School of Medicine
Showing 1-10 of 53 Results
-
Melek Firat Altay
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
BioMelek Firat Altay earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she studied alpha-synuclein heterogeneity in the context of Parkinson’s disease and other synucleinopathies. In 2024, she joined the Andreasson Lab as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow to explore how immune responses influence Alzheimer's disease pathology and progression. An enthusiast of science communication, she acts as the City Coordinator for the Pint of Science Festival at Stanford/Palo Alto. A trained musician, she also hosts podcasts for the New Books Network, featuring newly published works in biology, neuroscience, biotechnology, and music history and aesthetics.
-
MacKenzie Bolen
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
BioDr. MacKenzie “Mack” Bolen’s defining research passion is to leverage accessible and modifiable lifestyle factors to mitigate neurodegenerative risk. During her undergraduate education at Austin College in Texas, she began pursuing her interest in neurodegeneration by conducting research focused on the neuroprotective benefits of the ketogenic diet. This work evolved into an honors thesis investigating markers of inflammation in saliva from contact sport athletes and culminated in a TEDx talk on sports-related brain injuries. These experiences cemented her desire to understand the minutiae of the brain and catalyzed her decision to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Florida (UF). During Mack’s training under Dr. MG. Tansey at UF, her dissertation work generated global collaborations centered on a multiomic approach that leverages machine learning to identify peripheral biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets to slow the onset or progression of Parkinson’s disease. A hallmark of Mack’s career has been participating in collaborative team science and mentorship of the next generation of scientists, where she has consistently mentored advanced and budding scientists within the Gainesville community and collaborated on several manuscripts from labs across the nation. In addition to her scholarly work, she regularly volunteered at the UF Neuromedicine Intensive Care Unit (Neuro ICU) while pursuing her Ph.D. to better understand the clinical perspective of neurodegeneration.
By blending her Ph.D. training and experiences in the Neuro ICU, Mack hopes to actively improve the treatment of individuals living with neurodegeneration and continue to push the frontier of medicine as a postdoctoral scholar in Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford. Now under the mentorship of Dr. K. Poston, Mack will continue to access essential training at the intersection of immunology and Parkinson’s disease, via the investigation of the gut-brain axis. As a former collegiate soccer player, Mack loves to pretend to relive her glory days during rec-league on the weekends and can also be found struggling through a Yin yoga class. -
Chuyi Cui, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
BioDr. Chuyi Cui is a postdoctoral scholar in the Human Motor Control and Neuromodulation Lab at Stanford University School of Medicine. She earned her Ph.D. in Biomechanics and Motor Control, with a minor in Gerontology, from Purdue University. Her doctoral research focused on understanding gait control and stability in healthy aging, through comprehensive investigations of the kinematics and kinetics of adaptive locomotion in young and older adults. At Stanford, her postdoctoral research expanded to clinical populations, aiming to uncover the mechanisms underlying gait dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases. Under the guidance of Dr. Helen Bronte-Stewart, she contributes to clinical trials on closed-loop deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's Disease, utilizing advanced neuromodulation technology to develop and evaluate DBS therapies that adapt in real time to patients' motor fluctuations and alleviate gait symptoms.
