Stanford University
Showing 4,401-4,500 of 5,076 Results
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Calvin Van Zytveld
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2023
BioCalvin Van Zytveld is a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology who is also pursuing a Doctoral Certificate in Composition. His research focuses on sound recording and music notation. He is working on a dissertation titled 'Fixing Music: the Remediation of Sound and Performance through Notation and Recording 1958-2028,' which explores the means and motivations for fixing and affixing sounds past or future, real or fantastical. It includes chapters on text scores, microphone arrays, dynamic compression, and the pre-history of the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).
Calvin went blind suddenly and unexpectedly in 2020 due to Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON).
He is the Head Designer for BLIND ENVY, a project based at Stanford’s Center for Computer-based Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) to make the first-ever non-visual digital devices for recording and editing audio. BLIND ENVY is a 2026 recipient of the Magic Grant from the Brown Institute.
An avid cellist, he has given solo and chamber music performances in Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, and China and played with such musicians and ensembles as Gustavo Dudamel, Robert Spano, Ludovic Morlot, Per Tengstrand, the Richardson Chamber Players, and the English Concert.
His compositions have been performed by Ensemble Mosaik, Plymouth Chamber Players, NEKO3, Distractfold, Peninsula Women’s Chorus, Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys, Princeton University Orchestra, and the Princeton Camerata.
He co-directs and performs in two festivals in his hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 2016, Plymouth Chamber Players offers classical chamber concerts free of charge and features members of the Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, and Grand Rapids symphony orchestras. Across town, 2026 was the inaugural year of Fountain Fest. The festival stretched across four days and included punk rock, rave, stand-up comedy, film screenings, live-coded choir and organ, jazz, free improvisation, and guided meditation.
Calvin graduated summa cum laude in music from Princeton University, where he studied with Steven Mackey and Donnacha Dennehy. He pursued master’s degrees at the University of Michigan, studying composition with Bright Sheng and cello with Richard Aaron.
Recent awards and fellowships include the 2025 Chair’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2026 New Music USA Creator Fund, the RAISE fellowship for community-based research, and the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF). -
Kunal Varshneya
MD Student with Scholarly Concentration in Clinical Research, expected graduation Spring 2027
BioMedical student interested in orthopedic surgery and big data analytics.
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Dejan Vasic
Ph.D. Student in Art History, admitted Autumn 2023
Ph.D. Minor, Theater and Performance StudiesBioDejan Vasić is an art historian and curator of late modern and contemporary art and moving image media. He specializes in the transnational avant-garde and conceptual art, concentrating primarily on performance, video art, photography, and artists’ films and media works. His research intersects art, power, war, and everyday life, with methodological grounding in historical materialism, memory politics, decolonial, gender and feminist theory, and affirmation of critical thinking as a public good. Dejan is passionate about the history of exhibitions, museology and curatorial practice; he is invested in writings in the first person, and frequently collaborates with artists who battle social, economic and political problems.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Vasić had over a decade of experience in Serbia and the Yugoslav region, where he engaged in radical curatorial practices and critical writing that delves into the politics and ethics of aesthetics. Since 2012, he is a member of the International Association of Art Critics AICA and has served on the Program Advisory Board of AICA-Serbia (2020-2023). Dejan curated visual arts program at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade (2017-2023), co-edited the Beton - Cultural Propaganda Kit (2018-2023), was part of the Four Faces of Omarska Working Group (2010-2015), the Culture of Memory curatorial platform (2010-2014) and Kontekst Collective (2009-2013). -
RJ Vasquez
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2025
BioRJ Vasquez (he/him) is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses on the history of American religions and gives particular attention to spiritual life, migration, labor, and the modern state. He is especially interested in spiritual life as a medium of historical agency.
Raised in California’s Central Valley, RJ earned an associate’s degree at Bakersfield College and a bachelor’s degree at California State University, Bakersfield. He completed a master’s degree in theological studies at Harvard University before beginning his doctoral studies at Stanford.
RJ is also interested in digital humanities and directs a museum and archive revitalization project in his hometown of Wasco, California, where he works to add diversity and accessibility to his community’s shared history. -
Sam Vaughn
MBA, expected graduation 2027
BioSam Vaughn is a first-year MBA student at Stanford Graduate School of Business with a background in corporate finance, strategy, and operational leadership. Most recently, he served as Chief Financial Officer at birddogs, a fast-growing retail startup in New York, where he led financing, cost optimization, and growth initiatives. Prior to that, Sam was an Associate at Boston Consulting Group, advising clients on strategic and operational challenges across industries. He earned his bachelor's degree in Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University in 2021.
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Daniel Verdi
Ph.D. Student in Education, admitted Autumn 2025
BioComputational Social Science • Social Computing • Science of Science • Natural Language Processing • Responsible AI
I apply data science methods, mainly natural language processing (NLP) and social network analysis, to evaluate the communication and governance of science and technology. A focus of my work is how academic knowledge is translated across audiences, amplified or distorted through digital media, and taken up in political debate.
My research is particularly concerned with how algorithmic systems like AI and social media are changing information ecosystems and how their own risks and benefits are transmitted to the public. At the core of my work is a commitment to questions of equity, ethics, and social justice.
Beyond conducting science, I am also passionate about designing tools and events to put it in conversation with communities and create opportunities for marginalized students to engage with research and technology. I’m especially interested in improving digital and AI literacies, as well as in using AI and other technologies in informal education.
Before Stanford, I graduated from the University of Richmond as a Richmond Scholar, the institution's most prestigious and competitive academic award. Additionally, I have conducted research at universities such as Carnegie Mellon, University of Southern Califronia, and University of Copenhagen, and interned at Amazon Alexa AI. I’m also proud to have co-founded one of Brazil's largest high school science fairs, the Brazilian Fair of Young Scientists (FBJC), which has engaged over 2,000 participants and received over 1M website visits. -
AJ Villaruel
Ph.D. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, admitted Summer 2026
BioAJ's current research focuses on the hydrodynamics of large roughness elements in the surf zone. Specifically, he is interested in the cross/along-shore variability in energy dissipation in the presence of these elements, the associated turbulence and wake-dynamics, and the resulting implications for nearshore sediment transport and coastal morphology, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and laboratory wave-basin techniques.
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Andre Thien Vu
MD Student with Scholarly Concentration in Bioengineering / Cardiovascular-Pulmonary Sciences, expected graduation Winter 2029
BioMy name is Andre Vu, and I am currently an MS3 at Stanford School of Medicine. Growing up in Little Saigon as a child of Vietnamese refugees, I have always felt deeply connected to my cultural heritage and community. This background has fueled my passion for addressing health disparities, particularly in underserved populations.
My interests lie in improving health disparities and fostering innovation within the healthcare sector. I believe that finding creative solutions and equitable resource distribution are crucial for improving health outcomes in marginalized communities. Outside of my academic and professional pursuits, I have a deep love for cooking Vietnamese cuisine. It is a way for me to stay connected to my roots and share my culture with others. I also enjoy expressing my creativity through painting and sculpting, which provide a wonderful balance to my studies and allow me to unwind.
I am committed to using my medical education to meaningfully impact healthcare accessibility and quality, and I am excited to be part of a future where every individual has the opportunity to achieve optimal health. -
Adrian A. Wackett
Ph.D. Student in Geological Sciences, admitted Autumn 2022
BioAdrian A. Wackett was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota (unceded Wahpekute/Dakota lands). He double majored in Chemistry and Geosciences at Trinity University (TX) before returning to Saint Paul and completing his MS degree in Land & Atmospheric Sciences (specifically pedology/biogeochemistry) at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where he studied global w'o'rming. Before coming to Stanford as an NSF GRFP Fellow he traveled extensively through Latin America and SE Asia (by bike) and worked as an independent researcher affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at Umeå University and the Climate Impacts Research Centre in Abisko, Sweden. He's passionate about exploring the interconnectedness of Earth’s systems through his research and is equally passionate about looking beyond academia to cultivate enduring relationships with the lands and peoples he works with.Previous topics of inquiry include coupling ant bioturbation to the erosion and weathering of hillslope soils in SE Australia, exploring earthworm invasions and their deterministic effects on soil carbon dynamics in Fennoscandian and Alaskan forests, and examining the biogeochemical diversity of ‘black smoker’ plume particles at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. His dissertation focuses on applying an array of isotopic tracers and synchrotron-based X-ray approaches to explore how landscapes record and respond to a diverse set of disturbances, from biological invasions in Earth’s northern biomes to extreme storm events in Puerto Rico to cultural burning and wildfires in California.
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Matías Walker
Ph.D. Student in Philosophy, admitted Autumn 2026
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI'm interested in making contributions on both the metaphysical and logical fronts of philosophical questions. My doctoral project will combine tools from modal logic, model theory, higher-order semantics and formal metaphysics, with particular attention to the relationship between logical structure and its semantical reach in metaphysical interpretation.
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Darion Aaron Wallace
BioDarion A. Wallace, from Inglewood, CA, is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Education in the Race, Inequality, and Language in Education, History of Education, and Sociology of Education programs. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric and African American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in International Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University. As a Black Education Studies scholar, Darion’s research draws upon Black Studies, Sociology, and History, while employing mixed methods, to interrogate the ways K-12 American schools cohere logics of (anti)blackness and structure the life and educational outcomes of Black students across temporal and spatial bounds. Moreover, he is interested in how abolitionist praxes, pedagogies, and epistemologies rooted in the Black radical and intellectual tradition have and continue to serve a liberatory function in the project of Black education. To this aim, Darion is interested in partnering with public schools and libraries to develop secondary students’ historical literacies and archival skills to help them better understand the localized sociopolitical context that undergirds their lived experience. Previously, he has worked with the Learning Policy Institute as a Research and Policy Associate, the Service Employees International Union as an Organizer, and San Francisco State University as an Africana Studies Lecturer on Black Masculinities and Black Social Science.
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Zach Wallis
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2026
Other Tech - Graduate, History DepartmentBioZach Wallis is a PhD student in the Department of History in the field of British history. His research focuses on political economy, energy, and the environment in Australia, New Zealand, and the Southwest Pacific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is especially interested in understanding how conjoined political-economic and environmental transformations across the Pacific in this period prefigured the Great Acceleration in significant ways. Some of his other research interests include the environmental history of the First World War, historical theory, and theories of socio-metabolism.
Before coming to Stanford, Zach earned a B.A. in history from McGill University, a Master of History from the Australian National University, and a M.A in history from the University of Chicago. His dissertation at the University of Chicago, which won the Raymond D. Fogelson Thesis Prize, was a study of settler ecological thinking in late nineteenth century New Zealand. He has also previously undertaken research into late nineteenth and early twentieth century Australian intellectual history, and he has been published on the topic in History Australia. -
Patrick Walsh
Ph.D. Student in Applied Physics, admitted Autumn 2025
Student Trainer, Stanford Nano Shared FacilitiesBioPatrick graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2025 with a B.S. in Applied Math, Engineering, and Physics. He conducted his undergraduate research under Professor Mark Eriksson, where he studied Semiconductor Quantum Dot Qubits. His work focused on developing experimental techniques and numerical tools to automate gate-voltage calibration procedures for quantum dot devices. As an NSF Fellow and graduate student with the Bøttcher group at Stanford, Patrick is interested in using Josephson Junction Arrays to study a variety of problems in condensed matter, including vortex dynamics, quantum phase transitions, and novel material platforms.
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John Walters
Ph.D. Student in Chemistry, admitted Autumn 2024
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in the attosecond dynamics of atoms and molecules. Specifically, my interest lies in investigating the effect of electron-electron correlation and the influence of non Born-Oppenheimer dynamics on isolated quantum systems to drive understanding of both ground-state and excited-state processes. Additionally, I am interesting in applying covariance and machine-learning based techniques to improve measurement resolution in high-repetition rate experiments.
