delivery, and correlative science.
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Mattias Rydberg
Postdoctoral Scholar, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
BioMattias Rydberg, MD, PhD, is a hand surgeon and postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research focuses on epidemiology, machine learning, and digital health technologies in hand surgery and musculoskeletal disease. Dr. Rydberg completed his medical and doctoral training at Lund University in Sweden, where his PhD work focused on diabetic hand disorders and large-scale register-based research.
At Stanford, he works in the laboratory of Dr. Paige Fox, studying peripheral nerve disorders, fibroproliferative diseases, and AI-based motion tracking technologies for upper extremity assessment. His current projects include national database studies on diabetes and entrapment neuropathies, frozen shoulder and Dupuytren’s disease, and the development of camera-based hand motion analysis tools using machine learning and computer vision. -
Tracy Rydel
Clinical Professor, Medicine - Primary Care and Population Health
BioTracy Rydel is Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine where she holds the positions of Assistant Dean for Clerkship Education and Director, Core Clerkship in Family and Community Medicine. She has also served as the Director of Medical Student Education in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health, and was an Educator-4-CARE faculty from 2017-2020. She is a family physician with a passion for medical education. She completed the Rathmann Family Foundation Fellowship in Patient-centered Care and Medical Education in 2012, was in the first wave of peer coaches in the Peer Coaching Program under the Stanford Teaching and Mentoring Academy, and was the Director of the Practice of Medicine Year One Course at Stanford from 2013-2016. She emphasizes patient-centered care in the pursuit of clinical and educational excellence. She is frequently an invited presenter at the national conferences of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM), and the Western Group on Educational Affairs (WGEA) regional group of the AAMC; her scholarly work focuses on medical education endeavors, including equity and justice in systems of medical education assessment. She has also presented and published on topics in nutrition education and the teaching kitchen, working with medical scribes, Entrustable Professional Activities, primary care career recruitment and mentoring, procedures training, time management in ambulatory teaching, communication skills, virtual health and telehealth, teaching gender-affirming primary care, and learning communities.
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Raya Saab
Lindhard Family Professor of Pediatric Cancer Biology
BioI am a pediatric oncologist, and I primarily treat children who are diagnosed with soft tissue sarcomas including rhabdomyosarcoma, and children diagnosed with the eye tumor retinoblastoma, as well as children with other solid tumors.
I have two very different areas of primary research interest, both of which I pursue with passion. One focuses on global oncology, including clinical and research resource capacity building towards effective treatment and improving outcomes of children with cancer worldwide. I work with collaborators across the globe towards a common goal of improving access to diagnostic and clinical care, training of multidisciplinary teams, and building clinical resources and research capacity to develop context-informed approaches to improving cancer care and achieving better outcomes for children diagnosed with cancer irrespective of where they happen to live.
My parallel research interest, which is the focus of my laboratory, is understanding oncogenic signaling in pediatric soft tissue sarcomas, in an effort to clarify the driving biology and determinants of metastatic disease, to uncover novel targets for more effective treatment. We use preclinical in vitro and in vivo models, including murine and human cell lines, and mouse models of cancer. We have recently uncovered a paracrine role for rhabdomyosarcoma-secreted exosomes in impacting biology of stromal cells. Rhabdomyosarcoma-derived exosomes carry specific miRNA cargo that imparts an invasive and migratory phenotype on normal recipient fibroblasts, and proteomic analysis revealed specific and unique pathways relevant to the two different molecular rhabdomyosarcoma subtypes that are driven by distinct oncogenic pathways. We identified that the driver oncogene in fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma, PAX3-FOXO1, modulates exosome cargo to promote invasion, migration, and angiogenic properties, and identified specific microRNA and protein cargo acting as effectors of PAX3-FOXO1 exosome-mediated signaling, including modulation of oxidative stress response and cell survival signaling. Our ongoing work is focused on interrogating specific paracrine signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms of metastatic disease progression in rhabdomyosarcoma, for potential therapeutic targeting. -
Nojus Saad
Masters Student in Clinical Informatics Management, admitted Summer 2026
BioNojus Saad, MD, is a physician-entrepreneur and digital health diplomat dedicated to engineering health justice through scalable digital systems. As a volunteer humanitarian advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO), he co-develops global adolescent health indicators adopted by the World Bank, UNFPA, UN H6+ Partners, and UN Member States. His leadership in rural and LMIC communities across Iraq, India, and France is anchored by his role as a former founder and executive at the Youth For Women Foundation, where he spearheaded 45 youth-led initiatives directly impacting the lives of 18,500 women and young people.
Dr. Saad’s diplomatic expertise spans health and security, having served as UN Youth Ambassador for Disarmament and Biosecurity (UNODA) and as the MENA Youth Lead for the Swiss-based DTH-Lab. Through these mandates, he mobilized coalitions across 12 MENA countries to integrate digital innovation into national health agendas. This high-level advocacy is validated by his track record as a systems architect; in 2021, he orchestrated a digital health literacy and COVID-19 misinformation initiative for rural and displaced populations. By building the digital capacity of NGO leaders and youth, he empowered grassroots networks to execute 15 targeted awareness campaigns, reaching 10,000 women and youth to strengthen their access to reliable health services.
Looking ahead, Dr. Saad aspires to build a coordinated, all-in-one digital health platform connecting Iraq’s public and private healthcare sectors. The envisioned system would use interoperable electronic health records and data-driven referral matching to streamline patient pathways and connect individuals with high-quality, cost-effective care both within Iraq and internationally, including the United States and France. His long-term vision is to help unify fragmented healthcare systems and improve access to specialized care.
A Knight-Hennessy Scholar and former advisor to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, Dr. Saad holds an MD with executive diplomatic training from the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm School of Economics. At Stanford MCiM, he is refining the technical and managerial frameworks necessary to lead the next generation of inclusive, tech-driven health systems in LMICs. -
Chiara Sabatti
Professor of Biomedical Data Science and of Statistics, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsStatistical models and reasoning are key to our understanding of the genetic basis of human traits. Modern high-throughput technology presents us with new opportunities and challenges. We develop statistical approaches for high dimensional data in the attempt of improving our understanding of the molecular basis of health related traits.
