Notable People 2018
May 2018
Katherine Blevins, MD; Vivian de Ruijter, MD; and Eric Kramer, PhD
Blevins, resident in surgery, and de Ruijter and Kramer, postdoctoral scholars, received a 2018 Translational Research Award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. The $100,000 award includes mentoring and oversight to help advance their large-bore arterial closure technology toward patient care.
Michael Eisenberg, MD
Eisenberg was promoted to associate professor of urology, effective March 1. He specializes in male infertility and sexual health, with a research focus on surgical innovation, epidemiologic studies and basic science discoveries to improve the treatments, outcomes and reproductive health of men.
Melanie Hayden Gephart, MD
Gephart was promoted to associate professor of neurosurgery, effective March 1. Her research focuses on understanding the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms driving tumor formation and disease progression in malignant brain tumors.
John Ioannidis, MD, DSc
Ioannidis, professor of medicine and of health research and policy and the C.F. Rehnborg Professor in Disease Prevention, received the 2018 Alexandra Jane Noble Science Courage Award from Novim. The award “recognizes those who speak out professionally as well as scientifically to correct a misimpression or right a wrong in the name of science and public understanding,” according to the nonprofit institute, based in Santa Barbara, California.
Michael Khodadoust, MD, PhD
Khodadoust was appointed assistant professor of medicine and of dermatology, effective March 1. His research focuses on examining how the body’s immune system fights cancer cells and developing immune-based therapies for the treatment of T-cell lymphomas.
Sun Kim, MD
Kim was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective March 1. She specializes in treating Type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome and obesity, with a research focus on the pathophysiology and treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
Gordon Lee, MD
Lee was promoted to professor of surgery, effective April 1. He is the residency program director for plastic surgery and director of microsurgery. He specializes in surgical education and training in plastic surgery, and his research interests include understanding and improving outcomes and developing new techniques in microsurgery and reconstructive surgery.
Clement Marshall, MD
Marshall, resident in surgery, was a co-recipient of the 2018 Thomas R. Russell, MD, FACS, Research Paper Competition Award from the Northern California Chapter American College of Surgeons. He was honored for the paper, “Gene expression analysis in abdominal adhesion formation.”
Benedict Anchang, PhD
Anchang, instructor of radiology, received a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for a one-year project to develop computational tools, algorithms, visualizations and benchmark data sets in support of the Human Cell Atlas, a collection of maps that will describe and define the cellular basis of health and disease.
Rebecca Aslakson, MD, PhD
Aslakson was appointed associate professor of medicine and of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective March 1. Her research focuses on palliative care interventions and outcomes, including improving access to palliative care for surgical and intensive care unit patients.
Helen Blau, PhD
Blau, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor, professor of microbiology and immunology and director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology, was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. The multidisciplinary society, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, is the oldest learned society in the United States.
Catherine Blish, MD, PhD
Blish was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective April 1. Her work focuses on understanding human natural killer cells and their role in viral immunity, and on defining the immune mechanisms that contribute to viral susceptibility in pregnant women.
David Camarillo, PhD; Michael Zeineh, MD, PhD; and Gerald Grant, MD
Camarillo, assistant professor of bioengineering; Zeineh, assistant professor of radiology; and Grant, associate professor of neurosurgery, were awarded a student-athlete health and well-being grant from the Pac-12 Conference. The three-year, $1.26 million grant will allow them to investigate head trauma and mental health as part of a Pac-12 initiative to improve the health, general well-being and safety of student-athletes at all conference member institutions.
Glenn Chertow, MD
Chertow, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Nephrology, received the National Kidney Foundation’s 2018 David M. Hume Memorial Award. The award recognizes a distinguished scientist-clinician in the field of kidney and urologic diseases who exemplifies high ideals of scholarship and humanism.
Judith Frydman, PhD; Paul Wise, MD; and Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Frydman, the Donald Kennedy Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a professor of genetics and of biology; Wise, the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and a professor of pediatrics; and Wysocka, professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology, were among 213 new members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s oldest honorary learned societies.
Daniel Herschlag, PhD
Herschlag, professor of biochemistry, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an organization that advises the nation on issues related to science and technology. He studies the fundamental behavior of RNA and proteins using an interdisciplinary approach to understand specific questions such as how enzymes work, how RNA folds and how proteins recognize RNA.
Haruka Itakura, MD, PhD
Itakura was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective March 1. She uses machine learning and radiogenomic approaches to analyze cancer data to inform the development of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics.
Josh Jaramillo, MD
Jaramillo, a second-year resident in general surgery, received the 2018 Pacific Coast Surgical Association Resident Global Surgery Scholarship. The $1,500 scholarship will help pay for travel and accommodation expenses for his international surgery rotation in Zimbabwe.
Roger Kornberg, PhD
Kornberg, professor of structural biology and the Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Medicine, was elected a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy class of 2018. The academy honors scientists whose contributions have propelled significant innovation and progress in cancer research.
Kyle Loh, PhD
Loh, assistant professor of developmental biology, has received the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation’s 2018 Thesis Prize for his work, “A developmental roadmap for the diversification of human tissue fates from pluripotent cells.” The prize is awarded for overall excellence and pertinence to high-impact applications of the physical sciences and includes a $5,000 honorarium.
Miquell Miller, MD
Miller, resident in surgery and graduate student in health policy, was awarded the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract/Society of Black Academic Surgeons Resident Research Award. The $25,000 grant will allow her to examine the relationship between physician cultural competency and coordination of care for rectal cancer patients.
Rushi Parikh, MD
Parikh, fellow in cardiovascular medicine, received an honorable mention in the American College of Cardiology Young Investigator Awards in Clinical Investigations. Parikh was recognized for his oral presentation, “Impact of endothelin-1 on cardiac allograft vasculopathy, late mortality and re-transplantation following heart transplantation.”
John Sunwoo, MD
Sunwoo was promoted to professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective March 1. His research interests include the immune response to cancer, the biology and developmental programs of natural killer cells, and intra-tumor and inter-tumor heterogeneity in head and neck cancer. He serves as the director of head and neck cancer research and the physician leader of the Head and Neck Cancer Care Program.
Sandra Winter, PhD
Winter, director of the WELL for Life research initiative and a social science research scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, began her three-year term as secretary/treasurer of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, an organization of scientific researchers, clinicians and educators dedicated to better health through behavior change.
Xue Yuan, PhD
Yuan, a postdoctoral scholar in plastic and reconstructive surgery, has received the Joseph Lister Award for New Investigators, which includes $8,000 from the American Association for Dental Research. Yuan won first place for her presentation, “Socket healing and immediate implant osseointegration via Wnt-responsive PDL cells.”
April 2018
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D. H. Chen Professor and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of bioengineering, was awarded a Canada Gairdner International Award for biomedical research by the Canada Gairdner Foundation. The honor, which includes $100,000, recognizes outstanding biomedical scientists who have made original contributions to medicine that increased the understanding of human biology and disease. Deisseroth was recognized for “the discovery of light-gated ion channel mechanisms and for the discovery of optogenetics, a technology that has revolutionized neuroscience.”
Mary Leonard, MD
Leonard, professor of medicine, the Adalyn Jay Physician-in-Chief of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and the Arline and Pete Harman Professor for the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, has received the 2018 YWCA Tribute to Women Award from the YWCA Silicon Valley. The honor is given annually to women who have made significant contributions to Silicon Valley in executive and professional roles. She was recognized for her outstanding achievements, leadership and impact on Stanford, medicine and the local community.
Crystal Mackall, MD, and Joseph Woo, MD
Mackall, professor of pediatrics and of medicine, and Woo, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery, were the senior authors of studies that received 2018 Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Awards from the Clinical Research Forum. The organization selected studies from U.S. institutions that it considered the most impactful peer-reviewed publications of 2017. Mackall’s study, “CD22-targeted CAR T-cells induce remission in B- ALL that is naïve or resistant to CD19-targeted CAR immunotherapy,” was published in Nature Medicine. Woo’s study, “Mechanical or biologic prostheses for aortic-valve and mitral-valve replacement,” was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Melissa Mavers, MD, PhD
Mavers, instructor of pediatrics, received a fellowship award from the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. She plans to use the $97,500 award to investigate two new methods to boost suppressive immune cells to prevent graft-versus-host disease, a potential side effect of stem cell transplantation, with the goal of making stem cell transplantation a safer therapy for cancer.
Mark McGovern, PhD
McGovern, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was appointed co-chief of public mental health and population sciences in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The division, created in 2013, focuses on public mental health and well-being, with an emphasis on issues that affect vulnerable populations.
Norman Rizk, MD
Rizk, professor of medicine, senior associate dean for clinical affairs and the Berthold And Belle N. Guggenheim Professor in Medicine, was selected as one of 100 Hospital & Health System CMOs to Know for 2018 by Becker’s Hospital Review. The list recognizes national physician leaders for strengthening their organizations through physician leadership development, patient safety initiatives and quality improvement.
Tammy Sirich, MD
Sirich was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Feb. 1. Her research uses new mass spectrometry techniques to examine the role of uremic solutes in kidney failure.
Ashley Titan, MD
Titan, resident in surgery, has received a two-year American College of Surgeons Resident Research Scholarship. The scholarships are intended to encourage residents to pursue careers in academic surgery. She plans to use the $30,000-per-year award to support her research on improving the healing capabilities of skeletal stem cells at injury sites using compounds approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
John Vorhies, MD
Vorhies was appointed assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery, effective Jan. 1. His research focuses on pediatric orthopedics and spinal deformity, with a specific interest in the intersection of health policy and clinical practice.
Brad Zuchero, PhD
Zuchero, assistant professor of neurosurgery, has received a Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The five-year, $770,000 award is given to newly independent investigators with academic careers in a field related to multiple sclerosis. He plans to investigate how myelin is formed around nerve cells and why regeneration of lost myelin fails in diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Kimberly Allison, MD
Allison was promoted to professor of pathology, effective Oct. 1. She serves as director of breast pathology and program director of the anatomic and clinical pathology residency. Her research interests include the development of diagnostic standards and the identification of new diagnostic and therapy-related tumor markers in breast pathology.
Bill Chiu, MD
Chiu was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective Jan. 1. His research focuses on understanding and treating neuroblastomas, including using local drug delivery therapy.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D.H. Chen Professor and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of bioengineering, was awarded the Frances & Kenneth Eisenberg Translational Research Prize from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center. The honor recognizes breakthrough research accomplishments in understanding and treating depression, bipolar disorder and related conditions. He received the $50,000 prize for his leadership in optogenetics, a technology that allows scientists to precisely manipulate nerve-cell activity in freely moving animals.
Kevin Grimes, MD
Grimes was promoted to professor (teaching) of chemical and systems biology, effective March 1. He is co-director of the SPARK Translational Research Program, which provides information and resources to researchers hoping to translate biomedical research discoveries into new treatments for patients.
Lisa Knowlton, MD
Knowlton was appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Feb. 1. In addition, she was awarded the C. James Carrico, MD, FACS, Faculty Research Fellowship for the Study of Trauma and Critical Care by the American College of Surgeons. The one-year, $40,000 award, with the option of a one-year continuance, will allow her to pursue a project on the impact of policy on the quality of trauma care. Her research interests include translating disparities among surgical patients into health-policy interventions and reducing barriers in access to surgical care globally.
March 2018
Shuchi Anand, MD
Anand was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Feb. 1. Her research focuses on using practical tools to improve care for patients with kidney disease living in low-resource settings, including India and Sri Lanka.
Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD
Diehn was promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology, effective March 1. He focuses on the development and application of liquid biopsy methods for cancer, as well as on understanding and overcoming resistance to cancer treatment.
Dita Gratzinger, MD, PhD
Gratzinger was promoted to associate professor of pathology, effective Feb. 1. Her research focuses on the architecture of cells in bone marrow and lymph nodes, as well as ways to maximize the diagnostic value of small biopsies to promote rapid, personalized patient care. She is the director of the hematopathology fellowship.
Robert Harrington, MD
Harrington, the Arthur L. Bloomfield Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine, was elected president-elect of the American Heart Association. He will be president in 2019-20. He is an interventional cardiologist whose interests include fostering scientific collaborations to conduct clinical research and the evaluation of antithrombotic therapies.
Odette Harris, MD
Harris was promoted to professor of neurosurgery, effective Feb. 1. Her research focuses on the epidemiology of traumatic brain injury and on characterizing and improving the delivery of neurosurgical services in the developing world and in underserved communities. She serves as Stanford’s director of brain injury in the Department of Neurosurgery, which involves managing and coordinating the medical and surgical care for patients with traumatic brain injury.
Desiree LaBeaud, MD
LaBeaud, associate professor of pediatrics, was named the 2018 Women in Science Speaker by the International Society for Antiviral Research. The award recognizes a female scientist who has made outstanding contributions to antiviral and virology science. She will deliver the address, “Making the invisible visible: Arbovirus transmission, risk, disease and prevention in Kenya,” in June in Portugal.
Jin Billy Li, PhD
Li was promoted to associate professor of genetics, effective Dec. 1. His research focuses on identifying when RNA is edited or modified and understanding the regulation and function of RNA.
William H. Robinson, MD
Robinson was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Feb. 1. His research aims to understand the initiation, natural remission and progression of autoimmune diseases, particularly of rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis; to elucidate the development of osteoarthritis; and to develop therapeutics for these diseases.
Nelson Teng, MD
Teng was promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective Jan. 1. His research interests include new treatment modalities, biologic response modifiers and immunotherapy, in particular a class of naturally occurring human antibodies in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies.
Sherry Wren, MD
Wren, professor of surgery, was elected president of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association for a term beginning in 2021. The association, which represents California, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington and British Columbia, works to advance the science and practice of surgery.
Agnieszka Czechowicz, MD, PhD
Czechowicz was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Jan. 1. Her research focuses on understanding how blood-forming stem cells interact with their microenvironment and on developing new therapies to improve bone marrow transplantation.
Karlene Cimprich, PhD; James Ford, MD; and Aaron Straight, PhD
Cimprich, professor of chemical and systems biology; Ford, professor of medicine and of genetics; and Straight, associate professor of biochemistry, received $2.1 million from the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Their project examines how three-stranded DNA-RNA hybrids known as R-loops, associated with BRCA mutations, contribute to genomic instability and whether they can be developed as biomarkers to enable cancer detection.
Joe Forrester, MD
Forrester, administrative chief resident in general surgery, has received the Best Mini-Podium Award from the Pacific Coast Surgical Association for his presentation “Gene-directed surgery for hereditary diffuse gastric cancer: Effect on survival,” which was delivered at the organization’s annual meeting in February.
Sheri Krams, PhD
Krams was promoted to professor (research) of surgery, effective Feb. 1. In addition, she was awarded a $1.8 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to analyze samples from more than 1,000 children who have received organ transplants. The goal is to identify new immune-mediated biomarkers that are predictive of outcomes. Her research interests include mechanisms of rejection and tolerance in solid organ transplantation and the role of microRNAs and natural killer cells in viral and immune reactions to nonself human antibodies.
Kyle Loh, PhD
Loh was appointed assistant professor of developmental biology, effective Feb. 1. His research group at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine has created a road map that describes how embryonic stem cells can develop into a spectrum of over 20 different human cell types, enabling the generation of uniform populations of human liver progenitors, bone progenitors and heart progenitors.
Olivia Martinez, PhD
Martinez, professor of surgery, was awarded a $1.9 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Her project aims to increase the understanding of, and suggest potential improvements in diagnosis and treatment for, Epstein-Barr virus infections in children who have received organ transplants.
Kuldev Singh, MD
Singh, professor of ophthalmology, received the subspecialty award from the American Glaucoma Society, which included delivering a keynote lecture at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting. At the November event, his lecture, “The glaucoma renaissance,” highlighted translational glaucoma research.
Upinder Singh, MD
Singh was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1, 2017. Her research examines the determinants of virulence that the parasite Entamoeba histolytica uses to cause invasive colonic and hepatic disease. She also studies the epidemiology of Entamoeba infections, with the goal of identifying an entamebic molecular signature that correlates with the microbes’ invasive potential.
Celina Yong, MD
Yong was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Dec. 1. Her research interests include socioeconomic, gender, racial and geographic disparities in quality of care and outcomes among cardiovascular disease patients. She also focuses on using low-cost, high-tech tools to improve the quality of cardiovascular care.
February 2018
Aijaz Ahmed, MD
Ahmed was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. He is the medical director of the adult liver transplant program at Stanford Health Care. His work focuses on outcomes research in liver transplantation, and database analysis and translational research on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and viral hepatitis.
Alice Bertaina, MD, PhD
Bertaina was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective Oct. 1. She specializes in the field of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in pediatric patients affected by blood malignancies and non-malignant disorders.
Mark Davis, PhD
Davis, professor of microbiology and immunology and the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor, is leading a team that has received a $1.7 million Convergence 2.0 grant from Stand Up to Cancer. The funding will support the analysis of the immune systems of individuals who develop cancer versus those who do not, with the goal of finding predictive biomarkers of those most at risk.
Richard Frock, PhD
Frock was appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, effective Jan. 1. His research interests include genome organization and editing, mechanisms of genomic instability, DNA double-strand break repair and chromosomal translocations.
Jeffrey Glenn, MD, PhD
Glenn was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. In addition, he was awarded a 2018 Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award. The awards, given by the Harrington Discovery Institute, aim to help early breakthroughs reach the clinic. Scholar-innovators receive $100,000, with an opportunity to qualify for up to $700,000, and can tap the expertise of a team of pharmaceutical industry specialists. Through the program, Glenn, who specializes in molecular virology, will work on the development of a broad-spectrum, single-dose therapeutic to treat the flu.
Joo Ha Hwang, MD, PhD
Hwang was appointed professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. He specializes in early detection and treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies, in particular using endoscopic submucosal dissection, endoscopic ultrasonography and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. His research investigates the use of focused ultrasound for enhancing drug delivery to pancreatic tumors.
Nishita Kothary, MD
Kothary was promoted to professor of radiology, effective Dec. 1. Her clinical practice focuses on percutaneous and transarterial therapies for primary and metastatic liver cancer. Her research interests include radiogenomics and the use of advanced imaging for diagnosing and treating hepatocellular carcinoma.
Jonathan Long, PhD
Long was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Jan. 1. His group studies bioactive metabolite pathways that control mammalian metabolism and physiology. His research aims to discover new metabolite signaling pathways and to identify the enzymes, transporters and receptors that regulate the signaling.
Homero Rivas, MD
Rivas was promoted to associate professor of surgery, effective Jan. 1. He specializes in minimal access surgery, and serves as the director of innovative surgery and the co-director of the fellowship in minimally invasive surgery. His research interests include digital health and telemedicine, as well as the use of wearable technologies in the operating room.
Fatima Rodriguez, MD
Rodriguez was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. Her research examines racial, ethnic and gender disparities in cardiovascular disease prevention and includes efforts to develop new interventions to address these disparities.
Mirabela Rusu, PhD
Rusu was appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective Jan. 1. Her research focuses on developing analytic methods for biomedical data integration, with a particular interest in radiology-pathology fusion. She uses advanced machine learning and traditional data/image processing to create comprehensive, multiscale representations of biomedical processes and pathological conditions, allowing for in-depth characterization.
Katrin Svensson, PhD
Svensson was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Jan. 1. Her research focuses on identifying and studying previously unknown hormones and their functions in order to understand the molecular pathways of metabolic disease and develop therapeutics.
Dean Winslow, MD
Winslow, professor of medicine, received a Society Citation Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The honor recognized his “extensive knowledge, deep compassion and wide-ranging experience over more than four decades.” In particular, he was recognized for his work with HIV drug resistance studies and his service as a flight surgeon in the military.
Samuel Yang, MD
Yang, associate professor of emergency medicine, was awarded a $3.8 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund a five-year project, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, that will investigate the use of single-cell microfluidic devices for the rapid diagnosis of bloodstream infections, which could improve patient outcomes and the use of antibiotics.
Ke Yuan, PhD
Yuan, an instructor of pulmonary and critical care medicine, was named a 2017 Parker B. Francis Fellow. The fellowship provides $156,000 over three years to support the development of outstanding investigators beginning careers in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. With her mentor, Mark Nicolls, MD, professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine, Yuan plans to investigate the role of pericytes, a cell in blood microvessels, in the pathobiology of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Shipra Arya, MD
Arya was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective Jan. 1. In addition, she was awarded the 2017 S. Timothy String President’s Award by the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery. The honor, which recognizes the best paper on vascular surgery presented at the association’s annual meeting, was given for the paper “High hemoglobin A1C associated with increased adverse limb events in peripheral arterial disease patients undergoing revascularization,” of which she was lead author. In addition, she was named a co-chair of the leadership committee of the Association of Academic Surgery.
Eran Bendavid, MD
Bendavid was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Dec. 1. His work uses empirical and modeling approaches to study the impacts of changing economic, political and natural environments on the major causes of death and disability in resource-strapped regions.
David Camarillo, PhD, and Gerald Grant, MD
Camarillo, assistant professor of bioengineering, and Grant, associate professor of neurosurgery, have received a $1 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to develop and share approximately 1,000 mouthguard sensors with head-injury researchers nationwide. That will allow for the collection of additional data, in collaboration with other researchers, to investigate the effect of head impacts on brain health.
Gary Darmstadt, MD
Darmstadt, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for maternal and child health, has received a $2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to determine the gestational age and preterm birth rates in low-resource settings using newborn metabolic profiles. In addition, he has received a $2 million grant from the United Arab Emirates to support a forthcoming Lancet series focused on building evidence on how transforming gender norms can improve health outcomes.
Brooke Howitt, MD
Howitt was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Dec. 1. Her research focuses on classifying and evaluating neoplasms of the female genital tract.
Michael Howitt, PhD
Howitt was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Dec. 1. His research explores the relationship between intestinal tuft cells, the immune system and microorganisms. His work aims to expand therapeutic options for treating gastrointestinal inflammatory disease.
James Korndorffer Jr., MD
Korndorffer was appointed associate professor of surgery and vice chair of education for the Department of Surgery, effective Dec. 1. His research focuses on using technology, including simulation, to improve teaching and training in the field of surgery.
Catherine Krawczeski, MD
Krawczeski was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Dec. 1. Her research focuses on the outcomes of critically ill pediatric heart patients after cardiopulmonary bypass. She directs the pediatric cardiology fellowship and is the medical director of cardiovascular intensive care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
Parag Mallick, PhD
Mallick was promoted to associate professor (research) of radiology, effective Jan. 1. His research uses multiscale systems approaches to accelerate diagnostics and personalized medicine.
Latha Palaniappan, MD
Palaniappan, professor of medicine, received a health leadership award from the India Community Center in Milpitas, California, for her work on understudied populations in medicine and her efforts to encourage these communities to participate in clinical research. Her research focuses on the effects of physical activity on the management of diabetes, particularly in Asian populations, which have higher rates of diabetes.
Theo Palmer, PhD
Palmer was promoted to professor of neurosurgery, effective Jan. 1. His research examines how neural stem cells respond to genetic and environmental factors, and how these responses influence the integration of newly generated neurons into functional neural circuits. Specifically, he examines neurodevelopmental disease risk genes that can become problematic when combined with an illness experienced by the mother during pregnancy.
Sergiu Pasca, MD
Pasca, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was awarded a 2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. The honor, which recognizes young immigrants who have demonstrated exceptional promise early in their careers, includes a $50,000 cash award. He received the prize for developing realistic models of the human brain and unearthing fundamental insights into the biology of neuropsychiatric diseases like autism.
Alan Schatzberg, MD
Schatzberg, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and director of the Stanford Mood Disorders Center, received a 2017 Julius Axelrod Mentorship Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The honor is given to a college member who has made an outstanding contribution to neuropsychopharmacology by mentoring and developing future leaders.
Vittorio Sebastiano, PhD
Sebastiano, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, received a $100,000 research grant from the American Federation for Aging Research. The awards are given to early career investigators to support research on aging and age-related diseases. His project will investigate aging reversal in cells using transient reprogramming.
Mehrdad Shamloo, PhD
Shamloo was promoted to professor (research) of neurosurgery, effective Dec. 1. His work focuses on understanding normal and pathological brain functions in neurological disorders, such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and autism, and on developing experimental therapeutics.
Tait Shanafelt, MD
Shanafelt was appointed professor of medicine, effective Nov. 1. His clinical work and research focus on the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and other low-grade lymphoid leukemias. He is Stanford Medicine’s chief wellness officer and directs the WellMD Center.
Carla Shatz, PhD
Shatz, the Sapp Family Provostial Professor, David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X and a professor of neurobiology and of biology, is a winner of the 2017 Harvey Prize in Science and Technology. The $75,000 prize recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to humankind. She is being honored for her discoveries about the development of visual circuits in the brain.
Sidhartha Sinha, MD
Sinha was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Dec. 1. His research focuses on understanding the microenvironmental changes in the inflamed versus normal gut, with the goal of identifying therapeutic targets for people with gastrointestinal immune-mediated disorders. He also uses machine learning to understand patient and societal perceptions related to gastrointestinal diseases on social media and in other unstructured data sources.
David Spain, MD
Spain, professor of surgery, the David L. Gregg, MD, Professor and chief of trauma and critical care surgery, has received a four-year, $2.5-million grant from the National Institute on Minority Heath and Health Disparities. The grant will allow Spain, along with Eve Carlson, PhD, from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, to develop and test a screen to accurately identify people, including members of several minority groups, at high risk for mental health problems following serious illnesses or injuries.
Gary Steinberg, MD, PhD
Steinberg, the Bernard and Ronni Lacroute-William Randolph Hearst Professor in Neurosurgery and Neurosciences and chair of neurosurgery, has received an American Ingenuity Award in life sciences from Smithsonian magazine. The honor recognizes outstanding innovators in a variety of fields. His work uses stem cell transplants to the brain to help stroke patients recover neurologic functions, even years following a stroke.
David K. Stevenson, MD
Stevenson, the Harold K. Faber Professor of Pediatrics and senior associate dean for maternal and child health, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was selected for distinguished contributions in neonatology and pediatrics, particularly for his work on neonatal jaundice, bilirubin production and heme oxygen biology. His clinical and research focus is on neonatal jaundice and the prevention of preterm birth.
Seda Tierney, MD
Tierney was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective Dec. 1. She directs the Pediatric Vascular Research Laboratory and is the director of research for the Non-Invasive Imaging Laboratory at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Her research focuses on noninvasive assessment of vascular health in children and the use of telehealth to deliver interventions to improve cardiovascular health.
Jong Yoon, MD
Yoon was promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Oct. 1. His research focuses on developing new treatments for schizophrenia and psychosis by examining the neural mechanisms driving the conditions.
January 2018
Charles K.F. Chan, PhD
Chan was appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Nov. 1. His group is investigating how stem cell niches change during tissue regeneration and aging and in diseases such as cancer.
Howard Chang, MD, PhD
Chang, professor of dermatology and the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Genomics, will receive the 2018 National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology. The $25,000 award honors a young scientist who has made a recent notable discovery. He was recognized for his “insightful discoveries of long noncoding RNAs and technologies unveiling the noncoding genome.”
Jonathan Chen, MD, PhD
Chen was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Nov. 1. His research focuses on mining clinical data sources to inform medical decision making.
Michael Cherry, PhD
Cherry, professor of genetics, has been awarded a $1.2 million grant as part of the National Institutes of Health Data Commons Pilot Phase. The four-year pilot project will explore how to make digital information available on collaborative platforms. With other investigators, he is responsible for the Alliance of Genome Resources data set, which will serve as a test case for the pilot project.
Ronald Dalman, MD
Dalman, the Walter Clifford Chidester and Elsa Rooney Chidester Professor of Surgery, was elected to a three-year term on the board of governors of the American College of Surgeons representing the Society for Vascular Surgery. With more than 80,000 members, the American College of Surgeons is the world’s largest organization of surgeons.
Lane Donnelly, MD
Donnelly was appointed professor of radiology, effective Nov. 1. His work focuses on quality and patient safety in pediatric radiology. He is the chief quality officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
Aaron Gitler, PhD
Gitler, professor of genetics, was awarded the 2017 Friedrich Merz Guest Professorship at Goethe University Frankfurt. The honor, which includes $20,000 euros (about $24,000) and travel to Germany, was created to invite a highly respected scientist in pharmaceuticals or medicine to travel to the university to share his or her research and network with local researchers. Gitler was selected for his work in mice that halted the progression of the motor neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) for more than a year.
Robert Harrington, MD
Harrington, professor and chair of medicine and the Arthur L. Bloomfield Professor, was awarded the Clinical Research Prize for 2017 from the American Heart Association. He was recognized for outstanding achievement in clinical cardiovascular science. He designs and leads clinical trials to improve care for patients with coronary heart disease, with a particular focus on reducing complications from blood clots.
Siddhartha Jaiswal, MD, PhD
Jaiswal was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Nov. 1. His research focuses on the biology and clinical impact of somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem cells that arise during aging.
William Kuo, MD
Kuo was promoted to professor of radiology, effective Nov. 1. His research focuses on advanced vena cava filter retrieval; catheter-directed therapy for acute pulmonary embolism; and inferior vena cava, or IVC, filter outcomes. He directs the Stanford IVC Filter Clinic, the interventional radiology fellowship program and the integrated interventional radiology-diagnostic radiology residency program.
Grace M. Lee, MD
Lee was appointed professor of pediatrics, effective Nov. 1. Her work focuses on developing quality metrics for use in pediatrics, evaluating the impact of payment policies on health outcomes, preventing health care-associated infections and conducting near real-time surveillance to monitor the safety of medical product use.
Tracey McLaughlin, MD
McLaughlin was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. Her research focuses on obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She is a co-founder of the diabetes task force at Stanford Health Care.
John Morton, MD
Morton, associate professor of surgery, was named clinical editor of the Bariatric Times. He is the chief of bariatric and minimally invasive surgery and directs the bariatric and minimally invasive surgery fellowship at Stanford.
Mindie Nguyen, MD
Nguyen was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Nov. 1. Her research focuses on the epidemiology and treatment outcomes of liver cancer, chronic hepatitis B and C and nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases. She is the hepatology clerkship director and the director for the hepatology fellowship.
Jon Park, MD
Park was promoted to professor of neurosurgery, effective Oct. 1. Clinically, he specializes in minimally-invasive spine surgery. His research focuses on nonfusion dynamic spinal stabilization and on both artificial disc and regenerative spinal technologies.
Carolyn Rodriguez, MD, PhD
Rodriguez, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has received an Eva King Killam Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The honor recognizes an early career researcher who has made outstanding contributions to translational research in neuropsychopharmacology. She was recognized for her work investigating the role of glutamatergic pathways in obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Joshua Salomon, PhD
Salomon was appointed professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. His research focuses on priority-setting in U.S. and global health policy, including measurement and valuation of health outcomes, modeling patterns and trends in major causes of death and disability, and on evaluation of health interventions and policies. He directs the Prevention Policy Modeling Lab, a multi-institution research consortium that conducts health and economic modeling related to infectious disease.
Abraham Verghese, MD
Verghese, professor of medicine and the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor, received the Jonathan E. Rhoads Commemorative Lecture & Award from the American Philosophical Society, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Surgery. His lecture highlighted physicians such as Che Guevara and Frantz Fanon whose medical conscience puts them in conflict with those in power. Verghese is an internist and medical educator whose interests include the patient-physician relationship and the bedside exam.
Euan Ashley, FRCP, DPhil
Ashley has been promoted to professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1, 2017. His research develops methods to use genome sequencing data to improve the diagnosis of genetic disease and to personalize the practice of medicine. Ashley directs the Clinical Genome Program and the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease at Stanford, and is principal investigator of the MyHeart Counts study.
Dimitri Augustin, MD
Augustin, a postdoctoral scholar in nephrology and an innovation fellow with the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, was named a diversity and inclusion fellow for the American Society of Nephrology. The one-year position offers the opportunity to contribute to the society’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Manisha Desai, PhD
Desai, professor of medicine and of biomedical data science, has received the Outstanding Mentorship Award from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistical Consulting. The honor recognizes leadership in the mentoring and career development of students, statisticians and statistical investigators.
