School of Medicine
Showing 1-19 of 19 Results
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Cellas Ari'ka Hayes
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioDr. Cellas Hayes is a first-generation college graduate, neuroscientist, and postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and minors in Classics, and Latin from the University of Mississippi (2019) and earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences with an emphasis in Pharmacology (2022), where he received advanced neuroscience research training under Dr. Nicole Ashpole’s guidance.
At Stanford, Dr. Hayes employs cutting-edge epidemiological and biostatistical methods with high-dimensional biological data to investigate the impact of cerebrovascular and Alzheimer’s disease pathologies on age-related outcomes such as cognitive decline and dementia. He has established national collaborations including the Strong Heart Study, Cardiovascular Health Study, Healthy Aging Brain Study - Health Disparities, and the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center.
Dr. Hayes is becoming a recognized leader in his field and beyond, serving as a Stanford Propel Postdoctoral Fellowship Alumni, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund PDEP Fellow, and a HABS-HD Health Enhancement Scientifist Program Fellow, and diversity supplement recipient. He is the founder and chair of the National Black Postdocs Emergency Support Program and a former co-president of the Stanford Black Postdocs Association. As a postdoc, Dr. Hayes has accrued over 500K in fellowship funds while participating in notable professional development programs like the NIH NIMHD HDRI and NIA Butler Williams Scholars Program. At UM, Dr. Hayes was the first recipient to receive a NIH NRSA F31 in 37 years while also being a Southern Regional Education Board Scholar and UMMC-GTEC Smith Scholars Program.
Passionate about mentorship and education, Dr. Hayes develops innovative resources and curricula through the Stanford Grant Writing Academy, where he has trained postbaccalaureate, Ph.D., and postdoctoral scholars in grant writing and career development. -
Chris Heitzig
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioChris Heitzig is a New Map of Life Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health. An economist by training, his research develops models to examine healthy aging across the life course, with a particular emphasis on identifying causal pathways and key points of policy intervention to improve well-being in later life. A central focus of his work is the socioeconomic impact of undiagnosed metabolic disorders—how these conditions manifest, the costs of leaving them untreated, and the potential for interventions to improve detection and outcomes. His research combines insights from economics and public health with machine learning methods for causal inference.
Before joining Stanford, Chris served in research roles at the Brookings Institution and the World Bank. At Brookings, he managed a $1.5 million research grant investigating how technological change is reshaping employment in Africa. At the World Bank, he designed randomized controlled trials to measure the causal effects of health and employment programs and served in an operational role as the day-to-day lead for a $20 million job transition program. Chris holds a PhD in Economics from the Institute of Development Studies, an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Economics from Saint John’s University. -
Alyssa Michelle Howren
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioAlyssa Howren is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Medicine. She completed her MSc and PhD training at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences during which she was a trainee at Arthritis Research Canada. Her PhD training was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Doctoral Award, along with UBC’s Wayne Riggs Interdisciplinary Scholarship in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Andrew Nord Fellowship in Rheumatology. Her research focuses on using multiple data sources to provide evidence to disentangle the complex relationship between depression and anxiety with inflammatory arthritis and assess how people living with inflammatory arthritis are treated for their comorbid mental disorders. Methodological approaches in Dr. Howren’s work have included systematic reviews, qualitative research, mixed methods, and population-based studies using linked administrative health databases. She was awarded a CIHR Fellowship for her postdoctoral research at Stanford University which aims to evaluate whether biases in clinical decision-making contribute to the sex and gender differences observed in the diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
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Amy M Inkster
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioAmy Inkster, PhD is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University. She conducts research on epigenetic alterations in pregnancy and early life to understand the molecular levers affecting healthy development. She primarily uses large 'omics datasets to study the effect of environmental exposures on pregnancy outcomes and maternal health.
Dr. Inkster received her PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), where her research focused on evaluating DNA methylation variation in prenatal life, primarily in the context of placental epigenetics, sex differences, prenatal exposures, and X-chromosome inactivation. She holds a BSc in Chemistry. As a cross-disciplinary researcher, her work and research interests lie at the intersection of molecular mechanisms and their impacts on human health and disease at the population level. -
Tracy Lam-Hine
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioTracy Lam-Hine (he/him), DrPH, MBA, is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and the Center for Population Health Sciences, and a T32 trainee in the Division of Endocrinology, Gerontology, and Metabolism. Dr. Lam-Hine is a social and legal epidemiologist, studying how exposure to adverse childhood experiences and policy environments shape the risk of chronic disease and aging outcomes across the life course. Within this broad research area, he has a special focus on the health and social experiences of the US Multiracial population and the measurement of structural racism in policy. Dr. Lam-Hine also collaborates with state and local health jurisdictions in California and Hawaii in applied epidemiology and surveillance projects on topics including structural racism, adolescent health, and COVID-19.
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Lili Liu
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioLili (Larry) Liu, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health at Stanford University. As an integrative epidemiologist, Dr. Liu unifies molecular biomarkers, large-scale population cohorts, and real-world health data into coherent, hypothesis-driven research with a sustained focus on how early-life exposures, genetic variation, lifestyle, and pharmacological factors shape inflammation, biological aging, and chronic disease risk across the life course. Trained in cancer genetic and nutrition epidemiology with complementary expertise in pharmacoepidemiology, his doctoral research at Vanderbilt University included a multi-ancestry GWAS of urinary prostaglandin E2 metabolite (PGE-M), development of PGE-M–derived dietary and lifestyle scores via elastic net with extensive bootstrapping, and Mendelian randomization analyses linking PGE-M to colorectal cancer across ancestries. At Stanford, Dr. Liu extends his research to maternal–fetal and placental epidemiology, building nationwide claims-based pregnancy cohorts (e.g., MarketScan) to examine gestational diabetes and downstream liver disease risk, and creating mother–infant pair cohort to investigate systemic antibiotic exposure in relation to subsequent inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease. Parallel collaborations focus on extracellular vesicles and angiogenic signaling in placental health. Methodologically, Dr. Liu works at the interface of causal inference, pharmacoepidemiology, and machine learning with reproducible data engineering (R/Python, SQL, HPC), with the overarching goal of translating mechanistic insights into actionable biomarkers and risk tools for chronic disease prevention in diverse populations.
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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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Astrid Nicole Zamora
Postdoctoral Scholar, Epidemiology
BioDr. Astrid N. Zamora is a public health researcher and epidemiologist whose work examines how environmental factors—including built and chemical exposures—and key health behaviors such as sleep, diet, and physical activity influence cardiometabolic and related health outcomes. Her research integrates epidemiologic methods with community-based participatory approaches, with the goal of translating findings into evidence-based public health strategies that promote chronic disease prevention and support healthy aging.
