Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance
Showing 241-260 of 358 Results
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Michele Lanpher Patel
Instructor, Medicine - Stanford Prevention Research Center
BioMichele L. Patel, PhD is an Instructor in the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Trained as a clinical health psychologist, Dr. Patel conducts research to optimize scalable digital health interventions for adults with obesity. She leads clinical trials that test innovative strategies to address the critical challenge of suboptimal engagement in digital interventions.
Dr. Patel's research is supported by an NIH career development award (K23; 2022-2027). Her recent Spark trial investigated the most potent combination of self-monitoring strategies in a behavioral weight loss intervention among 176 adults with overweight or obesity. Results are expected to be published in 2026.
She is also testing other strategies to promote engagement, weight loss, and health. This includes the impact of easier vs. harder goals, and the effect of high-frequency, low-friction behavioral strategies. Her work leverages the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) to systematically identify intervention strategies that maximize effectiveness while minimizing patient burden.
Dr. Patel received her PhD in clinical psychology from Duke University. She completed her clinical internship at the VA Palo Alto with a specialization in behavioral medicine, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship (T32) at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. She currently serves as the Chair of the Optimization of Behavioral and Biobehavioral Interventions special interest group in the Society of Behavioral Medicine.
Primary Research Interests:
-- Optimizing digital interventions for obesity treatment and prevention
-- Leveraging behavioral science to create lower-burden self-monitoring strategies to improve engagement and outcomes
-- Identifying psychosocial factors (including health literacy and self-efficacy) that influence treatment success
Methodological Expertise:
-- Randomized clinical trials, including factorial designs and embedded trials
-- Systematic reviews
-- Signal detection analysis -
Marco Perez
Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine)
BioDr. Marco Perez's research goal is to better understand the fundamental causes of cardiovascular disease through the study of genetics and epidemiology. His group studies the genetic variations and environmental exposures that are associated with conditions such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure. He has led the studies of atrial fibrillation in Women's Health Initiative, one of the largest nation-wide population-based cohorts. He is currently conducting a large study monitoring for silent or asymptomatic atrial fibrillation in women from the WHI randomized to exercise intervention, and was co-PI of the Apple Heart Study, a clinical trial that validated the ability of a smartwatch to detect atrial fibrillation. He is now PI of the Clinical Coordinating Center at Stanford for the REACT-AF which is a clinical trial to evaluate efficacy and safety of a "pill-in-the pocket" approach to anticoagulation for AF using a smartwatch. He is interested in understanding the paradox that atrial fibrillation is less common in African Americans and Hispanics, despite a greater burden of risk factors such as hypertension. As director of the Stanford Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic, he evaluates families with rare inherited arrhythmias associated with sudden death such as Long QT and Brugada Syndromes and explores their links with novel genes. He also studies the genetic causes of very early onset atrial fibrillation. He also studies how best to use the electrocardiogram and imaging modalities using Machine Learning techniques to identify patients at risk for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Perez receives funding from the NIH/NHLBI, Apple Inc., Janssen and the Colson Foundation.
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Suzanne Pfeffer
Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor of Medical Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe major focus of our research is to understand the molecular basis of inherited Parkinson's Disease (PD). We focus on the LRRK2 kinase that is inappropriately activated in PD and how it phosphorylates Rab GTPases, blocking the formation of primary cilia in specific regions of the brain. The absence of primary cilia renders cells unable to carry out Hedgehog signaling that is critical for neuroprotective pathways that sustain dopamine neurons.
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Jennifer Pien MD
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioJennifer H. Pien is a Clinical Associate Professor through the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University. She is the Director of The Pegasus Physician Writers, Founder of The Pegasus Review, and is a founding faculty editor for the Oxford Review of Books x Stanford collaboration. She also serves on the Advisory Board for The Bellevue Literary Press and the Stanford School of Medicine Medical Humanities Fellowship. Jennifer is represented by Amy Collins of Talcott Notch. She is the author of Healing the Healers, Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 2025 and is the Co-Founder of Hesperides Literary Agency.
In addition to her work in Medical Humanities, her interests include advocacy for adults with developmental disabilities where she cofounded Puente Clinic through the San Mateo County Medical System, an innovative dev. disabilities subspecialty clinic. She serves on the Regional Advisory Committee to the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities. Currently, her clinical focus is on physician well-being through the WellConnect team. -
Russell Poldrack
Albert Ray Lang Professor of Psychology and, by courtesy, of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur lab uses the tools of cognitive neuroscience to understand how decision making, executive control, and learning and memory are implemented in the human brain. We also develop neuroinformatics tools and resources to help researchers make better sense of data.
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Ada Poon
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur research focuses on providing theoretical foundations and engineering platforms for realizing electronics that seamlessly integrate with the body. Such systems will allow precise recording or modulation of physiological activity, for advancing basic scientific discovery and for restoring or augmenting biological functions for clinical applications.
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Lisa Post
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Lisa Post, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of anxiety, depression and adjustment disorders in adults. She has been a practicing clinician at Stanford Hospital and Clinics since 1993. Since 2000, she has been Director of a clinical program for Stanford Varsity Athletes and for nine years has been the Team Clinician for the San Francisco 49ers. Her primary interest are in the treatment of high performing individuals and in stress management.
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Manu Prakash
Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Oceans
BioWe use interdisciplinary approaches including theory and experiments to understand how computation is embodied in biological matter. Examples include cognition in single cell protists and morphological computing in animals with no neurons and origins of complex behavior in multi-cellular systems. Broadly, we invent new tools for studying non-model organisms with significant focus on life in the ocean - addressing fundamental questions such as how do cells sense pressure or gravity? Finally, we are dedicated towards inventing and distributing “frugal science” tools to democratize access to science (previous inventions used worldwide: Foldscope, Abuzz), diagnostics of deadly diseases like malaria and convening global citizen science communities to tackle planetary scale environmental challenges such as mosquito surveillance or plankton surveillance by citizen sailors mapping the ocean in the age of Anthropocene.
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Carla Pugh, MD, PhD
Thomas Krummel Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Technology Enabled Clinical Improvement (T.E.C.I.) Center is a multidisciplinary team of researchers dedicated to the design and implementation of advanced engineering technologies that facilitate data acquisition relating to clinical performance.
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Stanley Qi
Associate Professor of Bioengineering
BioStanley Qi (publishing as Lei S. Qi) is a pioneer in the field of genome engineering and the architect of the foundational technologies that transitioned CRISPR from a "cutting" tool into a universal platform for Programmable Biology. As the inventor of CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) and CRISPR activation (CRISPRa), Qi established the first methods for the precise, reversible, and targeted regulation of the human genome without altering the DNA sequence.
The Qi Lab integrates scalable genomic perturbation with live-cell and super-resolution imaging and computation-guided design to redefine the boundaries of cellular control. Under Dr. Qi’s leadership, the group has fundamentally expanded the genome engineering toolbox, evolving CRISPR from a single editing tool into a multidimensional platform for the precise control of dynamic and spatial cell states. This work includes establishing foundational technologies and architectures for precise epigenetic editing, multiplexed regulation of the transcriptome, programmable 3D genome organization, and spatial control of RNA logistics. By pioneering real-time visualization of chromatin dynamics and RNA in living cells, the lab provides an unprecedented window into the fundamental "control principles of life."
This principle-driven technology lineage has moved into the clinic, with the lab's compact epigenetic editor currently in first-in-human clinical testing for FSHD muscular dystrophy (NCT06907875). This milestone represents a core mission of the lab: translating foundational engineering into next-generation therapeutics that act predictably as dynamic, complex systems.
Beyond single-cell control, the Qi Lab is building a framework for synthetic cell–cell communication, with a particular emphasis on the bidirectional interplay between immune cells and neurons. The lab’s goal is to move beyond describing molecular parts to discovering fundamental control principles in living systems: how regulatory landscapes create stable states and memory, how spatial genome–RNA organization shapes dynamic responses, and how engineered cell–cell interactions can generate emergent multicellular behaviors.
By integrating computational design with experimental biology, Dr. Qi aims to identify the generalizable rules linking molecular programs to systems-level physiology. He is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator and an Institute Scholar at the Sarafan ChEM-H, and is dedicated to shaping the technical and ethical frameworks that will define the future of human genome engineering. -
Stephen Quake
Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Bioengineering, of Applied Physics and, by courtesy, of Physics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSingle molecule biophysics, precision force measurement, micro and nano fabrication with soft materials, integrated microfluidics and large scale biological automation.
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Nilam Ram
Professor of Communication and of Psychology
BioNilam Ram studies the dynamic interplay of psychological and media processes and how they change from moment-to-moment and across the life span.
Nilam’s research grows out of a history of studying change. After completing his undergraduate study of economics, he worked as a currency trader, frantically tracking and trying to predict the movement of world markets as they jerked up, down and sideways. Later, he moved on to the study of human movement, kinesiology, and eventually psychological processes - with a specialization in longitudinal research methodology. Generally, Nilam studies how short-term changes (e.g., processes such as learning, information processing, emotion regulation, etc.) develop across the life span, and how longitudinal study designs contribute to generation of new knowledge. Current projects include examinations of age-related change in children’s self- and emotion-regulation; patterns in minute-to-minute and day-to-day progression of adolescents’ and adults’ emotions; and change in contextual influences on well-being during old age. He is developing a variety of study paradigms that use recent developments in data science and the intensive data streams arriving from social media, mobile sensors, and smartphones to study change at multiple time scales. -
Ashwin Ramayya, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery
BioDr. Ramayya is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. He specializes in the treatment of patients with chronic pain, movement disorders, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. His research program will focus on understanding brain mechanisms underlying pain experience and how to alleviate pain using brain stimulation.
Dr. Ramayya specializes in neuromodulation, including deep brain stimulation (DBS), spinal cord stimulation, MRI-guided laser therapy, and focused ultrasound. Dr. Ramayya obtained his MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also completed his neurosurgery residency and a fellowship in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery.
His research efforts have identified neural substrates underlying learning, memory, and decision-making using computational behavioral modeling, neurophysiology, and neuroimaging.
Dr. Ramayya has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Neuroscience, NeuroImage, and Cerebral Cortex. He has also presented his work at national and international meetings, including those for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Pan Philadelphia Neurosurgery Conference. -
Babak Razavi, MD, PhD
Clinical Associate Professor, Adult Neurology
BioDr. Razavi's clinical interests are in medically refractory epilepsies and using high density EEG (electroencephalogram) for better localization of seizure foci. His research areas include using advanced digital signal processing and engineering techniques for analyzing EEG and using seizures as a model for understanding consciousness.
Dr. Razavi is the Founder and Director of DEL - Distributed EEG Lab. DEL's vision is to make EEG easy as 1, 2, 3. We turn complexity into simplicity. We are distributed in time and space. DEL was founded in the spirit of cloud computing, networking, and the notion that research in collaboration is more exciting and fruitful than in isolation. Everyone contributes - no matter how small; everyone wins - no matter how big. It was inspired by the mentorship of Dr. Kimford Meador and Dr. Robert Fisher. All you need is access to a computer and the internet.
DEL is the ideal collaborative environment for students (undergraduate and graduate) and faculty who would like to: (1) apply ready-to-use advanced analytical techniques to test specific hypotheses in cognition, neuroscience and epilepsy, and (2) develop and test new algorithms for analyzing EEG and other biological signals. -
Byron Reeves
Paul C. Edwards Professor of Communication and Professor, by courtesy, of Education
BioByron Reeves, PhD, is the Paul C. Edwards Professor of Communication at Stanford and
Professor (by courtesy) in the Stanford School of Education. Byron has a long history of
experimental research on the psychological processing of media, and resulting responses and
effects. He has studied how media influence attention, memory and emotional responses and has
applied the research in the areas of speech dialogue systems, interactive games, advanced
displays, social robots, and autonomous cars. Byron has recently launched (with Stanford
colleagues Nilam Ram and Thomas Robinson) the Human Screenome Project (Nature, 2020),
designed to collect moment-by-moment changes in technology use across applications, platforms
and screens.
At Stanford, Byron has been Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information,
and Co-Director of the H-STAR Institute (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced
Research), and he was the founding Director of mediaX at Stanford, a university-industry
program launched in 2001 to facilitate discussion and research at the intersection of academic
and applied interests. Byron has worked at Microsoft Research and with several technology
startups, and has been involved with media policy at the FTC, FCC, US Congress and White
House. He is an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association, and recipient of ICA Fellows book award for The Media Equation (with Prof. Clifford Nass), and the Novim Foundation Epiphany Science and Society Award. Byron’s PhD in Communication is from Michigan State University. -
Allan L. Reiss
Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Radiology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy laboratory, the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research (CIBSR), focuses on multi-level scientific study of individuals with typical and atypical brain structure and function. Data are obtained from genetic analyses, structural and functional neuroimaging studies, assessment of endocrinological status, neurobehavioral assessment, and analysis of pertinent environmental factors. Our overarching focus is to model how brain disorders arise and to develop disease-specific treatments.
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Anthony J. Ricci, PhD
Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in the School of Medicine and Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS) and, by courtesy of Molecular and Cellular Physiology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study hearing from biophysical, molecular and signal processing perspectives. One focus is mechanotransduction, where sound is converted into an electrical signal. As a major site for dysfunction, a more detailed understand will provide a means toward intervention. We develop new antibiotics to limit ototoxicity. We investigate drug delivery methods from surgical approaches to slow release systems, including gene therapy tools. We are studying cognitive decline following hearing loss.
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Laura Roberts, MD, MA
Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Roberts has performed numerous empirical studies of contemporary ethics issues in medicine and health policy and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, the National Alliance of Schizophrenia and Depression, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, and other private and public foundations.
