Stanford University
Showing 141-150 of 260 Results
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Nicholas Siemons
Postdoctoral Scholar, Materials Science and Engineering
BioNicholas began his academic career by studying integrated Masters at University College, London. During this time he published his first article, "Multiple exciton generation in nanostructures for advanced photovoltaic cells" - a review of how to produce photovoltaics with greater than 100% internal efficiencies. Following this Nicholas began research into solar voltaics and organic batteries in the group of Prof. Jenny Nelson at Imperial College, London. During this time Nicholas developed his keen interest in how to relate the chemical design of polymers to their ability to function as battery electrode materials. To achieve this goal, Nicholas applies atomistic simulation methods to such polymer systems, and relates the simulated findings to experimental results, bridging the gap between chemistry and device properties. As well as linking molecular chemical design to device performance, Nicholas applies novel simulation and analysis methodologies to study these systems, including Molecular Dynamics, Density Functional Theory, Molecular Metadynamics and Network Analysis.
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Pilleriin Sikka
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI strive to understand the phenomenology, dynamics, mechanisms, and impact of subjective experiences that occur across different states of consciousness—from wakefulness to normal sleep and dreaming, to anesthesia dreaming, and to psychedelic experiences. As part of my doctoral research, conducted under the mentorship of Prof. Antti Revonsuo, I investigated the conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of dream experiences, the neural correlates of these experiences, and how dreaming is associated with waking well-being. In 2021, I joined Stanford University as a Postdoctoral Scholar, initially working at the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory under the mentorship of James J. Gross. In this role, I expanded my research to explore emotions and emotion regulation across the wake-sleep cycle and to study an oft-overlooked aspect of well-being--peace of mind. Since November 2023, I have been a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, where, under the mentorship of Dr. Boris Heifets, I am investigating transformative experiences, specifically, the mechanisms and therapeutic potential of anesthesia-induced dream states and psychedelic experiences.
Leveraging my unique multidisciplinary background, my goal is to bridge the fields of consciousness research, sleep and dream research, emotion research, and well-being research and draw upon the concepts, theories, and methods from psychology, neuroscience, and (molecular) biology. To this end, I have experience in using diverse methods, including self-reports (development, validation, and use of questionnaires), interviews, ecological momentary assessment (EMA/ESM; diaries), behavioural experiments, natural language processing, sleep monitoring techniques, and electrophysiological (EEG/ERP) recordings, combined with qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
With an overarching goal of conducting research with societal impact, I aspire to: (1) develop innovative diagnostic and prognostic markers of mental health and well-being, and (2) to devise and test interventions scalable for enhancing the mental and physical well-being of communities.
