Meet our Mentors

Judy Chang, MD, FAASM, D, ABSM

Judy Chang, MD, FAASM, D, ABSM is a board-certified adult neurologist as well as an adult and pediatric sleep specialist. She trained at Harvard and Stanford University, and has practiced clinical medicine in a variety of settings. She has given more than 50 presentations and plenary sessions, and received the Loma Linda University School of Medicine Neurology Residents' Day Teacher of the Year Award. Dr. Chang emphasizes patient education and behavioral and lifestyle modification in conjunction with pharmacologic management of sleep disorders.

Peter Chiu, MD '83

Dr. Peter Y. Chiu has been an adjunct clinical professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School since 2009.  He specializes in Occupational Medicine and Family Medicine.  Since 2013 he also serves on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Hearing Board as a medical expert.

In addition, he continues to serves on the California Board of Behavioral Sciences since his appointment  by Governor Brown in 2013.  Previously, he was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the U.S. Presidential / Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management for environmental protection from 1994-1997.

Dr. Chiu was an Occupational Medicine Department and Emergency Department physician at Kaiser Milpitas /Santa Clara from 1990 - 2012, a private practice family physician in San Jose from 1986-1990, and resident physician and chief of resident physicians at San Jose Hospital from 1983-1986.  He also served as principal environmental engineer for the Association of Bay Area Governments from 1976-1979,  and associate water quality management engineer at the Bay Area Sewage Services Agency from 1974-1976.  He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Stanford University, as well as a Doctor of Public Health degree in Environmental Health,  a Master of Public Health degree in Occupational Health, and a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering all from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Sharon Ann Clark, M.D., F.A.C.S.

I am a plastic surgeon in private practice in San Mateo, CA, certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and chief of Plastic Surgery at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, and on clinical staff at Stanford.This surprising career path began when I matriculated as an undergraduate at Stanford, where I had planned to major in comparative literature. Also, I took Engineering Physics to understand sound waves for my music and to understand light for my art. Soon I was excited by science, jumped into the exploration of research, and wanted to combine my love of the humanities and science. The decision to matriculate at medical school was not an easy one, for my parents had opposed actively this pathway. Medicine is a tremendous body of knowledge that I wanted to learn. Feeling very alone except for the encouragement of my research advisor and other faculty from Stanford, I matriculated at Harvard Medical School and was selected for the Harvard-M.I.T. program in Health Sciences and Technology, concentrated in neurosciences, and was the Soma Weiss Award Speaker. My family still did not understand my goals. All my life, I had pursued music and art and loved anatomy and function. Even in residency at Stanford,  I was driven by the dream to understand the nervous system and improve healing after surgery. It seemed that my excitement for my work carried me past some obstacles for women in surgical training and resulted national awards. I kept faith in my dreams. My focus resided in the achievement of my best for each day, and the knowledge that even small actions of kindness have lasting impact. When I decided to marry and have children, it was important to me to work full time and do my best. Travel time to lecture and the hours for lab research are what I decreased. Surgery is like playing the piano and drawing: one needs to practice and study every day to think and perform the best possible technically and conceptually for patients. To lead a life of consequence has always motivated me. I have tremendous gratitude for my mentors who believed in me along the way and to my husband and sons who respect my endeavors. Now it is my chance to help first generation students achieve their dreams at Stanford.

In terms of mentoring, a person interested in surgery or anatomy would be an ideal match, although I have considerable research experience in Plasticity of Somatosensory Cortex in Area 3B and in Neuroscience.

Dr. Heike Daldrup-Link

I am a physician-scientist and the first doctor in my family. I grew up in a small town in the German countryside with a population of about 6,000 people. My mother was a teacher and my father an administrative manager at the nearby University. I was a quick learner and made my way from the best local schools in my area to some of the best Universities in the world. That path was not easy. I had to overcome financial, geographical and political barriers. Joining the faculty of a prestigious university like Stanford is difficult for anyone, but especially for someone who comes from the other end of the world, speaks a different language, has little resources, and is a woman. I consider myself fortunate to have made it thus far. And I want to represent a role model for any immigrant, anyone who is the first professor in their family, and any woman, that if we work hard with dedication and integrity, we can realize our full potential.

Since I came to Stanford in 2010, I established clinical and research services for children with cancer in close collaboration with our pediatric oncologists. I developed novel pediatric molecular imaging technologies in an NIH-funded basic science lab while also being involved in the clinical care of children with cancer. As a pediatric radiologist, I had the privilege of reviewing and interpreting thousands of imaging studies of pediatric patients, especially children with cancer. As a scientist, I have both uncovered basic scientific principles and brought new concepts to our patients' bedside. Through my research program and resources at Stanford, I can offer pediatric cancer patients the most advanced cancer staging procedures currently available.

Lawrence Fung, PhD '98, MD '09  

Dr. Fung is a child & adolescent psychiatrist with specialized clinical training in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and advanced research training in chemical engineering, neuropsychopharmacology, and neuroimaging. He has extensive work experience in pharmaceutical research and development, including the discovery and development of a GABA(A) receptor agonist for the treatment of insomnia and anxiety. In addition to pharmacologic treatment studies in ASD and other developmental disorders, he is performing multimodal neuroimaging studies in these disorders. Dr. Fung employs state-of-the-art multimodal neuroimaging tools to study GABA neurophysiology in individuals with ASD, fragile X syndrome (FXS) and intellectual disability. He is the Principal Investigator of NIH-funded "GABAergic Neurophysiology in Autism Spectrum Disorder". His overarching goal is to dissect the neurobiology of ASD using a combination of bioanalytical, immunochemical, and multimodal imaging techniques to identify biomarkers based on specific molecular mechanisms that will inform targeted treatments for ASD.

Dr. Joseph Garner

The overarching theme of Joe's research is understanding why most drugs (and other basic science findings) fail to translate into human outcomes, the role that animal models and methodology play in in these failures, and developing new approaches to improve the translation and benefits of animal research while minimizing welfare impacts. Joe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine, a Courtesy Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Stanford University. Joe runs Stanford's Technique Refinement and Innovation Lab, which provides 3Rs support services for researchers on campus. Joe is an internationally recognized expert in the behavior and welfare of laboratory mice, including awards from the National Center for the 3Rs (UK), the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, the Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association, and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. Joe also works extensively in human health, both as a researcher and an advocate. Joe's current human health research is focused on animal and human studies in autism, and animal work in trichotillomania, and skin-picking. The question driving all of this work is 'Why does one sibling become ill and another does not?', and the goal is to identify biomarkers leading to screening, prevention and personalized treatment options. Joe's advocacy work includes serving on scientific advisory boards for the Trichotillomania Learning Center, the Tourette Association of America, and the Beautiful You MRKH Foundation.

Joe's work is available via a number of different websites:

• Stanford website: med.stanford.edu/profiles/Joseph_Garner
• Papers: scholar.google.com/citations?user=JThS8LMAAAAJ
• Mouse ethogram: www.mousebehavior.org
• TRI-Lab: http://med.stanford.edu/compmed/research/services.html
  

Dr. Natalia Gomez-Ospina

Dr. Gomez-Ospina was born and raised in Medellin, Colombia. She began her undergraduate studies in petroleum engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia before moving to Colorado. She double majored at the University of Colorado Boulder, completing her bachelor's degree in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology as well as Biochemistry. She graduated summa cum laude and wrote an honors thesis entitled "Role of the quiescent center in the regeneration of the root cap in Zea Mays." She then completed her combined MD, PhD at Stanford Medical School, where her PhD work focused on understanding the novel functions of voltage-gated calcium channels. Her PhD thesis, "The calcium channel CACNA1C gene: multiple proteins, diverse functions," was published in Cell. After completion of her dual degrees, she did her preliminary year in internal medicine at Santa Barbara Cottage hospital before starting residency in Dermatology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She completed residency in Medical Genetics at Stanford Hospital and clinics. She is currently doing her post-doctoral research with Dr. Matthew Porteus in Pediatric Stem Cell transplantation, where she is developing a genome editing strategy in stem cells as a curative therapy for metabolic diseases. In addition to her research, Dr. Gomez-Ospina is a clinical instructor in Medical Genetics. For her clinical practice she sees patients with suspected genetic disorders, and is also in charge of the enzyme replacement service for lysosomal storage disorders at Lucile Packard Children's hospital. She has been the lead author in research studies in The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, Nature Communications, and American Journal of Medical Genetics.

Kevin Grimes, MD '82, MBA '93, MA (Pastoral Ministries) '07

My clinical focus is internal medicine, but the majority of my time is spent in translational research focusing on drug discovery and development – specifically the development of new therapeutics for unmet medical needs. I am also the Co-Director of the SPARK Program. My research interests include:

• translation of promising research discoveries into novel therapeutics and diagnostics;
• discovery and development of new drugs, biologics, and diagnostics;
• repurposing existing drugs against new targets for new clinical indications;
• developing novel therapeutics and diagnostics for neglected global health problems;
• and, the role of non-canonical amino acids in human disease.

Dr. Julio Monterrey

Born in LA, grew up in east San Jose. Went to undergrad at Santa Clara University, then attended a combined MD/Masters program, receiving MD from UC Irvine along with taking medical anthropology classes to train in helping underserved populations, and then received MS in Epidemiology and Clinical Study Design from Stanford. Currently a PGY-4 Stanford Psychiatry resident, in the research track with a post-doc status.

Dr. Jonathan (Jon) Santoro

Dr. Santoro was the first in his family to pursue a career in medicine, doing his undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees at Tulane University. He moved to California for residency in pediatric neurology where he currently serves as Chief Resident. His interest is in neuroimmunology and neuroinfectious triggers of immune pathology.

Logan Schneider, MD '10

Dr. Schneider is a board-certified sleep neurologist trained in Neurology at Johns Hopkins and Sleep Medicine at Stanford University. While his routine clinical practice adeptly addresses the full breadth of sleep disorders, his primary clinical interests are in the areas of parasomnias, including REM-sleep behavior disorder and NREM parasomnias. He is also passionate about education, and has established himself within the educational community of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). Toward this end, Dr. Schneider has held many leadership roles, serving as the Chair of the Consortium of Neurology Residents and Fellows, and currently is a member of the Graduate Education Subcommittee and the Chair of the Sleep Medicine Section of the AAN, as well as the Educational Products Development Subcommittee of the AASM. In addition to a number of peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Schneider is the author of the chapter on Anatomy and Physiology of Normal Sleep in Miglis's Sleep and Neurologic Disease and is a primary author on A Manual for the Neurological Examination for Neurologists in Training with international collaborators Drs. Klaus Toyka, Joseph Classen, and Dorothee Saur. From a strategic career standpoint, Dr. Schneider is interested in heading a department, maintaining a pedagogical and research focus consistent with the training he has received at the exemplary institutions of Johns Hopkins and Stanford University.

Dr. Darvin (Scott) Smith

Darvin (Scott) Smith graduated in biochemistry from Bowdoin College in Maine and went on to study tropical public health at Harvard School of Public health before attending medical school in his home state of Colorado, where he grew up. He worked on developing diagnostic tests and epidemiology (Leishmania and Onchocerciasis) in Cali Colombia on a Fulbright scholarship before finally moving to California where he completed residency at Stanford Medical School, then a Fellowship in Infectious Disease & Geographic Medicine. He now serves as Chief of the Dept of Infectious Disease at Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City California, and he teaches several classes at Stanford.

Scott volunteers as a community neighborhood network lead in Hillsborough and works with international disaster response to vector borne disease threats as a clinical lead for MENTOR-Initiative around the world (Indonesia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Kenya, Haiti, Thailand). Scott enjoys gardening, sustainable household development, photography and wants to do a triathalon...

Lynne Sopchak, PhD

B.S. in Medical Technology, Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology from Wayne State University, Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Pathology and Oncology at Stanford University. My research interests are cancer biology, immunology and microbiology. Presently, I am a Biomedical Consultant and Scientific Analyst for the biopharmaceutical industry conducting primary market research focusing on technology development for drug discovery and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing. I also do some part-time teaching for several bay area universities and a SPARK volunteer. I enjoy swimming, sailing, hiking, theatre and creative arts.

Linda Wu, PhD, JD

Linda Wu is an Intellectual Property Counsel at Natera. Prior to joining Natera, Linda was an associate with Foley & Lardner, focusing on IP counseling for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Linda has experience in a wide range of intellectual property law, including patent prosecution, litigation, inter partes review (IPR), interference, due diligence, freedom to operate, infringement, invalidity, patentability evaluations, technology transfer, and license agreements. Prior to her law career, Linda was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University and a Scientist at Medarex (now Bristol-Myers Squibb). Linda contributed to multiple IND filings with FDA. Linda earned her Ph.D. in Immunology and Molecular/Cellular Biology from University of Toronto, Canada. Linda's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including a first author paper in Nature Immunology. Linda earned her J.D. from Santa Clara University.

Dr. Susan Ziolkowski

Susan Ziolkowski completed medical school at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY and Internal Medicine training at University of Rochester before coming to Stanford University in July 2015 as a nephrology fellow. Susan is supported by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (Parent F32) and is working towards a Master's Degree in Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Her research focuses sarcopenia and obesity in chronic kidney disease and she is currently recruiting for two longitudinal cohort studies on the effects of treatment for secondary hyperparathyroidism on chronic kidney disease mineral bone disorder. She has also recently started a new project recruiting pre-dialysis patients into an exercise intervention study. Her faculty mentors are Dr. Mary Leonard and Dr. Glenn Chertow.

Jane Chien, MD '94

Personal

• Born in Missouri
• Grew up in Des Moines, IA and San Jose, CA with 3 younger brothers
• BS Stanford Computer System's Engineering
• MS Stanford Electrical Engineering
• MD Stanford Medical School
• Residency Internal Medicine at Valley Medical Center, San Jose, CA
• Married with 2 sons, age 10 and 12

Professional

• 14 yr small self-employed group practice in San Jose, CA
• 6 yr University Medical Group (Stanford Hospital foundation) in San Jose, CA
• 1/1/18 returning to small self-employed group practice in Los Gatos, CA

Dr. Steven Foung

The focus of the Foung Laboratory is to define immune correlates of protection against hepatitis C virus and other viral pathogens. More specifically, our goal is to define protective humoral immunity to viral pathogens through the isolation, biochemical and functional characterization of broadly neutralizing human or nonhuman primate monoclonal antibodies. Dependent on the pathogen, approaches to isolate these antibodies include yeast surface IgG display or single-cell cloning. These efforts will create high-resolution, functional maps of linear and nonlinear epitopes comprising the major binding sites of both isolate-specific and broadly neutralizing antibodies for rational vaccine design.

Judy Kalinyak, MD '83, PhD '83

I obtained my MD and PhD at Hershey Med Center (Pennsylvania State University). I completed internship at UC Davis medicine, medicine and Nuclear Medicine residency and Endocrinology fellowship at Stanford, was on faculty at USCF (Endocrine) and Stanford (Nuc Med) for combined 22 years. Now working in start-up company called i-Human Patients, Inc. We specialize in teaching diagnostic reasoning using cloud-based technology to create Virtual Patient Encounters with automated assessment analytics. Also raised 2 children, on a science writer/copy editor for IFLS and one is an anesthesia resident.

Dr. Lucy Lee

My family is from Burma (now known as Myanmar). My father was learning English at the American Embassy and noticed “unique” things there–a simple water cooler, for example. Many homes in Burma did not have running water (let alone a water cooler), so he imagined that life must be better in “America” and thus convinced my mom to apply with him to leave their home for a better life. Because of their courage, I was born in Toronto. My father worked in factories and restaurants, and my mother took typing and cosmetology classes and became a hairdresser. They taught me to work hard and value education, but were unable to help me navigate my path. After a lot of trial and error, I graduated from Cornell University, and attended medical school and completed pediatric residency and chief residency at Stanford. I currently serve as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, where I am also the Associate Clerkship Director for the core Pediatrics rotation at the Stanford School of Medicine, and Associate Director of Coaching in the Pediatric Residency Program. I believe I have “the best job in the world,” resuscitating newborns in the delivery room, caring for sick and premature infants as well as their families in all nursery levels at LPCH, and teaching medical students and residents. I often still feel like an outsider, and consider myself extremely lucky to be where I am today. I hope that I can help others navigate their paths, and let them know that they are not alone.

Dr. AC Matin

I was born in Delhi, India, and came to US (UCLA) for doctorate work. Following that I spent 4 years in the Netherlands doing research and teaching. Moved to Stanford in 1975 and have taught and done research in several areas. Current major interests is to direct gene delivery specifically to tumors using exosomes, bacterial antibiotic resistance on Earth and in microgravity of space -- a flight is scheduled on November 11 to test our findings in simulated microgravity to the effect that this condition increases bacterial resistance and virulence.

Ashley McCullough, MD '17

I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. I was the few in my family to have graduated high school and the first to attend college. I received my B.S. in Biomedical Sciences in 2013 and my M.D. in 2017, both at Texas A&M University. While I was the first in my family to pursue a graduate degree, I always had their love and support cheering me on. I have enjoyed carving the academic path for my family and find pride in watching my younger siblings follow along. I have just started my residency at Stanford in Pediatrics. This is my first time living on the West Coast and I have been amazed at the beautiful outdoors that the mountains and coast lines offer. In my free time, I enjoy running or hiking outdoors with my golden retriever and fiancé.

Dr. Roland Minami

As a child, I spent the first three years of my life in an internment camp (prison) in Arkansas for people of Japanese ancestry during WWII. 

I was the first in my family to graduate from undergraduate school and dental school which I attended at USC with scholarship assistance. After finishing dental school, I worked as a dentist in private practice part time and full-time for the community chest program in Los Angeles. I then went to the USC medical school on a scholarship followed by a straight surgical internship at UCLA – Harbor General Hospital. My residency in general and plastic surgery took place at Stanford University Medical Center from 1971-1976. Part of my training included cleft lip and palate training in Guatemala as well as cranial facial surgery education in Paris, France, Switzerland and Scotland. 

I especially appreciated the opportunity to do cleft lip and palate surgery in foreign countries through the Interplast program started by Dr. Donald Laub who was then the chief of plastic surgery at Stanford. I have been fortunate to be able to be part of teams that perform reconstructive surgery in a number of underserved countries. 

I spent almost forty years in private practice and have been retired for two years.

Dr. Arturo Molina

Dr. Molina is Chief Medical Officer at Sutro Biopharma. Previously, he was Vice President, Oncology Scientific Innovation at Janssen R & D (Johnson and Johnson, JNJ). While at JNJ he was responsible for the clinical development and New Drug Application for abiraterone (Zytiga(r)), which is now approved for metastatic prostate cancer in more than 100 countries. He was Chief Medical Officer/EVP at Cougar Biotechnology, which was acquired by JNJ in 2009. Arturo also worked at IDEC, then Biogen-IDEC, ultimately becoming Head, Oncology Clinical Development. In collaboration with Genentech, he led the clinical Supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) filing activities resulting in FDA approval of Rituxan(r) in two first-line indications in 2006: follicular lymphoma and diffuse B-cell lymphoma. From 1991-2002, Dr. Molina was a faculty physician in Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplantation and Medical Oncology/Therapeutics Research at the City of Hope (COH) Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he became an Adjunct Professor, member of the COH Medical Group Board of Directors and President-Elect of the COH Medical Staff. Arturo received his MD and MS (Physiology) from Stanford University, and completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Medical Oncology, Biological Science, and Bone Marrow Transplantation, all at Stanford. Arturo was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin where he received a BS in Zoology (Honors) and BA in Psychology (High Honors).

Dr. Judith Murphy

Retired Pediatrician, practiced in small private general pediatrics practice in PA for 28 years.  Undergrad UC Berkeley, Stanford  MD '77 (5 year program because I was a mother), Stanford Pediatrics residency '77-'82 (job-shared both internship and PLI).  Both my parents had 2 year college AA degrees, no one in the family had graduated from a 4 year college.  I had no family financial support for college - I worked my way through with various menial jobs.  I was married when I went to medical school, my husband supported me.

Ethan Nicholls, MD '88

Dr. Ethan A. Nicholls received his A.B from Harvard University, his M.D. from Stanford University and completed his Anesthesia residency and fellowship in Pain Management at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

He joined the Palo Alto Foundation Medical Group in March, 2015 where he currently serves as Chair, Department of Anesthesia, Alameda Division.  Previously, he was a senior partner and served as President of Northern California Anesthesia Associates (2004-2015), a private practice anesthesia group.  After initially completing his residency and fellowship training, Dr. Nicholls held the position of Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at the University of California, San Francisco before leaving for private practice and working at El Camino Hospital and later Washington Hospital.

In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Nicholls has held numerous positions.  He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees, Castilleja School in Palo Alto (2011-2017) including Chair, Trustees and Governance Committee and a member of the Executive Committee. He has also served as a member, El Camino Hospital Finance Committee (2001-2003); Delegate, District 4, California Society of Anesthesiology (2001-2007); Chief, Department of Anesthesiology, El Camino Hospital (1999-2000); member, Board of Directors, El Camino Surgery Center (1997-2002); Chair, El Camino Hospital Ethics Committee (1996-1997).

Dr. Nicholls has two daughters, is a season ticket holder of Stanford Women's Basketball and enjoys traveling and attending the theatre and SF Opera.

Dr. Mark Owolabi

I am the son of hard working Nigerian immigrants. I became interested in medicine after witnessing the ravages of chronic, preventable illness in rural North Carolina where I grew up. Furthermore, in medical school I discovered just how critical nutrition and physical activity are to the maintenance of health.  I am currently finishing my final year of Family Medicine residency. In the future I hope to work with underserved communities to change behavior and reverse chronic disease.

Moataz Razeen, MD '13

My name is Moataz Razeen but feel free to call me Mo. I graduated with a MD degree from the faculty of medicine at the University of Alexandria in Egypt where I am originally from. Right after med school, I joined New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI) as a volunteer postdoctoral fellow researching the eye. A year after that I was offered a position by the inventor of the imaging device we used at NYEEI as an Ocular Imaging Fellow at the Medical College of Wisconsin which I stayed in for two years. Then I moved with my PI to Stanford as he was offered a assistant professor position and has been at Stanford since November 2016.   

Dr. Gabriel (Gabe) Reyes, MD '16, PhD '16

Gabriel grew up in Anaheim, CA and studied general biology at UCLA before graduating in 2006. He spent two years participating in basic science research before starting the MD/PhD program at UCSF in 2008. He graduated in 2016 and began anesthesiology residency at Stanford University in 2017 (after completing his intern year of preliminary medicine at Kaiser SF).

Ulysses Rosas, MD '16

I grew up in the Coachella Valley in Southern California and I came to Stanford to begin my career as a physician. My parents are originally from Cocula, Jalisco and I am the first person in my family to become a doctor. I received my undergraduate degree in Human Biology and Stanford University and then received my medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine. I have conducted research in chronic disease and obesity prevention, as well as bariatric surgery research. I have been active with the Latino Medical Student Association at Stanford and many other groups who seek to increase the number of diversity applicants entering the health care fields. I am currently a resident in internal medicine at Stanford Healthcare. In my free time I love going to the sporting and concert events we get to enjoy here in the Bay Area as well as making day trips to Napa, Tahoe, and Monterey Bay.

Melissa Sims, MD '07

Dr. Melissa Sims is currently a private practice radiologist with California Advanced Imaging Medical Associates (CAIMA) in Northern California. Dr. Sims graduated cum laude from Harvard University with an A.B. degree in Psychology. She received her M.D. from Stanford School of Medicine and M.P.H. from the University of California at Berkeley.  She completed Radiology residency at UCLA and Stanford, after which she completed a fellowship in Musculoskeletal Imaging with National Orthopedic Imaging Associates. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Sims is a contributor to the new editions of Stoller's Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine textbooks. During her time at Stanford, she was President of the Stanford Medical Student Association and Coordinator for the Stanford University Minority Medical Alliance, a student organization dedicated to increasing diversity in medicine. Dr. Sims lives in San Mateo with her husband, Leroy (BS '01, MS '02, MD'07, Fellow '10), and their two young daughters. They enjoy international travel, supporting Stanford sports teams, cooking, and learning foreign languages.

Dr. Aparajita (Apa) Sohoni

I was born in Mumbai, India, and split my early childhood between India and the US. My family settled in the Bay Area in 1989, and I have been here ever since. I completed my bachelor's degree in Human Biology at Stanford University, with a focus with Medical Anthropology. I fulfilled a Master's in Biology at Stanford while serving as a Course Assistant for the Human Biology Core. After that, I attended medical school at Stanford, and then residency in Emergency Medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland. After finishing an ultrasound fellowship at Highland, I stayed as junior faculty and Clerkship Director for the medical students. I eventually left academics to work in the community, and currently work full time at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, CA. I have maintained a strong interest in education, health disparities in the underserved populations, and ultrasound.

Reena Thomas, MD, PhD

Dr. Reena Thomas received her medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC and her PhD from the City of Hope Graduate School in Duarte, California. She completed her training as a resident in Neurology as well as her fellowship training in Neuro-Oncology at Stanford University Hospital. Her research background and interests are focused on immune based cancer therapies and chemokine signaling in glioblastoma brain tumors. She has also been involved in advanced imaging studies of glioblastoma. She is the Director of the Adult Neuro Oncology Fellowship at Stanford.

Dr. Audrey Verde

Audrey was born in Columbus, Ohio, but grew up in Wilmington, NC playing soccer and spending her free time at the beach. She went to NC State for undergrad where she majored in Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Psychology. She then worked full time as a medical assistant, and managed a neurobiology lab at Duke over the course of two years before starting her MD-PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. For her Neurobiology PhD Audrey helped to develop a pipeline of tools to analyze diffusion weighted images, which she then used to perform DTI and quantitative tractography to investigate the episodic memory circuitry in cigarette smokers and nonsmokers. Audrey then stayed at UNC Chapel Hill for a Medicine Prelim year before switching coasts to come to Stanford for her Radiology Residency. In the future Audrey anticipates completing a fellowship in Neuroradiology, and then pursuing a position within academia. Besides radiology and research, Audrey's passions are advocacy, mentorship, leadership, and policy.

Ross Anderson, PhD '14

Ross graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio in 2007 with a B.S. in Physics (with a concentration in Biophysics) and a minor in Mathematics.  He followed on to complete his Ph.D. in the Physiology and Biophysics department at CWRU in 2014 in the laboratory of Dr. Ben Strowbridge studying the role of subthreshold oscillations and persistent activity in the rodent hippocampus, a region of the brain thought to be responsible for short term memory and spatial navigation.  He then did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Cameron McIntyre developing computational models of evoked activity in the motor cortex in response to deep brain stimulation and now is excited to be moving full circle as an electrophysiologist to be developing new technology and therapeutic biomarkers for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease through deep brain stimulation.  Outside of the lab, Ross enjoys the great Bay Area outdoors through swimming, running, biking and hiking as well as tinkering with model steam engines, amateur electrics, and printed circuit boards.

David Enard, PhD '10

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Dmitri Petrov in the Biology Department at Stanford University. I worked previously as a PhD student in the laboratory of Dr. Hugues Roest Crollius at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. I hold a master's degree in molecular and cellular biology from Ecole Normale Superieure in Lyon.

My experience as a first-generation college student informs a deeper understanding of the struggles and feelings related to belonging to different social backgrounds, genders and minority groups in the university context. I care deeply about empowering members of disadvantaged groups to succeed in academic environments that can sometimes feel exclusive. As a Ph.D. student in Paris, I greatly enjoyed the 200 hours I spent teaching Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution at Université Paris 7. This experience gave me the opportunity to learn to teach fascinating topics to diverse populations at both the undergraduate and graduate level. As a postdoctoral researcher, I have taken pride in mentoring high school, undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Over the course of my research career, I have worked to create an original approach to population genetics and evolutionary genomics that seeks to examine and explain pervasive adaptation in human and other mammalian genomes. The years I spent considering the driving ecological forces of adaptation have helped me come to the conclusion that infectious diseases are a major component of genomic adaptation in humans and other animals. This has motivated me to initiate multiple projects over the past three years that have aimed to quantify genome-wide adaptation in response to diverse pathogens. Among other results, I have recently shown that viruses alone drive an enormous 30% of all protein adaptation in humans. I have also shown that viruses were an important driving force of adaptive introgression between Neanderthals and modern humans. Further, my work finds that abundant signals of adaptation can be harnessed to study ancient epidemics, where specific species or populations harbor the genomic footprints of ancient arms races with specific pathogens. I am keenly interested in taking ecological genomics to the next level by applying state-of-the-art methods to study genomic adaptation to interesting ecological systems.

Dr. Ángel Islas

Ángel Islas is associate professor and chair of the biology department at Santa Clara University. He was born and raised in San José California, received his B.S. in biochemistry from U.C. Davis and his Ph.D. in biology from Stanford. He went on to postdoc in Michael Lieber's lab in the department of pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine before joining Bill Morgan's lab as an assistant research scientist at U.C. San Francisco and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Dr. Islas has been at Santa Clara University since 2000 and teaches courses in molecular biology, biotechnology and cancer biology. He studies the molecular consequences of DNA double-strand breaks and the role that DNA polymerases play in repairing DNA damage.

Dr. Daniel (Dan) Jarosz

Daniel Jarosz, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Chemical & Systems Biology and Developmental Biology at Stanford University. He received his B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Washington and then moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his PhD, where he investigated mechanisms of replication and mutagenesis in the laboratory of Dr. Graham Walker. Following his graduation in 2007, Dr. Jarosz pursued postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Susan Lindquist, a pioneer in the field of protein folding. In 2013 Dr. Jarosz established his independent group at Stanford University, where his research is focused on molecular mechanisms that contribute to robustness and evolvability. His work employs multidisciplinary systems approaches ranging from chemical biology to quantitative genetics to understand how these mechanisms contribute to evolution, disease, and development. Dr. Jarosz has received a number of distinctions including being named a Searle Scholar, Kimmel Scholar, and Vallee Foundation Faculty Scholar. He has also received a Science and Engineering Fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a Director's New Innovator Award from the NIH, a CAREER award from the NSF, a Pathway to Independence Award from the NIH, and a fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

Dr. Mirabela Rusu

Dr. Rusu received a Master of Engineering in Bioinformatics from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, France. She continued her training at University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, where she received a Master of Science and PhD degree in Health Informatics for her work in biomolecular structural data integration of cryo-electron micrographs and X-ray crystallography models. During her postdoctoral training at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Rusu has developed computational tools for the integration and interpretation of multi-modal medical imaging data and focused on studying prostate and lung cancers. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Rusu was a Lead Engineer and Medical Image Analysis Scientist at GE Global Research Niskayuna NY where she was involved the development of analytic methods to characterize biological samples in microscopy images and pathologic conditions in MRI or CT. Currently, Dr. Rusu is an Assistant Professor of Radiology where she leads the Laboratory for Integrative Personalized Medicine.

Dr. Gavin Sherlock

Gavin Sherlock got his undergraduate degree in Genetics, and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Manchester in the UK, then did postdoctoral training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Stanford. He then worked as a software engineer for the Saccharomyces Genome Database, directed the Stanford Microarray Database, and then became faculty in Genetics. His lab studies the evolutionary process, using yeast as a model system.

Dr. Paula Welander

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and I am the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants.  I was educated in the Los Angeles Unified School District Magnet Program and I went on to receive a BA in Kinesiology from Occidental College in Los Angeles. I completed my doctoral studies in microbiology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Biology and Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT. I started my faculty position at Stanford in the Department of Earth System Science in January of 2013. My research program at Stanford focuses on microbial impacts on the ancient Earth and how the study of extant microbes can provide insight into ancient ecosystems.

Shelley Blam, PhD '86

Dr. Blam received a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training funded by a National Research Service Award at the National Cancer Institute. She has worked in cutting-edge laboratories on state-of-the-art developments in cancer research and treatment. Her research background spans academia and industry and she has been intimately involved with clinical trials.

As Dr. Blam became increasingly interested in the extraordinary challenges faced by cancer patients, she undertook volunteer work at the Women's Cancer Resource Center and Highland County Hospital in Oakland. Here she developed a genuine understanding of the needs of individuals at the time of a new cancer diagnosis and during treatment, which led her to her patient advocacy work.

As an oncology research professional, Dr. Blam brings a unique and comprehensive background to the role of patient advocate. Her work in Medical Affairs in the pharma/biotech sector and her expertise in preclinical and clinical research facilitate her ability to provide fair-balanced medical information when advocating for the interests of people with cancer.

Dr. Lynn Cintron

I strongly support Stanford’s mission for mentoring first generation physicians in training. I am also a first-generation physician and grew up in a devout Catholic Hispanic family. I have been a Stanford Affiliate for over 10 years and welcome the opportunity to help guide our upcoming medical students. Despite all the challenges, medicine is an extremely rewarding career. It is full of exciting discoveries, learning and opportunities. It is important to stay ‘humble’. We don’t have all the answers and it takes a team to provide the best care possible. About myself; I am a board-certified anesthesiologist and pain physician. I teach at Stanford and the University of California, in Anesthesiology and Pain. I enjoy clinical practice as well as research in anesthesia and perioperative pain. I am a life-long learner. There are many exciting developments in this field, including regenerative medicine and advancements in technology. I advocate that whatever career path you select, try to stay active in student and professional societies. By joining forces with others, we are stronger and more effective to educate and improve health care.

Dr. Cynthia DeTata

Clinical Focus: Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medical Education.

Dr. Sharon Drost

Dr. Drost graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2002, and completed her residency in Neurology and Psychiatry at Stanford Medical Center. Additionally, Dr. Drost was a Chief Resident in Neurology at Stanford Medical Center, and has experience teaching neurological diagonosis and treatment to Stanford medical students, interns, and residents. She opened her general adult neurology practice in January 2008 and was a member of the Good Samaritan Hospital Stroke Team and Medical Staff until May 2010. Dr. Drost is currently serving her second term on the Board of Governors for the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association. She has been involved in Stanford Medical School admissions since 1997, currently as an MMI rater. Dr. Drost is a comprehensive adult neurologist with special interests in multiple sclerosis, headache, stroke, and medical technology development. She has published 17 peer-reviewed papers and holds one U.S. patent in the field of neurology.

Dr. Neil Gezundheit

Dr. Neil Gesundheit is a board-certified endocrinologist who trained at Stanford and UCSF in internal medicine and at the National Institutes of Health (NIDDK) in endocrinology and metabolism. He sees hospitalized endocrine patients at Stanford and at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospitals. Dr. Gesundheit directs the second-year medical student endocrine physiology module, teaches in the Practice of Medicine course, and as the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education oversees implementation of the new Stanford medical student curriculum. Dr. Gesundheit has oversight of educational programs for physician assistant master's students, residents and fellows in clinical training, and Stanford-sponsored continuing medical education (CME) programs for faculty.

Dr. Robert Harrington

Dr. Robert A. Harrington is an interventional cardiologist and the Arthur L. Bloomfield Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. Dr. Harrington was previously the Richard Sean Stack, MD Distinguished Professor and the Director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) at Duke University. His research interests include evaluating antithrombotic therapies to treat acute ischemic heart disease and to minimize the acute complications of percutaneous coronary procedures, studying the mechanism of disease of the acute coronary syndromes, understanding the issue of risk stratification in the care of patients with acute ischemic coronary syndromes, building local, national and international collaborations for the efficient conduct of innovative clinical research and trying to better understand and improve upon the methodology of clinical research. His research has been extensively funded through NIH, NIA, other peer reviewed agencies and private industry. Committed to training and mentorship, Harrington has served as the principal mentor for more than 20 post-doctoral clinical research fellows focused on cardiovascular research.

Dr. PJ Utz

While earning his M.D. degree in 1991 from Stanford, Dr. Utz co-discovered the transcription factor Nuclear Factor of Activated T Cells (NFAT) with J.P. Shaw in Dr. Gerald Crabtree's laboratory. He completed his internal medicine residency, rheumatology fellowship, and post-doctoral training at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston prior to joining the Harvard Medical School Faculty in 1996. He joined the Stanford Faculty in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine in 2005 and Professor in 2012. Professor Utz is an expert in the study of human and murine autoantibodies and autoantigens, apoptosis signaling pathways, animal models of autoimmunity, proteomics and multiplexed assay development for biomarker discovery. He directs Stanford’s MSTP and founded and directs SIMR, one of the largest high school research programs in the United States.