Vice Provost and Dean of Research
Showing 31-40 of 128 Results
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Laura Seeholzer
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
BioMy laboratory studies how we detect, perceive, and respond to sensations from within our own bodies. We focus on understanding how the airways sense potentially harmful substances and trigger protective reflexes like coughing and sneezing. Using techniques ranging from molecular and biophysical studies of single cells to behavioral studies, we investigate how specialized epithelial cells lining the airways detect different types of stimuli and communicate this information to the nervous system. By studying epithelial cells from animal models and humans, we aim to understand how their dysfunction contributes to conditions like chronic cough and aspiration. We also examine how the brain processes these internal signals to create the conscious "urge" to cough or sneeze, and how we learn to suppress these reflexes in appropriate social contexts. This research advances our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms linking bodily sensations to conscious awareness, behavioral control, and disease.
I did my PhD at Rockefeller University with Dr. Vanessa Ruta and post-doctoral studies at UCSF with Dr. David Julius. -
Debbie Senesky
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, of Electrical Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioDebbie G. Senesky is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and the Electrical Engineering Department. In addition, she is the Principal Investigator of the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab). Her research interests include the development of nanomaterials for extreme harsh environments, high-temperature electronics for Venus exploration, and microgravity synthesis of nanomaterials. In the past, she has held positions at GE Sensing (formerly known as NovaSensor), GE Global Research Center, and Hewlett Packard. She received the B.S. degree (2001) in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California. She received the M.S. degree (2004) and Ph.D. degree (2007) in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. Senesky is the Site Director of nano@stanford. She is currently the co-editor of two technical journals: IEEE Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems and Sensors. In recognition of her research, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2025, Emerging Leader Abie Award from AnitaB.org in 2018, Early Faculty Career Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2012, Gabilan Faculty Fellowship Award in 2012, and Sloan Ph.D. Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2004.
Prof. Senesky's career path and research has been featured by Scientific American, Seeker, People Behind the Science podcast, The Future of Everything radio show, Space.com, and NPR's Tell Me More program. More information about Prof. Senesky can be found at https://xlab.stanford.edu and on Instagram (@astrodebs). -
Kawin Setsompop
Professor of Radiology (Radiological Sciences Laboratory) and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering
BioKawin Setsompop is a Professor of Radiology and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on the development of novel MRI acquisition methods, with the goal of creating imaging technologies that can be used to help better understand brain structure and function for applications in Healthcare and Health sciences. He received his Master’s degree in Engineering Science from Oxford University and his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Prior to joining Stanford, he was a postdoctoral fellow and subsequently a faculty at the A.A. Martinos center for biomedical imaging, MGH, as well as part of the Harvard and MIT faculty. His group has pioneered several widely-used MRI acquisition technologies, a number of which have been successfully translated into FDA-approved clinical products on Siemens, GE, Phillips, United Imaging and Bruker MRI scanners worldwide. These technologies are being used daily to study the brain in both clinical and neuroscientific fields.
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Robert W. Shafer
Professor (Research) of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and, by courtesy, of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy group’s research is on the mechanisms and consequences of virus evolution with a focus on HIV therapy and drug resistance. We maintain a public HIV drug resistance database (http://hivdb.stanford.edu) as a resource for HIV drug resistance surveillance, interpreting HIV drug resistance tests, and HIV drug development. Our paramount goal is to inform HIV treatment and prevention policies by identifying the main factors responsible for the emergence and spread of drug resistance.
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Nigam H. Shah, MBBS, PhD
Professor of Medicine (Biomedical Informatics), of Biomedical Data Science and, by courtesy, of Computer Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe answer clinical questions using aggregate patient data at the bedside. The Informatics Consult Service (https://greenbutton.stanford.edu/) put this idea in action and led to the creation of Atropos Health. We build predictive models that allow taking mitigating actions, keeping the human in the loop.
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Nirao Shah
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator), of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study how our brains generate social interactions that differ between the sexes. Such gender differences in behavior are regulated by sex hormones, experience, and social cues. Accordingly, we are characterizing how these internal and external factors control gene expression and neuronal physiology in the two sexes to generate behavior. We are also interested in understanding how such sex differences in the healthy brain translate to sex differences in many neuro-psychiatric illnesses.
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Mohammad Shahrokh Esfahani
Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology (Radiation and Cancer Biology)
BioI lead a computational oncology laboratory that develops machine learning and statistical methods for high-dimensional genomics, with particular expertise in Bayesian and uncertainty-aware modeling to integrate prior biological knowledge with large-scale datasets.
Our research centers on liquid biopsy analytics—especially cell-free DNA (cfDNA)—to noninvasively quantify genetic and epigenetic states relevant to cancer detection, monitoring, and tumor evolution. We developed EPIC-seq, a fragmentomics-based method that uses cfDNA fragmentation patterns to infer regulatory activity and gene expression programs, providing a scalable framework for epigenetic profiling from blood.
A core methodological focus of the lab is enabling reliable inference in extremely low signal-to-noise settings that are typical of cfDNA and early-stage disease. We build robust, interpretable models and benchmarking frameworks that support clinical translation, with the long-term aim of democratizing access to sensitive, minimally invasive cancer diagnostics. -
Cory Shain
Assistant Professor of Linguistics and, by courtesy, of Psychology
BioI lead the Laboratory for Computation & Language in Minds & Brains (CLiMB Lab). We try to figure out how our brains let us go so efficiently from sensation (e.g., speech, reading) to meaning, and we do this using a combination of neuroimaging, computer modeling, and behavioral experiments. See the lab website for details.
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Mehrdad Shamloo
Professor (Research) of Neurosurgery and, by courtesy, of Neurology and Neurological Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe ultimate goal of the Shamloo laboratory is to rapidly advance our understanding of brain function at the molecular, cellular, circuit and behavioral levels, and to elucidate the pathological process underlying malfunction of the nervous system following injury and neurologic disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson’s disease, and autism. We have been focusing on the noradrenergic system and approaches leading to restoration of brain adrenergic signaling in these disorders.
