Notable People
November 2015
Elizabeth Egan, MD, PhD
Egan was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Oct. 1. Her clinical specialty is pediatric infectious diseases. Her research examines host-pathogen interactions in the parasitic disease malaria, with a focus on how genetic variation in human blood influences parasite biology and virulence.
Paige Fox, MD, PhD
Fox was appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Sept. 1. She specializes in disorders of the arm, armpit and shoulder in adults and children. In her research, she aims to optimize care for hand infection patients and to use tissue engineering to improve outcomes after hand and upper-extremity trauma.
Anson Lee, MD
Lee was appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Aug. 1. Lee leads the surgical arrhythmia program at Stanford, working closely with his colleagues who specialize in electrophysiology. Lee is also collaborating with the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the Department of Electrical Engineering to establish a basic and translational research laboratory that will explore the processes that underlie cardiac arrhythmias.
Lingyin Li, PhD
Li was appointed assistant professor of biochemistry, effective Sept. 1. Li’s research uses chemical biology to investigate the cancer-fighting mechanisms of innate immune pathways, an emerging field called chemical cancer immunology. Her lab aims to improve the understanding of these mechanisms so that more precise drugs can be developed to prevent or treat specific diseases.
VJ Periyakoil, MD
Periyakoil, clinical associate professor of medicine and director of palliative care education and training, received a Practice Innovation Challenge award from the American Medical Association and the Medical Group Management Association for the Letter Project. The project provides templates that help patients identify and communicate their wishes for end-of-life care to their doctors and families. The five winners, announced at the MGMA annual conference on Oct. 12, will receive $10,000 and will have the opportunity to disseminate their work through the AMA.
October 2015
Katherine Burke, MM, MSc
Burke was appointed deputy director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health, where she’ll lead efforts to grow interdisciplinary global health initiatives across the university and oversee administrative operations of the center. Her interests include building research, training and health leadership capacity in low-resource settings, and online education as a tool for training health workers in Africa. Prior to joining Stanford, Burke served as a senior fellow in global health sciences at the UC-San Francisco.
Laura Dunn, MD
Dunn was appointed professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Sept. 1. Dunn will serve as the director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Training Program and director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic. Her research has focused on informed consent, decision-making capacity, and ethical aspects of research and treatment of people with psychiatric and cognitive disorders. She has also conducted research in psycho-oncology, including work on characterizing trajectories of depressive and anxiety symptoms in cancer patients and their family caregivers.
Matthew Lovett-Barron, PhD
Lovett-Barron, a postdoctoral scholar in bioengineering, has received the Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience, supported by the Grass Foundation, from the Society for Neuroscience. Lovett-Barron received the $2,500 prize for his doctoral thesis at Columbia University, where he combined a variety of techniques to observe and control distinct circuit elements in the mouse hippocampus, a structure essential for learning and memory. His research revealed a circuit mechanism that allows mammals to associate specific environments with fearful events.
Sergiu Pasca, MD
Pasca, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received a Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists from the National Institute for Mental Health. Pasca will receive more than $1.6 million over five years to support his research on developing the next generation of personalized, 3-D neural cultures for capturing the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. The BRAINS award is given to outstanding scientists in the early stages of their careers to support them in launching innovative approaches for understanding, diagnosing, treating or preventing mental disorders.
Richard Popp, MD
Popp, emeritus professor of medicine, received the European Society of Cardiology Gold Medal at a ceremony held Aug. 29 in London in recognition of his achievements in the field of cardiology. Popp is the founder of the Stanford Echocardiography Lab. He made significant contributions to two-dimensional and three-dimensional echocardiography, Doppler ultrasound, color flow imaging, trans-esophageal echocardiography, contrast echocardiography and intravascular ultrasonic imaging. These methods are now the primary means of assessing most forms of heart disease in modern cardiology.
Nancy Wang, MD
Wang was appointed professor of emergency medicine, effective June 1. Wang serves as associate director of the pediatric emergency medicine program. She teaches general emergency medicine physicians how to better care for children both in the United States and in underserved areas internationally. Her research focuses on understanding disparities in access to emergency care and the resulting outcomes for children; screening for social needs of populations presenting to the emergency department; and developing ED-focused interventions with community partners.
Leanne Williams, PhD
Williams, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been awarded a three-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study variations in brain circuitry with the aim of better understanding how to tailor behavioral treatments for depression and depression coexisting with obesity. Williams shares the grant with Jun Ma, MD, PhD, professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ma and Williams are co-principal investigators of the study.
Helen Blau, PhD
Blau, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor and director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology, has received the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging from the Glenn Foundation for her contributions as a leader in the field. Blau will receive a $60,000 prize to augment research in her laboratory. She has developed molecular approaches to rejuvenating diverse cell types, counteracting fundamental mechanisms of aging and identifying therapeutic strategies for increasing the regenerative capacity of muscle stem cells and restoring muscle strength in the elderly.
Howard Chang, MD, PhD
Chang, professor of dermatology and director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science, was awarded the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for discovering a new class of genes called long noncoding RNAs and for revealing their role in cancer. He is the first Stanford researcher to receive this prize. Chang will receive $50,000 and will speak at a scientific symposium Dec. 3 at the center in New York. The prize was created to honor Paul Marks, MD, president emeritus of the center.
James Chang, MD
Chang, the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor in Surgery and chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery, was elected vice president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. The ASSH is the oldest and largest professional organization in hand surgery, with over 3,500 members worldwide. The focus of Chang’s research is improving the treatment of hand trauma, peripheral nerve injuries and congenital hand problems by applying new techniques in tissue engineering and microsurgery. Chang will automatically become ASSH president in 2017.
Susan Hiniker, MD
Hiniker, an instructor of radiation oncology, will receive an Annual Meeting Travel Award from the American Society for Radiation Oncology in recognition of the scientific abstract she submitted to its 57th annual meeting. Hiniker will receive the $1,000 award to offset travel costs to the Oct. 18-21 meeting in San Antonio.
Chia-Sui (Sunny) Kao, MD
Kao was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective July 1. Her clinical specialty is in diseases of the genitourinary tract, and her research interests are in testicular and bladder neoplasms.
Michael Longaker, MD
Longaker, the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor in the School of Medicine and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, was honored by the American College of Surgeons on Oct. 6 in Chicago. The ACS dedicated the 2015 Scientific Forum to Longaker in recognition of his accomplishments in surgical research and for his work in the areas of developmental biology, epithelial biology and tissue repair, tissue engineering and stem cell biology.
Karl Lorenz, MD, MSHS
Lorenz was appointed professor of medicine, effective July 1. Lorenz will serve as the new section chief of the Veterans Health Administration-Stanford programs in palliative care. His prior research includes developing simple measures of pain for use in the clinic, improving the quality of patient care and improving end-of-life care for people living with advanced chronic illnesses. His work focuses on providing more patient- and family-centered care for the seriously ill, as well as on ways to encourage health providers to engage in simple yet often-neglected clinical practices, such as speaking to patients about their prognoses, health goals and pain management.
Stephen Montgomery, PhD
Montgomery, assistant professor of pathology and of genetics, will receive a $1.4 million grant over three years from the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute to develop methods for interpreting noncoding genetic variation and for predicting disease-causing variants in genomes. Montgomery, the study’s principal investigator, and his team plan to develop various statistical models based on large amounts of information from individuals and identify variants that contribute to hundreds of diseases and traits.
September 2015
Victor Carrion, MD
Carrion, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received a 2015 Excellence in Healthcare Award from the Silicon Valley Business Journal for his research on anxiety and mood disorders in children and teenagers.
Steven Goodman, MD, PhD, MHS
Goodman, professor of medicine and of health research and policy, associate dean for clinical and translational research and co-founder and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford, has been named the 2016 Spinoza Chair in Medicine at the University of Amsterdam. Goodman will be in residence at the university for a week next May giving master classes on the foundation of scientific and statistical reasoning. He also will give a lecture on the causes of and cures for the current crisis in research reproducibility. The chair is named for the Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
Frank Longo, MD, PhD
Longo, the George E. and Lucy Becker Professor in Medicine and professor and chair of neurology and neurological sciences, has been named the inaugural winner of the Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery by the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. Longo and his colleagues developed a way to identify and develop oral drugs that mimic the function of normal brain proteins that protect nerve cells. One of their experimental medications is now in clinical trials. Longo will receive $150,000 to support research to develop a second Alzheimer’s drug candidate.
Karl Lorenz, MD, MSHS
Lorenz was appointed professor of medicine, effective July 1. Lorenz will serve as the new section chief of the Veterans Health Administration-Stanford programs in palliative care. His prior research includes developing simple measures of pain for use in the clinic, improving the quality of patient care and improving end-of-life care for people living with advanced chronic illnesses. His current work focuses on providing more patient- and family-centered care for the seriously ill, as well as on ways to encourage health providers to engage in simple yet often-neglected clinical practices, such as speaking to patients about their prognoses, health goals and pain management.
Maria Grazia Roncarolo, MD, and Sheri Spunt, MD, MBA
Roncarolo, professor of pediatrics, and Spunt, professor of pediatric hematology and oncology, have been awarded a 2015 infrastructure grant from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. The award provides $625,000 over five years to support phase 1 and 2 childhood cancer clinical trials. The grants are designed to support projects that have been deemed highly important but have not received National Institutes of Health funding.
Kuldev Singh, MD, MPH
Singh, professor of ophthalmology, will receive the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Life Achievement Honor Award at the academy’s annual meeting in November. The award recognizes individuals for their contributions to the academy and to ophthalmology.
Avnesh Thakor, MD, PhD
Thakor was appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. He is trained in both pediatric and adult interventional radiology. His research focus is developing molecular-guided therapies. His current work addresses the design and development of new nanoparticle platforms for both diagnosis and therapy.
Leah Backhus, MD, MPH
Backhus was appointed associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective July 1. Backhus specializes in general thoracic surgery and thoracic surgical oncology. She will lead health services and surgical outcomes research in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Her research focuses on lung-cancer survivorship and imaging surveillance following treatment for early-stage lung cancer.
Suzan Carmichael, PhD
Carmichael was promoted to professor (research) of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. Her research focuses on nutritional, environmental and genetic risk factors for perinatal outcomes such as birth defects, preterm delivery and stillbirth, and factors affecting the care and outcomes of infants who have birth defects.
Stephanie Chao, MD
Chao has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective July 1. Her research focuses on eradicating hepatitis B, which is the leading cause of liver cancer and liver disease globally. Chao works with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford and helped launch the Jade Ribbon Campaign to improve public and physician awareness about hepatitis B.
Michael Cleary, MD
Cleary, professor of pathology and of pediatrics, was awarded a 2015 innovation grant from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. This award will provide $250,000 over two years for his research on the molecular events and cellular responses associated with the onset of acute leukemia. The grants provide funding for experienced researchers with new and promising projects to identify the causes of and cures for childhood cancers.
Terry Desser, MD
Desser was promoted to professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. Desser served as residency program director in the Department of Radiology for 11 years. Her work focuses on identifying the human factors related to success in academic radiology and what drives the choice of specialties among medical students. Her clinical interests lie in the area of cancer overdiagnosis, particularly in ultrasound diagnosis of thyroid cancer.
Gregory Enns, MB, ChB
Enns was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective June 1. Enns’ research involves developing ways to detect and monitor mitochondrial dysfunction noninvasively using highly sensitive biomarkers, tandem mass spectrometry and high-dimensional flow cytometry. He also is involved in clinical trials using novel therapeutics to treat inborn errors of metabolism, with an emphasis on mitochondrial disease.
Eben Rosenthal, MD
Rosenthal has been appointed professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective July 1. Rosenthal focuses on developing real-time imaging agents to help surgeons and pathologists visualize cancer during surgery. He recently completed the first clinical trial in the United States for near-infrared optical imaging in cancer and is initiating this technique in a range of tumor types at Stanford.
Jennifer Shah, MD
Shah, a resident in radiation oncology, has received a 2015 American Society for Radiation Oncology Residents/Fellows in Radiation Oncology Research Seed Grant to study the feasibility of performing a specific type of CT scan on patients undergoing stereotactic ablative radiation therapy for lung cancer. This grant provides $25,000 for one year to residents and fellows planning to pursue careers in basic science or clinical research in radiation oncology.
Ronald Witteles, MD
Wittles was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective June 1. Witteles is program director of the internal medicine residency training program at Stanford, and oversees all fellowship programs within internal medicine. He is also co-director of the Stanford Amyloid Center, the largest center of its kind in the western United States. His research focuses on emerging treatments for systemic amyloidosis, cardiac complications of cancer therapy, and evolving diagnostic/therapeutic strategies for cardiac sarcoidosis.
August 2015
Ramin Dubey, PhD
Dubey, a postdoctoral scholar, was awarded a young investigator grant by Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to study toxicity and resistance to chemotherapy drugs using a genetic tool called haploid genetic screening to uncover the genes that mediate resistance to the topoisomerase inhibitors that form the basis for several cancer treatments. Dubey will receive $100,000 in grant funding over two years.
Naside Gozde Durmus, PhD
Durmas, a postdoctoral scholar in biochemistry, is featured in MIT Technology Review’s annual “35 Innovators Under 35” list. She invented a cell-levitating device that enables researchers to quickly detect physical changes in cells. White and red blood cells, cancer cells and cells that are responding to drugs all levitate at different heights in a magnetic field. Durmus’ invention exploits this property of cells and makes it easy to spot how a cell responds to a drug in just an hour. This invention can also distinguish rare cells — that is, circulating tumor cells — from whole blood without using any labels or antibodies, unlike the conventional methods.
Michael Iv, MD
Iv, clinical assistant professor of radiology, has been awarded a research scholar grant by the Radiological Society of North America Research and Education Foundation. He will receive $150,000 over two years for research that uses images of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles to track tumor-associated macrophages in a form of human brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme.
Guillem Pratx, PhD
Pratx, associate professor of radiation oncology, was awarded one of six 2015 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Awards. He will receive $300,000 over two years to develop a new way to use flow cytometry, a technology used to categorize single cells to measure the uptake of any nonfluorescent molecule. This work will help researchers assess how tumors respond to cancer therapy. The award is given to early career scientists whose research aims to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Hyongsok Soh, PhD
Soh was appointed professor of radiology and of electrical engineering, effective July 1. Soh’s laboratory develops synthetic reagents and biosensor devices that measure biomolecules, such as nucleic acids and proteins, in complex environments. Recently, his team demonstrated a biosensor technology that can continuously measure drugs in live subjects in real time.
Jennifer Tremmel, MD
Tremmel, assistant professor of medicine, was appointed the Susan P. and Riley P. Bechtel Medical Director, an endowed position that supports her existing role as the clinical director of the Women’s Heart Health Program at Stanford Health Care. The focus of Tremmel’s research is sex differences in cardiovascular disease. She researches how men and women differ in coronary endothelial function, plaque deposition and the circulation of blood in the smallest blood vessels in men and women who have chest pain despite having normal-appearing coronary arteries. Tremmel is the inaugural holder of the directorship.
Oana Ursu and Kun-Hsing Yu
Ursu and Yu, both PhD students, have been selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute international student fellows. The program provides $43,000 to life-science students during their third to fifth years of graduate school in the United States. This year, HHMI selected 45 PhD students from 18 countries to receive fellowships.
Michael Zeineh, MD, PhD
Zeineh, assistant professor of radiology, has been granted a clinical scientist development award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The award provides $162,000 per year for three years. Zeineh will use it to study iron and microglia in postmortem brain specimens from humans with Alzheimer’s disease, with the aim of translating his findings to help humans living with the disease.
Steven Asch, MD, MPH, and Sang-ick Chang, MD, MPH
Asch and Chang assumed leadership of the Division of General Medical Disciplines in the Department of Medicine, effective June 15. Asch, a professor of medicine, oversees research activities in the division. Chang, a clinical professor of medicine, oversees its clinical activities. Both oversee the division’s educational mission.
Marion Buckwalter, MD, PhD
Buckwalter was promoted to associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective April 1. Her research examines how inflammation affects patient outcomes after strokes. Her team recently discovered that autoimmunity may play an important role in the development of dementia following stroke.
Stephen Felt, DVM, MPH
Felt has been promoted to associate professor of comparative medicine, effective April 1. He researches imaging models for laboratory animal species, and ways to improve the health and welfare of laboratory animals.
Norman Lacayo, MD
Lacayo was promoted to associate professor of pediatrics, effective April 1. His recent research focuses on gene and protein expression in the leukemia cells of children diagnosed with acute leukemia, with an aim to improve diagnosis and therapy for each patient.
Jason Lee, MD
Lee was promoted to professor of surgery, effective April 1. His research focuses on the development of techniques and devices to repair complex aortic aneurysms. He is tracking the performance of a variety of devices to see which results in the best patient outcomes. He also teaches physicians worldwide how to use these devices.
Alison Marsden, PhD
Marsden was appointed associate professor of pediatrics and of bioengineering, effective July 1. Marsden specializes in pediatric and congenital heart disease, using simulations of blood flow to improve medical device design and imaging, and to study the progression of heart disease. She also works with clinical researchers to develop tools for personalized medicine and treatment planning.
Marco Perez, MD
Perez was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective May 1. Perez is the director of the Stanford Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic, and his research, which focuses on rare and inherited arrhythmias, uses genetics and epidemiology to investigate the causes of cardiovascular diseases.
Maria Polyakova, PhD
Polyakova, assistant professor of health research and policy, has received the 2014 Geneva Association’s Ernst Meyer Prize. This award was given in recognition of her research on risk and health insurance economics. Based in Switzerland, the Geneva Association focuses on insurance economics research.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, was named a 2015 National Geographic Emerging Explorer. As one of 14 honorees, he will receive $10,000. Prakash specializes in developing low-cost scientific tools, such as the Foldscope microscope and a small-scale chemistry kit.
Laura Roberts, MD
Roberts, the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, will be awarded $50,000 as the recipient of the 2015 MacLean Center Prize in Clinical Ethics from the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. Roberts specializes in ethics, suicide prevention and careers and leadership in academic medicine and medical education.
Ivan Soltesz, PhD
Soltesz was appointed professor of neurosurgery, effective May 1. He is also the vice chair of neurosurgery. His research focuses on inhibition in the brain and the mechanisms of circuit dysfunction in epilepsy. His team has created virtual networks of brain regions using supercomputers, and developed methods for the control of epilepsy.
Junaid Zaman, MA, BMBCh, MRCP
Zaman has received the UK-U.S. Fulbright British Heart Foundation Research Scholar Award. Zaman is a postdoctoral research fellow at Imperial College London and a postdoctoral scholar at the School of Medicine. He will receive about $109,000 to do research at Stanford for one year. He plans to examine treatments for sudden cardiac death.
july 2015
Rosa Bacchetta, MD
Bacchetta was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective May 1. She studies mechanisms of immune regulation and of early-onset diseases with immune deficiency and dysregulation. She is currently working to link genetic autoimmune abnormalities with patient phenotypes, with the goal of developing therapies.
Bérénice Benayoun, PhD
Benayoun, postdoctoral scholar in genetics, was awarded honorable mention and $10,000 in the 2015 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation contest. This award acknowledges, rewards and fosters talented early-career biomedical scientists.
Adam de la Zerda, PhD
De la Zerda, assistant professor of structural biology, has been named a 2015 Pew-Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research by the Pew Charitable Trusts. He will receive $60,000 a year for four years to support his research. He is working to develop a molecular-imaging technique that can characterize and monitor individual cells in breast cancer tumors.
Matthew Fitzgerald, PhD
Fitzgerald was appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective Jan. 1. His research investigates how individuals understand speech and sound. He also develops tools and methods to improve the outcomes of cochlear implants and to aid language development in hearing-impaired children.
Sanjiv Gambhir, MD, PhD
Gambhir, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research and chair of radiology, was awarded the 2015 J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine. The annual $25,000 prize is given by the University of Western Ontario’s Robarts Research Institute, with a focus this year on cellular and molecular imaging in cancer. The award will be presented Nov. 18 in London, Ontario. Gambhir directs Stanford’s Molecular Imaging Program.
Holbrook Kohrt, MD, PhD, and Pamela Kunz, MD
Kohrt and Kunz, both assistant professors of medicine, have been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation. They will examine 1,031 samples of neuroendocrine-tumor tissue and characterize the tumor-immune phenotype of samples from 20 patients enrolled in a trial of an immunotherapy agent at Stanford.
Ed Kopetsky
Kopetsky, chief information officer of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health, was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 2015 Bay Area CIO of the Year awards ceremony June 18. The annual event is held by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times.
June 2015
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D.H. Chen Professor and professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been awarded the Dickson Prize in Medicine from the University of Pittsburgh. Deisseroth was honored for pioneering optogenetics, a technology that uses light to control the behavior of neurons in living animals. He will receive $50,000 and deliver the Dickson Prize in Medicine Lecture on Oct. 8.
Garry Fathman, MD
Fathman, professor of medicine, delivered the keynote address for the Washington University School of Medicine’s 2015 commencement ceremony. He received his medical degree from the university in 1969. His research interests include the role of T cells in immune response, gene therapy for autoimmune disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
William Fearon, MD
Fearon was promoted to professor of medicine, effective April 1. His research focuses on the invasive assessment of coronary physiology using a wire-based technique. He has been instrumental in the development of a robust transcatheter aortic valve replacement program, which has treated more than 500 patients over the past seven years.
Jason Hom, MD, and Ian Nelligan, MD, MPH
Hom and Nelligan have been selected as Rathmann Family Medical Education Fellows in Patient-Centered Care for 2015-16. The program provides part-time salary support to the fellows to help them pursue study and activities focused on the promotion of patient-centered care in medical education. Hom is a clinical instructor in medicine and hospitalist and is interested in patient-physician communication. Nelligan, a clinical instructor in medicine, is co-director of the Longitudinal Community Health Advocacy Medical Partnership, a new medical school course that provides community-based clinical experiences and mentorship.
Laurence Katznelson, MD
Katznelson, professor of neurosurgery and of medicine, has received the H. Jack Baskin, MD, Endocrine Teaching Award from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. The award recognizes a physician who has made a profound impact by teaching fellows. He previously directed the endocrinology fellowship program at Stanford, where he introduced many new techniques to teach endocrine specialties and pathology. He is also the associate dean of graduate medical education.
Cara Liebert, MD
Liebert, a surgical education fellow, has received a 2015 Outstanding Resident Teaching Award from the Association for Surgical Education. She develops and teaches surgical curricula for medical students and residents and has worked with simulation-based training, flipped classroom curricula and medical student mistreatment. She is a degree candidate in the Master of Health Professions Education Program at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She will return to her clinical residency training at Stanford this summer.
Bingwei Lu, PhD
Lu was promoted to professor of pathology, effective April 1. His research examines conserved mechanisms underlying the development, function and maintenance of the nervous system, focusing on the role of mitochondrial function and regulation. He hopes to develop new strategies to combat devastating brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and brain cancer.
Carolyn Rodriguez, MD, PhD
Rodriguez was appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective July 1. She studies the molecular, physiological and neural mechanisms of rapid-acting treatments for mental illness. She is working to develop more effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive and hoarding disorders and related conditions.
Daniel Rubin, MD, MS
Rubin was promoted to associate professor of radiology and of medicine, effective May 1. He is principal investigator of two centers in the National Cancer Institute’s Quantitative Imaging Network. His research focuses on quantitative imaging and integrating imaging data with clinical and molecular data to discover imaging phenotypes that can predict the underlying biology, define disease subtypes and personalize treatment.
Heather Wakelee, MD
Wakelee, associate professor of medicine, has received the Young Investigator Award from the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group. The award recognizes extraordinary scientific achievements and leadership in research by young scientists. Wakelee leads Stanford’s thoracic medical oncology program. Her research focuses on the use of adjuvant therapy for lung cancer.
Juergen Willmann, MD
Willmann was promoted to professor of radiology, effective April 1. He is clinical section chief of body imaging and director of the Translational Molecular Imaging Laboratory. His research focuses on the development, testing and clinical translation of acoustic-based molecular imaging technologies. He recently initiated the first human clinical trial in the United States on molecular imaging with ultrasound in cancer patients.
may 2015
Sally Arai, MD, MS
Arai was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective March 1. Her clinical focus is on diseases related to hematopoietic cell transplantation and the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease. Recently, she served as a member of a National Institutes of Health panel to revise criteria for clinical trials of treatments for the disease.
Iris Gibbs, MD
Gibbs, associate dean of MD admissions and associate professor of radiation oncology, has been named a fellow in the 2015-16 class of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women. The program includes three weeklong sessions and ongoing follow-up. Gibbs specializes in stereotactic brain surgery and the radiation management of brain tumors.
Harry Greenberg, MD
Greenberg, the Joseph D. Grant Professor in the School of Medicine and professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, has received the 2015 Gold Medal for Outstanding Achievements in Medical Research for an Alumnus from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In addition, Greenberg, who is also senior associate dean for research at the School of Medicine, recently presented the annual National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Robert M. Chanock Memorial Lecture. His talk was titled “Innate and acquired immunity to rotavirus: New mechanisms and old tricks.” Greenberg’s research focuses on the biology of rotaviruses and their interactions with host immune systems.
Karen Parker, PhD
Parker was promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective March 1. She studies the function of neuropeptides such as oxytocin in promoting typical behavior and how the disruption of early social relationships alter developing neurobiological systems, affecting social behavior and stress responses.
Arjun Pendharkar, MD
Pendharkar, a resident in neurological surgery, was named a fellow in the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Leadership Fellows Program. The two-year program gives young physicians the opportunity to participate in the leadership of the organization. His clinical interests include skull-base and pituitary surgery, and his research focuses on neural stem cell therapies for stroke.
Edda Spiekerkoetter, MD
Spiekerkoetter, assistant professor of medicine, has received the American Society of Clinical Investigator’s Young Physician-Scientist Award. Her research focuses on pulmonary hypertension and methods to improve heart function. In particular, she studies the BMPR2 signaling pathway.
Lawrence Steinman, MD
Steinman, the George A. Zimmerman Professor and professor of pediatrics and of neurology and neurological sciences, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the pathogenesis of relapse and remission in multiple sclerosis. His work has contributed to the development of one approved therapy for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and to two potential therapies for this condition that are in clinical trials.
Elizabeth Stuart, MD, and Gretchen Shawver
Stuart, clinical professor of pediatrics and assistant dean for clerkship education, and Shawver, clerkship administrator in the Department of Pediatrics, have each received a 2015 Annual Award in Teaching and Education from the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics. The awards honor scholarly and innovative approaches to pediatric medical student education. Stuart received the COMSEP Teaching/Education Award for contributions in program leadership and curriculum development. Shawver was honored with the COMSEP Award for Excellence in Clerkship Administration for organizational and interpersonal skills that have helped bring recognition to pediatric clerkships both at Stanford and nationally.
Joseph Wu, MD, PhD; Steven Artandi, MD, PhD; and Glenn Chertow, MD, MPH
Wu, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and professor of medicine and of radiology; Artandi, professor of medicine and of biochemistry; and Chertow, professor of medicine and chief of nephrology, have been elected to the Association of American Physicians. The association was founded in 1885 and recognizes excellence in the pursuit of medical knowledge and the advancement of basic and clinical science.
Zev Bryant, PhD
Bryant was promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, effective April 1. His research focuses on measuring, understanding and controlling the dynamics of biological molecules that function as nanoscale machines. His team has developed high-resolution methods for measuring molecular torque, discovered the mechanism of a bacterial enzyme that winds up DNA, and created remote-controlled protein motors that change speed and direction in response to light.
Joshua Knowles, MD, PhD, and Atsushi Tachibana, MSc
Knowles and Tachibana have received American College of Cardiology Herman K. Gold Young Investigators Awards in Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. Knowles, assistant professor of medicine, received the second-place award in recognition of his work using large-scale genomic studies to identify the genes associated with insulin resistance. Tachibana, a graduate student, received the third-place award. He is a research fellow in the laboratory of Phillip Yang, MD, associate professor of medicine, where he focuses on the in vivo imaging of cardiovascular stem cells and myocardial regeneration.
Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD
Kuo was appointed vice chair of basic and translations research for the Department of Medicine. A professor of medicine, Kuo is also co-director of the cancer biology research program at the Stanford Cancer Institute. His research focuses on intestinal stem cells, growing three-dimensional organs in a dish and on the biology of blood vessels and development of blood-vessel-based treatment for stroke, cancer and diabetes.
April 2015
Jason Batten
Batten, a medical student, has been awarded a fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics. He is among 62 students from seminaries and from schools of business, journalism, law and medicine to be accepted to the two-week, interdisciplinary program, which focuses on investigating ethical issues. Batten conducts clinical ethics research at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.
Sherri Sager
Sager, chief government and community relations officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, has been named one of the 100 most influential women in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Sager has represented the hospital to government agencies and community groups, and she has advocated for the well-being of children and expectant mothers through work on policy issues. She serves as chair of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association’s board of directors and as a board liaison on the Ravenswood Family Health Center’s board of directors. She is involved in many other health and community organizations.
Chiaka Aribeana
Aribeana, a medical student, was awarded a highly competitive summer internship scholarship in cardiothoracic surgery from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. She works in the laboratory of Joseph Woo, MD, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery, and conducts basic science and translational research focused on cardiac tissue engineering and myocardial regeneration to treat heart failure.
Prasanthi Govindarajan, MD, MAS
Govindarajan was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective March 1. She focuses on management of cerebro-vascular conditions. She studies prehospital interventions, such as telemedicine, that reduce the time to treatment and improve thrombolytic treatment rates among acute ischemic stroke patients.
Scott Hall, PhD
Hall was appointed associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective March 1. He studies intellectual and developmental disabilities and is investigating a social-skills intervention for adolescents with Fragile X syndrome. He also investigates the biological and environmental factors underlying problem behaviors in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome.
Mark Hlatky, MD
Hlatky, professor of health research and policy and of medicine, was awarded the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology for his contributions to clinical and outcomes research. He directs the master’s degree program in health services research. His research focuses on improving the methods of randomized clinical trials, developing patient-centered outcome measures, and assessing the clinical effectiveness and value of practices in cardiovascular medicine.
Christina Kong, MD
Kong was promoted to professor of pathology, effective March 1. She directs the Cytopathology Service, which provides same-day, on-call, fine-needle-aspiration biopsies. She established and directs the cytopathology fellowship. Her research interests include the use of ancillary studies as diagnostic and predictive markers for malignant and premalignant conditions of the head, neck and gynecologic tract.
Dennis Lund, MD
Lund was appointed professor of surgery, effective March 1. He is the associate dean for pediatrics and obstetrics, and chief medical officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. He was previously executive vice president and surgeon-in-chief for Phoenix Children’s Medical Group. He is interested in improving health-care outcomes for children.
Justin Sonnenburg, PhD
Sonnenburg was promoted to associate professor of microbiology and immunology, effective March 1. He studies the gut microbiota and has shown how antibiotic use can allow harmful bacteria to cause disease. He uses genetic approaches to examine interactions between microbial communities and their host organism.
Lynn Westphal, MD
Westphal was promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective Feb. 1. She directs the Fertility Preservation Program, the Third-Party Reproduction Program, and the reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship. She co-directs the medical school’s scholarly concentration for women’s health and sex differences. She established one of the first oocyte cryopreservation programs in the United States in 1999, and co-founded the Stanford Center for Health Research on Women and Sex Differences in Medicine.
Donna Zulman, MD
Zulman was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective April 1. She is a general internist and health services researcher with the School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Her research focuses on improving care for patients with multiple chronic conditions. She also studies health-care delivery models.
March 2015
Sumbul Desai, MD
Desai was appointed vice chair of strategy and innovation for the Department of Medicine. A former strategist for Disney, Desai returned to medical school following her mother’s illness. Most recently, as a strategist at Stanford Health Care, she helped launch a virtual primary care clinic.
Joseph Garner, PhD
Garner, associate professor of comparative medicine, was senior author of a paper that was “highly commended” by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. The paper found many laboratory mice are cold, which could skew experimental results, and that adding nesting materials to their cages helps them regulate temperature. His research focuses on addressing issues in animal and human well-being.
Peter Kim, PhD
Kim was elected to the 17-member governing council of the National Academy of Sciences. The Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry, Kim is a structural biologist who discovered how proteins cause viral membranes to fuse with cells. He is working to create an HIV vaccine.
Thomas Krummel, MD
Krummel was awarded the 2014 Albion Walter Hewlett Award in the Department of Medicine. Krummel has served as chair of the Department of surgery for about 15 years. He is the Emile Holman Professor in Surgery and the Susan B. Ford Surgeon-in-Chief at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD
Mignot, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the 2015 National Sleep Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes researchers in the field of sleep medicine for their leadership and productivity over years of work. A dinner honoring Mignot was held March 16 at the Arrillaga Alumni Center.
Darius Moshfeghi, MD
Moshfeghi was promoted to professor of ophthalmology, effective Jan. 1. He develops telemedicine techniques to identify and prevent childhood blindness. He founded the Stanford University Network for the Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity and is working on the Newborn Eye Screen Testing Program that is following newborns to determine the long-term effects of birth pathology. Ultimately, he hopes to promote universal eye screening in infants.
Denise Monack, PhD
Monack, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in January. She focuses on host-pathogen interactions and uses bacterial pathogens to understand how microbes have evolved to evade and manipulate commensal bacteria in the gut and immune system during chronic infections.
Philip Sunshine, MD
Sunshine, professor emeritus of pediatrics, was named a Legend of Neonatology at NEO: The Conference for Neonatology. He is considered one of the founders of the neonatology discipline and led Stanford’s neonatal team for several decades. He specialized in neonatal and developmental gastroenterology and nutrition.
Dolly Tyan, PhD
Tyan, professor of pathology, was awarded the 2015 Paul I. Terasaki Clinical Science Award for her contributions to the fields of transplantation, histocompatibility and immunogenetics by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. She spearheaded the development and clinical adaptation of using high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin to lower antibodies in patients waiting for organ transplant who have high levels of anti-human leukocyte antigen. She also helped develop the C1q antibody test, which determines which antibodies are likely to contribute to organ rejection.
February 2015
Seth Ammerman, MD
Ammerman, professor of pediatrics, received a Jefferson Award for Public Service Silver Medal, which recognizes five standouts in local community service. Ammerman is the medical director of the of the Teen Health Van, a mobile clinic community outreach program of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, which provides health care to uninsured and homeless young adults. His research interests include underserved youth, eating disorders, substance use and mobile technology for adolescent health education.
Karen Hong
Hong, a third-year medical student, was named a 2015 Gates Cambridge Scholar. She is interested in preventive eye screening and treatment in underserved Asian countries. Gates Cambridge Scholarships enable graduate students outside the United Kingdom to pursue full-time graduate studies in any subject at Cambridge University. In Cambridge, she plans to focus on epidemiological analysis and research design.
David Kurtz, MD
Kurtz, a postdoctoral scholar, has been awarded a Lymphoma Research Foundation Clinical Research Mentoring Program grant. He is interested in clinical trials in hematology and oncology, medical education and tumor cell therapies.
Kyle Loh
Loh, a graduate student in developmental biology, has received the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. The award, given by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, recognizes outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences. Loh aims to create human tissues — including bone, heart muscle and blood vessels — in a dish from embryonic stem cells.
Suzan Carmichael, PhD
Carmichael, associate professor of pediatrics, has been appointed to the California Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee. The committee aims to identify chemicals that have been shown to cause reproductive toxicity. Her research focuses on population-based epidemiologic studies of newborn health outcomes, particularly birth defects, preterm delivery and stillbirth, as well as risk factors related to nutrition, environmental contaminants and genetic susceptibility.
Smita Das, MD, PhD, MPH
Das, chief resident in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received an Academy of Addiction Psychiatry travel award; the Ruth Fox Scholarship to attend the American Society of Addiction Medicine Conference in April; and the Ginsberg Award from the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training. Her research interests include addiction behavior, community outreach, hospital quality and development and implementation of behavioral interventions in public health.
Carlos Esquivel, MD, PhD
Esquivel, the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Professor in Pediatric Transplantation, received the 2015 Francis Moore Excellence in Mentorship in the Field of Transplantation Award from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the Vanguard Committee. He directs the abdominal transplant fellowship at Stanford and is chief of the Division of Abdominal Transplantation. He performs and conducts research on organ transplants.
Shivaani Kummar, MD
Kummar was appointed professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. She directs the phase-1 clinical research program in the Division of Medical Oncology. She specializes in conducting first-in-human trials — integrating genomics and laboratory correlates — that aim to make early decisions about whether further clinical investigation is worthwhile.
Richard Lafayette, MD
Lafayette, associate professor of medicine, was appointed editor of the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney News. He is a clinician in Stanford Health Care’s nephrology clinic, director of the Stanford Glomerular Disease Center and a founding member of the Stanford Amyloid Center.
Sanjay Malhotra, PhD
Malhotra was appointed associate professor (research) of radiation oncology, effective Jan. 1. He focuses on the design and discovery of small molecules that can be used as probes to understand protein-protein interactions and modulation of signal transduction pathways. His work uses tools from synthetic medicinal chemistry, molecular modeling and chemical biology for translational research in drug discovery, development, imaging and radiation.
January 2015
Christopher Almond, MD
Almond was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. He focuses on improving the outcomes for children with end-stage heart failure. He regularly leads investigations of ventricular assist devices. He also directs the Cardiac Anticoagulation Service at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
Niaz Banaei, MD
Banaei was promoted to associate professor of pathology and of medicine, effective Dec. 1. He is the medical director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Stanford Medicine. He also directs the pathology fellowship in global health diagnostics. His research interests include the development and assessment of infectious disease diagnostics, enhancement of diagnostic results for Clostridium difficile and the characterization of the determinants of tuberculosis virulence.
Victor Carrion, MD
Carrion, professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been elected chair of California’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission. He directs the Stanford Early Life Stress and Pediatric Anxiety Program. He investigates the effects of stress on developmental physiology and brain development and function, and is working to develop new therapies for children who experience trauma. He is also a co-founder of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco.
Danton Char, MD
Char was appointed assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Dec. 1. His clinical work focuses on providing perioperative care to children with cardiac disease. His research focuses on ethical issues that arise in pediatric cardiac anesthesia.
Heike Daldrup-Link, MD, PhD
Daldrup-Link, associate professor of radiology, was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. She is a practicing pediatric radiologist. Her research focuses on using cell biology, nanomedicine and medical imaging to develop cellular imaging technologies for cancer and stem cell tracking. Several of these imaging applications are being used to help patients.
Francisco Gimenez
Gimenez, a graduate student, was the lead author of “A novel method to assess incompleteness of mammography report content,” which won first place in the student paper competition at the 2014 American Medical Informatics Association Symposium. The paper also won the competition’s Martin Epstein Award, a recognition reserved for a first-place paper judged to be “truly extraordinary,” according to the association. Gimenez is a member of the lab of Daniel Rubin, MD, assistant professor of radiology and of biomedical informatics research, who is the paper’s senior author.
Claudine Laurent-Levinson, MD, PhD
Laurent-Levinson was appointed associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective May 1. She is a child psychiatrist who specializes in learning disabilities and their psychiatric comorbidities, including language disorders; nonverbal learning disabilities, such as dyspraxia; and early onset schizophrenia.
Mary Leonard, MD
Leonard was appointed professor of pediatrics and of medicine, effective July 1. She investigates the effect of childhood chronic diseases, such as kidney or heart disease, on bone and muscle development. She is developing methods to promote bone development and treat the skeletal complications of these diseases.
Cara Liebert, MD
Liebert, a surgical education fellow, received a 2014 Outstanding Resident Teaching Award from the Association for Surgical Education. She develops and teaches surgical curricula for medical students and residents and has worked with interprofessional simulation-based training, flipped classroom curricula and medical-student mistreatment. She is a degree candidate in the Master’s of Health Professions Education Program at the University of Illinois-Chicago and will return to her clinical residency training at Stanford in the summer.
Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD
Mignot was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Sleep Foundation. An event will be held March 6 at Stanford in his honor. He is the Craig Reynolds Professor in Sleep Medicine, and directs the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine. He discovered that narcolepsy is caused by an immune-mediated destruction of neurons in the hypothalamus. He is also interested in Web-based assessments of sleep disorders, genome-wide association research, computer-based processing of polysomnography and outcomes research.
John Ratliff, MD, FACS
Ratliff, associate professor of neurosurgery, was elected to a two-year term as member-at-large on the executive committee for the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He is vice chair of operations and development in the Department of Neurosurgery. He specializes in spine disorders and focuses on patient outcomes and decreasing the risk of operative complications.
Eduardo Zambrano, MD
Zambrano was appointed a professor of pathology, effective July 1. He serves as chief of pathology at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and associate medical director for pediatrics at the Stanford Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Laboratories. His research focuses on the characterization of molecular and immunohistochemical markers of bone and soft tissue neoplasms and pediatric solid tissues. He recently characterized a new type of tumor.
Anne Brunet, PhD
Brunet was promoted to professor of genetics, effective Nov. 1. She studies the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate aging and rejuvenation. Her team is also developing a new model system, the African killifish, to understand vertebrate aging and to examine the evolution of life span differences.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was named the 2014 Scientist of the Year by R&D Magazine. He led the development of optogenetics, the integration of genetics and optics to allow for the control of cells within intact biological systems. He also led the development of CLARITY, a method of creating transparent biological models using a tissue-hydrogel hybrid. Using optogenetics and CLARITY, he investigates Parkinson’s disease, anxiety, social dysfunction, depression and other psychiatric disorders.
Harry Greenberg, MD
Greenberg, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, was voted chair-elect of the American Association of the Advancement of Science Section on Medical Sciences. He directs Spectrum, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and is the medical school’s senior associate dean for research. He studies influenza and rotovirus infections, with a focus on microbial pathogenesis and innate and acquired immunity.
Michael Greicius, MD, MPH
Greicius was promoted to associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective Nov. 1. He recently received a $300,000 McKnight Foundation Memory and Cognitive Disorders Award. He uses brain imaging, biomarkers and genetics to understand the role of a gene variant in Alzheimer’s disease. He is examining why the gene variant confers greater risk in women than in men.
David S. Hong, MD
Hong was appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Nov. 1. He is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who focuses on the evaluation and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders. He uses neuroimaging and genetic sequencing to establish genotype-phenotype relationships in children with genetic disorders. He also investigates the role of sex chromosomes and hormones in brain development.
Erin Turk
Turk, a graduate student, won a Genetics Society of America poster award for her work, “A new member of the tubulin superfamily orients cilia in multiciliated epithelial cells,” at the 15th International Xenopus Conference in August. Turk is a member of the lab of Tim Stearns, PhD, professor of biology and of genetics. She studies zeta-tubulin, a protein found in frogs that helps orient cilia to ensure the fluid in tissues moves in a single direction.
Keith Van Haren, MD
Van Haren was appointed assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective Nov. 1. He treats adults and children with a range of genetic disorders or autoimmune brain disorders. He is developing therapies and care strategies for patients with neurodegenerative disorders, particularly those affecting myelin.
Ke Yuan, PhD
Yuan, a postdoctoral scholar, received the Cournand and Comroe Young Investigator Award from the American Heart Association for her work on pulmonary hypertension. The award honors the accomplishments of early career investigators. She examines signaling in endothelial and pericyte cells. She is working to understand the molecular mechanisms that regulate pulmonary hypertension.
December 2014
Howard Chang, MD
Chang, professor of dermatology, has been awarded the 2014 Judson Daland Prize from the American Philosophical Society. The $50,000 award recognizes outstanding achievement in patient-oriented research. Chang discovered the existence and functions of a new class of genes called long noncoding RNAs. He showed these genes control cell fates and are important in cancer and regenerative medicine.
Albert Cheung, MD
Cheung was appointed professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Sept. 1. He is chief of the Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Anesthesia. Previously, he served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for 24 years. He focuses on cardiovascular surgical care, perioperative echocardiography, cardiovascular pharmacology, brain protection for thoracic aortic operations and preventing and treating paraplegia after thoracic aortic aneurysm repair.
Elizabeth DiRenzo, PhD
DiRenzo was appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective Oct. 1. She is a speech pathologist who works to evaluate and treat patients with voice, resonance, airway and swallowing disorders. Her research focuses on improving techniques to prevent and manage voice disorders.
Susan Frayne, MD, MPH
Frayne was appointed professor of medicine, effective May 1. She is the associate chief of women’s health at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and directs the VA Women’s Health Evaluation Initiative, which uses VA data to inform national programs and policies. She also directs the VA Women’s Health Practice-Based Research Network. Her research focuses on medical care for female veterans, particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Juliana Idoyaga, PhD
Idoyaga was appointed assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, effective July 1. She investigates the biology and function of dendritic cells. She is working to use these cells to develop safer and more efficient vaccines and immunotherapies to treat infectious diseases, cancer, chronic inflammation and autoimmune disorders.
Paul Johannet and Timothy Singer
Johannet and Singer, both medical students, received the 2014 Hematology Opportunities for the Next Generation of Research Scientists Award from the American Society of Hematology. The $5,000 awardsupports a hematology research project. Johannet investigated cell-signaling pathways in drug-resistant lymphoma cells. Singer studied the role of the bone marrow environment on the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia.
Kim Margolin, MD
Margolin was appointed professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. She conducts clinical trials with a focus on melanoma and immunotherapy. She hopes to develop new therapies for melanoma by strengthening Stanford’s collaborations with outside research groups. She also leads the oncology fellowship program.
Suleiman Massarweh, MD
Massarweh has been appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1, 2015. He is a breast oncologist with interests in endocrine therapy resistance and clinical trial design for new therapeutics. He will direct Stanford’s program on breast oncology clinical trials.
Brian Matesic
Matesic, a medical student, was awarded the $20,000 Robert S. Kaplan Life Sciences Fellowship at Harvard Business School. At Stanford, he worked to create a student-led consulting group that has completed more than 20 quality-improvement projects at Stanford Hospital. He also founded a health-care leadership and innovation course. At Harvard, he plans to earn a MBA with a focus on health-care systems redesign and delivery improvement.
Doff McElhinney, MD
McElhinney was appointed professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Aug. 1. He is a pediatric/congenital interventional cardiologist who directs clinical outcomes and translational research at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford Heart Center. He specializes in outcomes research, transcatheter device therapy and the management, diagnosis and pathophysiology of pediatric and adult congenital heart disease. He serves as the associate editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions and chairs the Congenital Heart Disease Council of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.
Vinod Menon, PhD
Menon was appointed professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective May 1. He also holds the Rachael L. and Walter F. Nichols, MD, Professorship. He uses imaging and computational techniques to investigate the functional and structural architecture of cognitive networks in the brain. He also examines how disruptions in brain circuits affect behavior, cognition, emotion and learning in individuals with various disorders.
Sam Most, MD, FACS
Most received the 2014 F. Mark Rafaty Award for excellence in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He examines the outcomes of functional nasal surgery and models of facial nerve paralysis. He will serve as the vice president for research and development at the academy.
Seshadri Mudumbai, MD
Mudumbai was appointed assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Aug. 1. He directs the Veterans Health Administration informatics systems and perioperative analytics for the region including Northern California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam. His interests include outcomes research, pharmacoepidemiology (particularly of opioids) and perioperative informatics.
Kun Tae Park, MD
Park was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective July 1. He plans to expand the reach of the Stanford Children’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center. His research focuses on developing tools to ensure clinicians adopt optimal strategies to treat chronic digestive diseases such as pediatric Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Sergiu Pasca, MD
Pasca, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the international MQ Fellows Award, an approximately $350,000 prize that aims to address gaps in the understanding of mental illness and to finance research transforming mental health treatment. Pasca uses cells from patients with schizophrenia to develop neurons in a novel, 3-D, culture-dish-based model of brain communication, with the goal of understanding disturbed cellular signaling and developing new ways to treat the disease.
Philip Pizzo, MD
Pizzo, professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, was appointed to the board of Ludwig Cancer Research. Formerly the dean of the School of Medicine, Pizzo is currently focused on the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, a project that aims to transform higher education to combine midlife redirection with health and wellness, with the goal of improving the quality of life for individuals and society while reducing the costs of long-term medical and social services for an aging society.
Vittorio Sebastiano, PhD
Sebastiano was appointed assistant professor (research) of obstetrics and gynecology, effective Nov. 1. His research focuses on understanding the biology of germ cells and their ability to sustain early phases of pre-implantation development, the mechanisms that regulate early cell fate decisions in human embryos and understanding the biology of pluripotent stem cells. He also directs the human pluripotent stem cells core facility.
Douglas Sidell, MD
Sidell was appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective Sept. 1. He is interested in managing stenosis of the larynx and trachea, and treating children with voice and swallowing disorders. He will be part of the new multidisciplinary program to treat patients with complex airway, pulmonary and gastrointestinal disorders.
Sumeetha Swaminathan and Jack Prescott
Swaminathan, a senior at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, and Prescott, a junior at Pinewood High School in Los Altos Hills, were selected to present their research effort, “BetweenNet: A Method to Discover New Gene-Disease Associations,” at the American Medical Informatics Association Symposium in Washington, DC, in November. The students worked with Russ Altman, MD, PhD, professor of bioengineering, of genetics and of medicine, and with Steven Bagley, MD, MS, senior research engineer, to develop a computational method for identifying genes that may be involved in disease using the “social network” of gene relationships.
Dennis Wall, PhD
Wall, associate professor of pediatrics, was named one of the top 10 most innovative autism researchers by the Master’s in Special Education Program Guide. He uses machine learning and systems methods to detect, treat and track patients with autism spectrum disorders. His work focuses on reducing the time needed to screen at-risk children and to develop artificial intelligence strategies for at-home care, including one that runs on Google Glass.
Bo Wang, PhD
Wang was appointed assistant professor of bioengineering, effective May 1. He uses biophysical and genomic analyses to study the biology of flatworms, planarians and parasitic flukes. Using those models, Wang aims to quantitatively understand the rules that control collective stem cell behavior to optimize tissue regeneration, remolding and adaptation.
Lisa Williams, MD
Williams, a resident in physical medicine and rehabilitation, was named an American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine junior leadership liaison. She will assist the board members in providing leadership in neuromuscular medicine and neurophysiology. She also plans to serve on the graduate medical education committee and the membership committee.
Virginia Winn, MD
Winn was appointed associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective July 1. She directs Stanford’s perinatal biology program. Her research focuses on human placental development, both normal and abnormal, particularly related to pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia. She also investigates the effect of pregnancy on the maternal endothelium and immune system.
Samuel Yang, MD, FACEP
Yang was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective Sept. 1. He focuses on developing molecular diagnostic technologies for acute care medicine by using molecular, sensor and microfluidic technologies to detect and characterize pathogens. He also works to discover epigenetic and transcriptional biomarkers to improve the diagnosis and treatment of systemic illnesses.
Roham Zamanian, MD
Zamanian was appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. He directs the adult pulmonary hypertension program, which provides complex care for pulmonary hypertension patients, and conducts research. He specializes in evaluating therapies with mechanistic relevance to pulmonary hypertension and developing related biomarkers.
November 2014
Jonathan Berek, MD, MMS
Berek delivered the 19th annual Robert C. Knapp, MD, Lecture at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Oct. 14. Berek spoke about the immunotherapy of ovarian cancer. The endowed lectureship honors Knapp, the first director of gynecologic oncology at the Boston Hospital for Women and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Berek, the Laurie Kraus Lacob Professor, is professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology.
David Drover, MD
Drover was promoted to professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Sept. 1. Drover conducts clinical research on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs that require specialized monitoring. Using modeling, he aims to develop methods to obtain real-time data on a drug’s effect on a patient. He is currently focusing on developing medication guidelines for children and other difficult-to-study patients.
Dan Eisenberg, MD, MS
Eisenberg was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective Sept. 1. Eisenberg examines the outcomes of bariatric surgery in veterans and high-risk patients, and focuses on improving the surgical care of obese patients. He is also the director of bariatric and minimally invasive surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.
Pamela Flood, MD
Flood was appointed professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective May 1. Her research interests focus on the intersection of gender, pain, pharmacology and neurobiology. She will continue working as an anesthesiologist while researching obstetrical pain.
Mark Hlatky, MD
Hlatky, professor of health research and policy and of cardiovascular medicine, received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Heart Association on Nov. 16 for being an “internationally recognized leader in comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of medical interventions and technologies.” Hlatky’s pioneered the collection of data on economic factors and quality of life as part of randomized trials, now a standard practice, and he has developed models to assess the effectiveness of many clinical strategies.
Alan Schatzberg, MD
Schatzberg, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, received the Golden Kraepelin Medal from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. He discovered the role of cortisol in psychotic depression and developed a method to treat the debilitating disease. He directs the Stanford Mood Disorders Center.
Joseph Shrager, MD
Shrager was appointed professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Sept. 1. He is also chief of the school’s thoracic surgery division and physician leader of the thoracic oncology disease management group at the Stanford Cancer Center. His research has identified many of the causes of ventilator-associated diaphragm atrophy. He is also working to identify the best surgical approaches for lung cancer in nonsmokers. He serves on the editorial board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
Hans-Christoph Becker, MD
Becker was appointed professor of radiology, effective Oct. 1. He will be part of the cardiovascular- and body-imaging group. His research focuses on myocardial perfusion imaging by computed tomography, radiation protection and surveys. He is interested in meta-analysis and epidemiological studies in the field of cardiac CT and aims to establish standardized reporting in oncology with the 3-D lab. In basic science, Becker wants to develop a new liposomal-coated iodinated contrast agent for computed tomography.
Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD
Bhatt was appointed assistant professor of medicine and of genetics, effective Oct 1. She is interested in improving outcomes in patients with blood malignancies by characterizing the dynamics of the microbiome in immunocompromised individuals, and exploring how changes in the microbiome are associated with idiopathic diseases in this population. Bhatt also serves as director of global oncology for Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health.
Kwabena Boahen, PhD
Boahen was promoted to professor of bioengineering, effective July 1. His research interests include linking high-level brain functions to low-level biophysical mechanisms through large-scale neural models; developing novel computing architectures inspired by the brain’s fault tolerance and energy efficiency; and designing implantable information-processing devices for neuro-motor prostheses. He directs Stanford’s Brains in Silicon laboratory.
Lorinda Chung, MD, MS
Chung was appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. She is the director of the Stanford Scleroderma Center and co-director of the Rheumatologic Dermatology Clinic. Her research includes clinical, translational and epidemiologic studies on systemic sclerosis, dermatomyositis and related connective-tissue diseases. In particular, she is interested in the discovery and validation of novel biomarkers to provide information on diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response in these diseases.
Sharon Geaghan, MD
Geaghan, associate professor emerita of pathology, was appointed to the Centers for Disease Control Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Workgroup for 2014-16. This federal initiative, launched in 2006, aims to establish an evidence-based process for identifying best practices for quality improvement in the nation’s laboratories. The workgroup has 13 members with expertise in laboratory practice, health-services research, clinical practice, evidence-based reviews and health policy.
Harcharan Gill, MD
Gill was promoted to professor of urology, effective Sept. 1. His research interest is in benign prostatic hyperplasia, with a focus on developing and evaluating new minimally invasive techniques for managing the condition. In his clinical practice, he provides care to patients with all urologic cancers. Gill is the program director for the Department of Urology and is a member of the Stanford Hospital Graduate Medical Education Committee.
Eric Gross, MD, PhD
Gross was appointed assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Sept. 1. His laboratory studies how opioids reduce myocardial injury, and how the pathways of nociception and cardioprotection are linked in order to design next-generation analgesics that are safe to use for those with cardiovascular disease. Gross is also a clinical anesthesiologist.
Casey Halpern, MD
Halpern was appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, effective Sept. 1. He specializes in deep-brain stimulation and minimally invasive surgery for epilepsy, in addition to surgical treatments for chronic pain, facial pain and spine disease. He is particularly interested in developing clinical trials that expand indications for deep-brain stimulation. Halpern’s research investigates the potential efficacy and mechanisms of deep-brain stimulation for novel neurologic and psychiatric indications, and even obesity.
Joshua Knowles, MD, PhD
Knowles was appointed assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine, effective Sept 1. Much of his work focuses on discovery of genetic variants underlying cardiovascular disease through large, international studies, followed by modeling the effects of these genes in experimental systems. He is working to translate these findings to the clinic in a randomized trial asking if people will change behavior based on information about their inherited risk of heart disease.
Desiree LaBeaud, MD, MS
LaBeaud was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective Oct. 2. She is interested in the epidemiology of mosquito-borne viral infections; the development of rapid, field-deployable diagnostic tests; and the environmental, genetic and immunologic determinants of the disease spectrum. Her research focuses on the burden, risk factors and long-term disease consequences of arboviral infections, with a particular focus on children in Kenya.
Curtis Langlotz, MD, PhD
Langlotz was appointed professor of radiology, effective July 1. His research uses machine learning, automated reasoning and other computational methods to improve the accuracy of radiology interpretation and the resulting clinical communication. His laboratory’s translational approach enables rapid evaluation and dissemination of the resulting technology. He will also serve as associate chair for information technology in the Department of Radiology and as medical informatics director for radiology at Stanford Health Care.
Sanjiv Narayan, MD, PhD
Narayan was appointed professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. He also serves as director of the atrial fibrillation program and director of electrophysiology research. His clinical practice focuses on treating patients with atrial fibrillation and other complex heart-rhythm disorders by ablation. His specialty is the use of mechanistically focused techniques that his lab has developed. Narayan has pioneered the development of mapping and ablation of human rotors, which are organized circuits that may drive the “chaos” of both atrial and ventricular fibrillation in many patients.
Maria Polyakova, PhD
Polyakova was appointed assistant professor of health research and policy, effective Sept. 1. She is a health economist whose research focuses on exploring the role of public policies and regulatory interventions in health insurance systems. Her recent work has examined individual choices, the allocation of risk and insurance contract structure in Medicare Part D.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, was named as one of Technology Review’s 35 innovators under 35 for 2014. Prakash was chosen for introducing two novel science tools made from everyday materials — the Foldscope, a paper microscope that costs less than a dollar, and a $5 programmable kid’s chemistry set.
Sushma Reddy, MD
Reddy was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. Her clinical interests are in the care of children with critical cardiac disease in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Her research focuses on microRNA regulation of right-heart failure, and the development of biomarkers of disease progression in children with congenital heart disease.
Thomas Robinson, MD
Robinson, professor of pediatrics and of medicine, has been inducted as an honorary member of the Mexican Academy of Surgery.. The academy advises the Mexican federal government on health and social-politics matters, and is an academic leader in health issues for governmental and higher education institutions. The academy presented the honor in recognition of Robinson’s scientific and clinical contributions to combating childhood obesity.
Kristin Sainani, PhD
Sainani was appointed associate professor (teaching) of health research and policy, effective May 1. She specializes in teaching and writing about science and statistics. She teaches two popular massive open online courses, Statistics in Medicine and Writing in the Sciences, on OpenEdX.
October 2014
Derek Amanatullah, MD, PhD
Amanatullah was appointed assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, effective Oct. 1. He will be part of the arthritis and joint replacement service, bringing his expertise in hip and knee replacement to treat individuals with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, infectious arthritis and avascular necrosis. He also performs revision surgeries of hip and knee implants with problems. His research focuses on early diagnosis of degenerative joint disease and outcomes of total joint arthroplasty.
Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc
Curtis was appointed assistant professor of medicine and of genetics, effective Sept 1. Her research uses innovative experimental and computational approaches to characterize the dynamics of tumor progression and therapeutic resistance, as well as the complex relationship between genotype and molecular phenotype. She also serves as co-director of the molecular tumor board at the Stanford Cancer Institute.
Jeremy Dahl, PhD
Dahl was appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. Dahl develops ultrasound beam-forming methods and builds ultrasound imaging systems and devices. His research interests include acoustic noise and suppression in diagnostic ultrasound imaging; modeling of ultrasound propagation and noise sources; real-time adaptive beam-forming and imaging systems; and small-scale ultrasound transducers for high acoustic output.
Sean David, MD, DPhil
David was appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in the nexus between translational research to improve preventive-health measures and the integration of public health and primary care strategies to improve population health. His research focuses on biomarkers of smoking cessation, pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine evaluated by clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Polly Fordyce, PhD
Fordyce was appointed assistant professor of genetics, effective Sept. 1. Her lab is focused on developing new instrumentation and assays for making quantitative, systems-scale biophysical measurements of molecular interactions. She is also a fellow of the ChEM-H Institute.
Steven Lin, MD
Lin, clinical instructor of medicine, has been named “Family Physician of the Month” by the California Academy of Family Physicians, the largest primary care medical society in California. Lin earned a medical degree from Stanford and completed his family medicine residency at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose. He is the founding director of the O’Connor-Stanford Leaders in Education Residency Program, the co-medical director of Arbor Free Clinic and an associate instructor for Educators-4-CARE.
Matthew Mell, MD
Mell was appointed associate professor of surgery, effective Aug. 1. His research interests focus on health policy and comparative effectiveness of health-care delivery for vascular conditions, including optimizing outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Mell serves as medical director of the Stanford Vascular Center, co-chair of the Stanford Health Care Clinic Advisory Council, and is a contributing committee member of national academic vascular societies.
Linda Ritter, RN
Ritter, a longtime nurse in the Bass Childhood Cancer Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, has been honored by Nurse.com as a national winner of the 2014 Giving Excellence Meaning Award in the inpatient clinical nursing category. Each year, Nurse.com conducts a nationwide search for the best in nursing. Ritter, a nurse since 1982, was chosen for her extraordinary leadership in improving palliative care education at the Bass Center.
Edward Sheen, MD, MPH, MBA
Sheen, a clinical fellow in gastroenterology and hepatology, has been appointed by President Barack Obama as one of the 15 members of the 2014-15 class of White House fellows, based on his record of professional achievement, evidence of leadership potential and proven commitment to public service. Sheen serves as executive chair and senior partner of the Stanford Health-Care Consulting Group and course director of Leadership and Strategies for Health-Care Delivery Innovation, a course offered by the School of Medicine. In the California State Assembly, he served on the Health Committee staff, where he authored and coordinated Medicaid legislation and supported oversight of health reform implementation, including Covered California.
Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD
Bhattacharya has been promoted to professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. His research focuses on the constraints that vulnerable populations face in making decisions that affect their health status, as well as the effects of government policies and programs designed to benefit vulnerable populations.
Stanley Yung Liu, MD, DDS
Liu has been appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology, effective Sept. 1. He will be part of the Sleep Surgery Division, bringing his expertise in facial skeletal surgery to treat patients with obstructive sleep apnea. He will also perform skeletal reconstructive surgery for patients with congenital maxillofacial deformity and facial trauma. His research focuses on neurocognitive outcomes of sleep apnea patients after surgical intervention.
Maurice Ohayon, MD, DSc, PhD
Ohayon has been appointed professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, with tenure, effective Aug. 1. The main focus of his research is the epidemiology of sleep and psychiatric disorders. He serves as chief of the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences and director of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center.
Lucy Shapiro, PhD
Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor at the medical school and director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, will receive the 2014 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. The annual award, which celebrates the achievements of outstanding women in science, will be presented on Nov. 11 at Rockefeller University in New York City. Shapiro is being honored for her pioneering work on the single-celled Caulobactor bacterium, which illuminated the mechanisms that control the differentiation of cells in all living things, from the simplest organisms to the most complex.
September 2014
Seth Ammerman, MD
Ammerman, clinical professor of pediatrics and medical director of Mobile Adolescent Health Services at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, received a Bay Area Jefferson Award, which honors public service achievements in local communities. He was chosen for his role in providing free, comprehensive health-care services to uninsured and homeless youth through the hospital’s Teen Health Van. He founded the program in 1996
Mark Berry, MD
Berry was appointed associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Aug. 1. His work focuses on all aspects of thoracic surgery, including procedures for benign and malignant conditions of the lung, esophagus and mediastinum. He has a particular interest in minimally invasive techniques, and has extensive experience in treating thoracic surgical conditions using video-assisted thoracoscopic surgical, laparoscopic, robotic, endoscopic and bronchoscopic approaches. Berry is also co-director of the Stanford Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Center.
Lisa Chamberlain, MD, MPH
Chamberlain was promoted to associate professor of pediatrics, effective Sept. 1. She is interested in child health disparities and health policy. She serves as director of the scholarly concentration in community health at the medical school, as well as medical director of the Pediatric Advocacy Program.
Jeffrey Feinstein, MD, MPH
Feinstein was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. His research interests include computer simulation and modeling of cardiovascular physiology, with specific attention to congenital heart disease and its treatment; and the evaluation and treatment of pulmonary hypertension/pulmonary vascular disease and structural abnormalities of the pulmonary arteries as seen, for example, in Alagille syndrome.
Catherine Krawczeski, MD
Krawczeski was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. She is medical director of the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Her research interests are in clinical outcomes after pediatric cardiopulmonary bypass, particularly its effects on the kidney.
Thomas Krummel, MD
Krummel, the Emile Holman Professor in Surgery, Susan B. Ford Surgeon-in-Chief at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and chair of the Department of Surgery, has been honored for his years of leadership in the department. He was given the 2014 Shumway Society Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding service to, and leadership of, the department. He was also given the Golden Scalpel Award, which graduating chief surgery residents vote to give to the individual they feel has contributed most to the Stanford surgery residency.
Ruijiang Li, PhD
Li was appointed assistant professor (research) of radiation oncology, effective Sept. 1. His research is mainly focused on three areas: quantitative imaging biomarkers for prognosis and early prediction of response to cancer therapy; MRI-based radiation therapy treatment planning; and image-guided and adaptive radiation therapy.
Bruno Medeiros, MD
Medeiros was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in the development of novel therapeutic regimens, translational research activities and epidemiological studies of acute myeloid leukemia. Medeiros’ special focus is on the development of better, patient-tailored therapies for young and elderly patients with acute myeloid leukemia.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering and a prolific inventor of low-cost scientific tools, has been named one of Popular Science magazine’s “Brilliant 10” for 2014 — an award that recognizes the nation’s brightest young minds in science and engineering. “Prakash’s inventions may be designed to address complicated problems, but their low cost and simple designs make them accessible to everyone,” according to the magazine.
Meredith Brooks, MD, MPH, and Sean Mackey, MD, PhD
Brooks, clinical assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, and Mackey, the Redlich Professor and professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, chief of the Division of Pain Management and co-director of the Stanford Pain Research and Clinical Center, have been selected as winners of the 2014-15 Mayday Pain and Society Fellowship. The program, which is in its 10th and final year, provides pain-care leaders with skills to communicate effectively about pain, the impact it has on quality of life and its implications on clinical and policy issues. Brooks and Mackey will learn how to connect with local and national media, write opinion articles, use social media and educate members of Congress and other policymakers about pain-care research and treatment.
Uri Ladabaum, MD, MS
Ladabaum was promoted to professor of medicine, effective July 1. He is interested in gastrointestinal cancer prevention and risk management; risk stratification; cost-effectiveness analysis; and health-services research. He also serves as director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Prevention Program.
Kimford Meador, MD
Meador was appointed professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective July 1. His research interests include cognitive mechanisms, such as memory and attention; cerebral lateralization; pharmacology and physiology of cognition; epilepsy; functional imaging; therapeutic drug trials; and neuropsychiatric disorders. Meador is clinical director of the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.
Max Wintermark, MD
Wintermark was appointed professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, movement disorders and psychiatric disorders. Wintermark also serves as chief of neuroradiology.
Adam de la Zerda, PhD
De la Zerda, assistant professor of structural biology, received a 2014 Mary Kay Foundation cancer research grant, which is given to select doctors and medical scientists focusing on curing cancers that affect women. De la Zerda will receive $100,000 for his project aimed at developing a novel breast cancer diagnostic technology that can provide single-cell resolution in vivo.
August 2014
Maria Barna, PhD
Barna, assistant professor of genetics and of developmental biology, is one of 22 early career researchers who were named Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Pew Scholars program supports assistant professors with funding over four years to help them start their independent research careers. Barna’s lab investigates how complex, elaborately patterned tissues form during vertebrate embryonic development.
Zev Bryant, PhD, and Manu Prakash, PhD
Bryant and Prakash, both assistant professors of bioengineering, have received a $1 million medical research grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Prakash and Bryant propose to determine how individual molecular components assemble into complex cellular-scale systems. Their test case will be to design dynamic functional assemblies of engineered molecular motors derived from naturally occurring proteins that transport molecules inside the cell.
Keren Hilgendorf, PhD, and Yin Liu, PhD
Hilgendorf and Liu have been named 2014 Damon Runyon Fellows by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting innovative early career researchers. The four-year award is given to postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country.
Andrei Iagaru, MD
Iagaru was appointed associate professor of radiology, effective June 1. His research interests include PET/MRI and PET/CT scans for early cancer detection; clinical translation of novel PET radiopharmaceuticals; peptide-based diagnostic imaging and therapy; and radioimmunotherapy. He is co-chief of the Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.
Quynh-Thu Le, MD
Le, the Katherine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor in the School of Medicine and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, has been named a fellow of the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Le is being recognized for her exceptional service to society and the field of radiation oncology. She will be honored in September during the society’s 56th annual meeting in San Francisco.
Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD
Mignot, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was awarded a $50,000 research grant from Wake Up Narcolepsy Inc., a nonprofit organization working to speed diagnosis of narcolepsy and help in the search for a cure. The grant, which was presented at an annual benefit event on June 20, will underwrite his continuing work on the genetic and environmental factors contributing to the development of narcolepsy.
Siu Ping Ngok, PhD, and Yujie Tang, PhD
Ngok and Tang have been awarded Young Investigator Grants from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, whose mission is to work toward better treatments and ultimately cures for all kids with cancer. Ngok and Tang will each receive $100,000 over two years to pursue promising research ideas. Ngok’s project is titled “Investigation of Oncogenic Long Non-coding RNAs in Ewing’s Sarcoma,” and Tang’s is titled “Targeting Aberrant Hh Signaling with BET Bromodomain Inhibition as a Novel Therapeutic Strategy Against MB and DIPG.”
Samuel So, MD
So, the Lui Hac Minh Professor in the School of Medicine, was honored July 30 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Office of National AIDS Policy for his leadership in the prevention and treatment of viral hepatitis. So is director of the Asian Liver Center at Stanford.
Eric Sokol, MD
Sokol was appointed associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective June 1. Sokol is co-chief of the Division of Urogynecology and Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery. His research is focused on the development and testing of novel, minimally invasive treatment modalities for complex pelvic floor disorders, including fecal incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence.
Elizabeth Trachtenberg, PhD
Trachtenberg was appointed professor of pathology, effective Jan. 1. She is also co-director of Stanford Blood Center’s Histocompatibility, Immunogenetics and Disease Profiling Laboratory.
Irving Weissman, MD
Weissman, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research and professor of pathology and of developmental biology, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy. Fellowship recognizes exceptional contributions to cancer research or cancer-related biomedical science, or both.
Zhihao Wu, PhD
Wu, under the guidance of Bingwei Lu, PhD, associate professor of pathology, was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship by the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Wu, a postdoctoral scholar, will receive $50,000 in funding to work on a project titled “A Novel Function of PINK1/Parkin Pathway in Regulating Oxidative Phosphorylation Through mRNA Localization & Translational Control.”
Casey Crump, MD, PhD
Crump was appointed associate professor of medicine, effective July 1. Crump’s research focuses on identifying clinical and social determinants of health to enable better prevention, detection and treatment of disease. His current work includes a collaborative initiative between Stanford and Lund University in Sweden to identify perinatal, hereditary and environmental determinants of health using Swedish national health data.
Gary Hartman, MD
Hartman, clinical professor of surgery and chief of pediatric general surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, has received the 2014 Outstanding Achievement in Medicine Award from the Santa Clara County Medical Association for his leadership in surgical care and his longtime service to patients and their families.
Michelle Mello, PhD, JD
Mello was appointed professor of law and of health research and policy, effective July 1. She is a leading expert in the field of public health law whose empirical research focuses on understanding the effects of law and regulation on health-care delivery and population-health outcomes.
Daniel Palanker, PhD
Palanker was appointed professor of ophthalmology, effective July 1. His research focuses on interactions of electric fields and light with biological cells and tissues, and their applications to imaging, therapeutics and prosthetics, including phototherapy, laser surgery and electro-neural interfaces. He is also director of research in the Department of Ophthalmology.
Suzann Pershing, MD, MS
Pershing was appointed assistant professor of ophthalmology, effective June 1. Her research interests focus on evidence-based medicine, clinical outcomes and policy analysis, and care delivery systems. Pershing also serves as chief of ophthalmology and eye care services for the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.
Gregory Scherrer, PhD
Scherrer, assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, and of neurosurgery, has been named a 2014 Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, which recognizes biomedical scientists in the early stages of their careers who have the potential to make groundbreaking contributions to their fields. Scholars receive grants of up to $110,000 annually for a maximum of five years to pursue research. Scherrer investigates how neurons communicate with each other to generate pain sensation and how opioids such as morphine interfere with this communication to induce analgesia. His goal is to discover innovative strategies to develop new painkillers that will be more efficient and safer than morphine.
Mark Welton, MD, MHCM
Welton, the Harry A. Oberhelman Jr. Professor and professor of surgery, has been appointed a director to the American Board of Surgery. Welton, who is also Stanford Hospital’s chief of staff and chief of colorectal surgery, will serve a six-year term on the board, the national certifying body for general surgeons and related specialists.
july 2014
Maria Barna, PhD
Barna, assistant professor of genetics and of developmental biology, is one of 22 early-career researchers who were named Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Pew Scholars program supports assistant professors with funding over four years to help them start their independent research careers. Barna’s lab investigates how complex, elaborately patterned tissues form during vertebrate embryonic development.
Jonathan Berek, MD, MMS
Berek, the Laurie Kraus Lacob Professor and director of the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, has been inducted as a fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The distinction honors members for extraordinary service, dedication and commitment to cancer patients, cancer research and the society. Berek, chair of Stanford’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, has been editor-in-chief of ASCO Connection since 2004. He currently serves on the society’s scientific program committee and integrated media and technology committee.
Zhen Cheng, PhD
Cheng was promoted to associate professor (research) of radiology, effective May 1. The overall objective of his laboratory is to develop novel molecular imaging probes and techniques for noninvasive detection of cancer and its metastasis at the earliest stage, so that cancer can be cured or transformed into a chronic, manageable disease.
Alice Fan, MD
Fan was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective May 1. She studies how turning off oncogenes can cause tumor regression in preclinical and clinical studies, with a focus on kidney cancer. Fan is also director of nano-immunoassay for the Department of Medicine’s Translational Applications Service Center.
Melanie Hayden, MD, MAS
Hayden was appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, effective July 1. Her lab focuses on translational neuro-oncology research, combining basic neuroscience, genetics and tumor biology with insight into the pressing clinical questions facing patients with brain tumors. As a neurosurgeon, her practice is focused on tumors of the central nervous system and the surgical treatment of epilepsy.
Mark Hlatky, MD
Hlatky, professor of health research and policy and of cardiovascular medicine, has received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Heart Association Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research. The award recognizes his significant long-term contributions to outcomes research and the improvement of cardiovascular care.
Philip Pizzo, MD
Pizzo, the David and Susan Heckerman Professor and professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, has been elected to the board of directors of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Pizzo, former dean of the medical school, is a prominent member of the cancer research community, with more than 40 years of experience championing programs and policies to advance the future of science, education and pediatric oncology internationally.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, developed Foldscope, which has been selected as one of the winners of the 2014 R&D 100 Awards. The awards recognize and celebrate the 100 most significant high-technology products introduced in the past year. Winners are selected by the editors of R&D Magazine and an independent judging panel. Foldscope is an ultra-low-cost paper microscope that can be used to aid disease diagnosis in developing regions.
june 2014
Sarah Donaldson, MD
Donaldson, the Catharine and Howard Avery Professor in the School of Medicine, professor of radiation oncology and chief of the radiation oncology service, has received several accolades from various organizations: a medical staff distinguished service award from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, the Luminary Leadership Award from the Radiology Leadership Institute of the American College of Radiology, and honorary memberships in the European Society of Radiology, the French Society of Radiology and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. In addition, she will deliver the keynote lecture Oct. 15 at an international colloquium for alumni of the department of radiation oncology at the Institut Gustave Roussy.
Drew Endy, PhD
Endy was promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, effective June 1. A leader in the field of synthetic biology, Endy is also co-founder and president of BioBricks.org, a charity advancing biotechnology. The organization has underwritten an open, technical-standards-setting process for synthetic biology, and recently developed a legal contract for making genetic materials free to share and use.
Stephen Galli, MD
Galli, the Mary Hewitt Loveless, MD, Professor in the School of Medicine, professor of microbiology and immunology, and professor and chair of pathology, has received the 2014 Rous-Whipple Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology, as well as the Karl Landsteiner Medal from the Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology. The Rous-Whipple Award is given to a senior scientist with a distinguished career in research who has advanced the understanding of disease. The Landsteiner Medal recognizes outstanding scientific contributions in immunology. It’s named after an Austrian pathologist who first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900.
Ira Glick, MD
Glick, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has received the 2014 Kun-Po Soo Award from the American Psychiatric Foundation. The award, which includes a $1,000 honorarium, recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions toward understanding the impact and import of Asian cultural heritage in areas relevant to psychiatry.
Miriam Goodman, PhD
Goodman, associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology, has received the 2014 Michael and Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators from the Biophysical Society. She was chosen for her innovative and creative interdisciplinary work on fundamental biophysical questions of mechanotransduction.
Ruth Lathi, MD
Lathi was promoted to associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective May 1. Her research interests include recurrent pregnancy loss, reproductive genetics and optimizing infertility treatments. She serves as director of the Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Program within the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and associate director of the division’s fellowship program.
Billy Loo Jr., MD, PhD
Loo was promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology, effective May 1. He specializes in radiation treatment of lung cancer and head and neck cancer, and serves as leader of the Thoracic Radiation Oncology Program. Loo is also co-chair of the new technologies committee in radiation oncology. His laboratory research is on next-generation radiation therapy technology and techniques.
Marc Melcher MD, PhD
Melcher was promoted to associate professor of surgery, effective May 1. The goal of his research is to extend the benefits of organ transplant to greater numbers of patients with organ failure. He has developed a paired-kidney exchange program at Stanford to increase the chances that patients with willing but incompatible living donors receive a living donor kidney. He serves as program director of the Stanford surgery residency and associate program director of the Stanford multi-organ transplant fellowship.
Michael Ostacher, MD, MPH, MMSc
Ostacher was promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective May 1. His major research interest is the treatment and understanding of bipolar disorder, with a particular focus on the impact of co-occurring substance-use disorders. He also focuses on educating clinicians to use evidence to improve treatment in psychiatric disorders. He is co-chair of the bipolar disorder task group of the National Network of Depression Centers and associate editor of Evidence-Based Mental Health.
Geoffrey Sonn, MD
Sonn was appointed assistant professor of urology, effective May 1. His primary interest is in improving prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment through MRI, image-targeted prostate biopsy and image-guided focal therapy. He is also interested in developing novel molecular imaging techniques, such as near-infrared-fluorescence imaging to improve surgery for prostate and kidney cancer.
Dennis Wall, PhD
Wall was appointed associate professor of pediatrics, effective May 1. His lab is developing novel approaches in systems biology to decipher the molecular pathology of autism spectrum disorder and related neurological conditions.
May 2014
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D.H Chen Professor and professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is featured in the latest issue of MIT Technology Review, which highlights the 10 most important technology milestones of the past year. Deisseroth is included for his work in pioneering the technique CLARITY, which can convert biological systems into a fully transparent form, allowing researchers to visualize and study the brain's three-dimensional structure and circuitry using standard molecular probes.
Kate Lorig, RN, DrPH
Lorig, professor emerita of medicine and director of the Stanford Patient Education Research Center, is one of 13 inaugural members of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's Advisory Panel on Rare Disease. As a member, Lorig will apply her experience and expertise to advising the institute on its research priorities in the area of rare disease, as well as on engaging with the rare-disease research community.
Joseph Puglisi, PhD
Puglisi, professor and chair of structural biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an honorific society of distinguished scientists and engineers. Puglisi investigates the role of RNA in cellular processes and disease, with the goal of understanding RNA function in terms of molecular structure and dynamics using a variety of biophysical and biological tools.
Kipp Weiskopf
Weiskopf, an MD/PhD student, has been awarded one of five nationally competitive 2014 Research Scholar Awards from the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation. The $10,000 grants support exceptional graduate student melanoma research.
Gill Bejerano, PhD
Bejerano was promoted to associate professor of developmental biology, effective March 1. His research focuses on genome sequence and function in both humans and related primate, mammalian and vertebrate species. He is interested in mapping both coding and noncoding genome sequence variation to phenotype differences, and in extracting specific genetic insights from high-throughput sequencing measurements, in the contexts of development and developmental abnormalities.
Mark Buyyounouski, MD
Buyyounouski was appointed associate professor of radiation oncology, effective Oct. 1.
Ka Yam Chak, PhD
Chak, a postdoctoral scholar in neurology and neurological sciences, was part of a Stanford team that recently won fourth place in the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge. The event, held by the Avon Foundation for Women in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute and the Center for Advancing Innovation, challenged 200 teams to develop new technologies with the potential to advance breast cancer research. The Stanford team worked with a researcher at the institute to develop a new antibody-drug conjugate that would act as a treatment against breast cancer.
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD
Halpern-Felsher was promoted to professor (research) of pediatrics, effective March 1. She is interested in cognitive and psychosocial factors involved in adolescents' and young adults' health-related decision-making, perceptions of risk and vulnerability, health communication, and risk behavior. Her research has helped change how providers discuss sexual risk with adolescents and has influenced national policies regulating adolescent and young-adult tobacco use. Halpern-Felsher also serves as director of research and associate director of the adolescent medicine fellowship training program.
Ruth O'Hara, PhD
O'Hara was appointed associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, with tenure, effective April 1. (She previously held a nontenure-line position.) Her research aims to identify physiological markers of neurocognitive impairment in a broad range of psychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, mild cognitive impairment and late-life depression and anxiety.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, and graduate student George Korir recently won a contest to develop the 21st-century chemistry set. The Science Play and Research Kit Competition was jointly sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Society for Science & the Public. The team won a $50,000 award toward further developing the $5 chemistry set aimed at inspiring young scientists and addressing developing-world problems, such as water quality.
Stephen Quake, PhD
Quake, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering, professor of bioengineering and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is one of 11 Stanford professors recently elected as members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious honorary learned societies, and a leading center for independent policy research.
Debra Safer, MD
Safer was promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective March 1. Her primary research interests include the nature and treatment of eating disorders (particularly bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder), the development and treatment of obesity, and the development and treatment of problematic eating patterns in patients following bariatric surgery.
David Spiegel, MD
Spiegel, the Jack, Samuel and Lulu Willson Professor and professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is the recipient of the 2014 Joan and Stanford Alexander Award in Psychiatry. The award was established in honor of Stuart Yudofsky, MD, professor and chair of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, who was also its first recipient. Spiegel, who was chosen for his research on stress and health, accepted the award April 30 and presented a lecture titled "Mind Matters: Stress, Support and Cancer Survival."
April 2014
Jeffrey Axelrod, MD, PhD
Axelrod, professor of pathology, has been elected to the American Association of University Pathologists. The association is an informal academic organization of biomedical scientists who are dedicated to unraveling mechanisms of disease pathogenesis. Members meet annually to share research advances via short informal presentations and to socialize with like-minded scientists.
Matthew Bogyo, PhD
Bogyo, professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology, has been elected to the American Association of University Pathologists. The association is an informal academic organization of biomedical scientists who are dedicated to unraveling mechanisms of disease pathogenesis. Members meet annually to share research advances via short informal presentations and to socialize with like-minded scientists.
Aaron Gitler, PhD
Gitler, associate professor of genetics, has received a neuromuscular disease research grant from the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Gitler will use the $252,000 grant for a project titled, "Defining a novel role of profilin 1 in ALS pathogenesis."
James Lock, MD, PhD
Lock has been appointed professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, with tenure, effective April 1. (His previous professorship appointment was untenured.) Much of his work over the past 15 years has been focused on developing a research program for eating disorders in children and adolescents. He serves as director of the Stanford Child and Adolescent Eating Disorder Program in the Division of Child Psychiatry.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
Butte, associate professor of systems medicine in pediatrics and of genetics, is one of two recipients of the 2014 E. Mead Johnson Award for Pediatric Research from the Society for Pediatric Research. The award will be presented in Vancouver, Canada, on May 5. It recognizes Butte's contributions to biomedical informatics, including his use of public-access data to discover new diagnostics, therapeutics and insights into disease.
Serena Hu, MD
Hu has been appointed professor of orthopaedic surgery, effective Feb. 1. She also has been appointed chief of the department's spine service. Her research interests include improving the outcomes and cost effectiveness of spine surgery, as well as evaluating and mitigating the risk factors for surgical complications. She is also interested in disc repair and the imaging of the painful intervertebral discs.
Kelly Ormond, MS
Ormond, a certified genetic counselor, has been promoted to professor (teaching) of genetics, effective Feb. 1. Her research interests involve the translation of new genetic technologies — for example, genomic sequencing and noninvasive prenatal testing — into clinical practice, and ethical issues surrounding genomic technologies. She is program director of the master's program in human genetics and genetic counseling and a member of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.
Jong Yoon, MD
Yoon, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the David Mahoney Neuroimaging Grant from the Dana Foundation. The goal of Yoon's research grant is to improve the detection of the onset of schizophrenia so that early interventions can be implemented.
March 2014
Laura Attardi, MD
Attardi has been promoted to professor of radiation oncology and of genetics, effective Feb. 1. Her research involves the p53 tumor suppressor gene, which plays a crucial role in protecting organisms from developing cancer. She is working to understand the mechanism of p53 action and the role of target genes it activates in tumor suppression and developmental diseases.
Scott Ceresnak, MD
Ceresnak has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Feb. 1. His research and clinical interests involve arrhythmias and the implantation, care and management of pacemakers and defibrillators in children and patients with congenital heart disease. His primary research interest relates to novel methods of signal analysis to assist with ablation in children with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.
Utkan Demirci, PhD
Demirci has been appointed associate professor of radiology, effective March 1. Demirci focuses on creating new micro- and nano-scale bioengineering and biomedical microfluidic technology platforms, with an emphasis on broad biotechnology applications in medicine.
Nicolas Grillet, PhD
Grillet has been appointed assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, effective April 1. His research focuses on identifying genes causing deafness and understanding their function at the molecular level. His specific interests include the structure and function of hair cells — the inner-ear sensory cells that are stimulated by sound and head-motion. Malfunction of these cells is a common cause of many forms of hearing loss.
Albert Koong, MD
Koong has been promoted to professor of radiation oncology, effective Feb. 1. His clinical research interests involve developing and integrating advanced radiotherapy techniques into the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies. His laboratory interests focus on developing therapies that target hypoxia and endoplasmic-reticulum stress activated pathways in cancer. He serves as the associate chair for clinical operations in the Department of Radiation Oncology.
David Larson, MD
Larson was appointed associate professor of radiology, effective July 1. He is interested in quality improvement in radiology, including developing skills, processes and technology to enable reliable performance in areas such as eliminating wrong-site procedures, communication between referring radiologists and referring clinicians, and CT-radiation-dose optimization. He also was named associate chair for performance improvement in the Radiology Department.
Craig Levin, MD
Levin has been appointed professor of radiology, effective Feb. 1. His research explores novel instrumentation and algorithms for in vivo imaging of molecular signatures of disease. He is affiliated with the Molecular Imaging Program, Bio-X, Biophysics Program, Cancer Institute and Cardiovascular Institute, and serves as director of the Molecular Imaging Instrumentation Laboratory, director of the Molecular Imaging Scholars Program and as co-director of the Center for Innovation in In-Vivo Imaging.
Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research
The Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research has been designated a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization collaborating center. The Stanford center is directed by Mark Musen, MD, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics research. It is one of three nongovernmental organizations among the more than 800 collaborating WHO centers around the globe. It will develop classifications, terminologies and standards for the next generation of the International Classification of Diseases, the standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes.
Kipp Weiskopf
Weiskopf, an MD/PhD candidate in the Cancer Biology Program, is one of 13 graduate students chosen to receive the 2014 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Winners were selected on the basis of the quality, originality and significance of their work. Weiskopf will participate in a scientific symposium May 2 at the center, consisting of scientific presentations by the awardees. The award, established in 2000, honors Weintraub, PhD, a founding member of the center's Basic Sciences Division.
Bing Zhang, MD
Zhang, a resident in clinical pathology, received the 2013 Mary Rodes Gibson Memorial Award in Hemostasis and Thrombosis from the American Society of Hematology. The annual award recognizes a student, resident or postdoctoral scholar who is the lead author and presenter of the highest-scoring abstract submitted to the society's Outstanding Abstract Achievement Award Program. Zhang was recognized for the abstract titled "Identification of the Disease-Causing Mutation in Autosomal Dominant Familial Immune Thrombocytopenia by Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis and Whole Genome Sequencing."
David Breslow, PhD
Breslow, postdoctoral scholar in molecular and cellular physiology, received the 2014 Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists. The award provides additional funding to scientists completing a fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation who are most likely to make paradigm-shifting breakthroughs in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Breslow will receive $100,000 to be used toward his research.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, received the 2013 Dickson Prize in Science. The prize, established in 1969, is awarded annually by Carnegie Mellon University for outstanding contributions to science. Deisseroth, who holds the D.H Chen Professorship, pioneered the technique known as optogenetics, in which neurons can be selectively activated or inhibited with pulses of light, and CLARITY, a process to convert biological systems into a fully transparent form, allowing researchers to visualize and study the brain's 3-D structure and circuitry using standard molecular probes.
Maurice Druzin, MD
Druzin, the Charles B. and Ann L. Johnson Professor, will be honored with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's Council of District Chairs Service Recognition Award on April 27 during the organization's annual meeting in Chicago. The teacher, clinician and researcher, often called "the father of Stanford obstetrics," is the author of more than 100 publications and has been a leader in the California Maternal Care Collaborative's Pre-eclampsia Quality Improvement Collaborative.
Paul Fisher, MD
Fisher, chief of pediatric neurology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, has been named an associate editor of The Journal of Pediatrics. He has been a member of the journal's editorial board since 2006. He is the Beirne Family Professor of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology and chief of child neurology at the School of Medicine.
David Larson, MD
Larson was appointed associate professor of radiology, effective July 1. He is interested in quality improvement in radiology, including developing skills, processes and technology to enable reliable performance in areas such as eliminating wrong-site procedures, communication between referring radiologists and referring clinicians, and CT radiation dose optimization. He also was named associate chair of performance improvement in the Radiology Department.
Robert Poole, PharmD
Poole, director of pharmacy services at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, received the Stanley Serlick Award at the Clinical Nutrition Week 2014 Scientific Conference in January. The award recognizes a pharmacist who has made significant contributions to improving safe practices for parenteral nutrition through published literature, membership on national committees or task forces, and/or presentations at regional and national meetings.
Purna Prasad, PhD
Prasad, director of clinical technology and biomedical engineering at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford and Stanford Hospital & Clinics, received the American College of Clinical Engineering's Professional Achievement in Management Award. He will accept the award in June during the Association for Advancement in Medical Instrumentation convention in Philadelphia.
Alan Schatzberg, MD
Schatzberg, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is the recipient of the Anna-Monika Prize. Since 1994, the Anna-Monika Foundation has awarded prizes to scientists for outstanding research activities on the biological causes and functional disorders of depression. Schatzberg was chosen for his research into new therapy approaches, especially for the treatment of delusional depression.
Barbara Sourkes, PhD
Sourkes, professor of pediatrics and the John A. Kriewall and Elizabeth A. Haehl Director of Pediatric Palliative Care, has received the 2014 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Humanities Award. The award recognizes Sourkes' work in advancing the relationship between the humanities and palliative care, and for her authorship of books that exemplify how the arts can serve as an important tool in the care of seriously ill children.
Rohan Srivas, PhD
Srivas was named one of 15 new Damon Runyon Fellows. The three-year awards are given to postdoctoral scholars conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country. Srivas, with his sponsor Michael Snyder, PhD, is studying the changes in the composition and function of the microbiome, bacteria inhabiting the human gut.
Abraham Verghese, MD
Verghese's novel Cutting for Stone has made the list of Amazon.com's "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime." The list features literature from the past 200 years, including Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. Verghese, MD, vice chair for the theory and practice of medicine in the Department of Medicine and the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor, is working on his second novel.
February 2014
Geoffrey Abrams, MD
Abrams has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, effective Dec. 1. His research focuses on the pathogenesis of cartilage loss and rotator cuff tears within the shoulder. Specific areas of focus include the role of synovitis and inflammation, as well as morphological characteristics as they relate to the development of these shoulder pathologies.
Philip Grant, MD
Grant has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. His research focuses on complications of HIV and its therapy, including immune reconstitution inflammatory disease, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. He has clinical expertise in infectious diseases and provides primary care for HIV-infected individuals at the Stanford Positive Care Clinic.
Neeraja Kambham, MD
Kambham has been promoted to professor of pathology, effective Jan. 1. Her research interests primarily involve medical diseases of the native and transplant kidney. She also serves as residency program director in pathology, as well as co-director of the renal pathology and electron microscopy lab.
Steven Lindley, MD, PhD
Lindley has been promoted to associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Jan. 1. He is interested in advancing health and mental health care for psychiatric patients with disorders related to chronic and severe stress. As director of outpatient mental health for the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, his work focuses on psychiatric disorders in military veterans.
Andrew Rezvani, MD
Rezvani has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Jan. 1. His primary clinical and research interests are in improving outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for patients with lymphoma. He is also interested in identifying biomarkers to predict the severity of graft-versus-host disease after bone marrow transplantation, and in alternative-donor transplantation using umbilical cord blood for patients who lack fully matched bone marrow donors.
Scott Soltys, MD
Soltys has been appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, effective Jan. 1. His clinical and research interests focus on the development of new radiation techniques involving stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy for the treatment of malignant and benign tumors of the brain and spine, as well as of functional disorders such as trigeminal neuralgia.
Jean Tang, MD, PhD
Tang has been promoted to associate professor of dermatology, effective Jan. 1. Her research focuses on finding new ways to treat and prevent skin cancer. She recently received a Harrington scholar innovator award for her research on repurposing an antifungal drug for skin cancer prevention. The award, presented by University Hospitals Case Medical Center, provides up to $200,000 in financial support over two years to help bridge the gap between basic discovery and clinical introduction.
Dean Winslow, MD
Winslow, clinical professor of medicine, was awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S. Air Force. The Legion of Merit is the highest peacetime medal in the military. At the same time, he was awarded the Air Medal, the NATO ISAF medal and the Air Force Combat Action medal.
Joseph Woo, MD
Woo has been appointed professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective Jan. 1. He also serves as chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Woo's research encompasses basic, translational and clinical projects. His laboratory, funded by the National Institutes of Health, investigates new paths to myocardial repair through angiogenesis — the process through which new blood vessels form from pre-existing vessels — stem cells and tissue engineering.
January 2014
Vinod Bhutani, MD
Bhutani, professor of neonatology, has received two awards: the 2013 Neonatal Landmark Award, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, in recognition of his landmark contribution in in the area of bilirubin, including the development of the "Bhutani nomogram," which predicts the risk of a newborn infant developing jaundice based on readings of serum bilirubin and hours since birth; and the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Neonatology Forum of India.
Adam de la Zerda, PhD
De la Zerda, assistant professor of structural biology, is included in the science category of Forbes magazine's "30 under 30" for 2014. De la Zerda, 29, who also made last year's list, focuses on developing technologies to image the body at the molecular level and at unprecedented resolution.
Cigall Kadoch, PhD
Kadoch, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Gerald Crabtree, PhD, is included in the science category of Forbes magazine's "30 under 30" for 2014. Kadoch, 28, studies how changes in the physical structure of DNA can lead to a particular type of cancer, synovial sarcoma. Her research has implications for other types of cancer and could someday lead to new treatments for cancer.
Oliver Dorigo, MD
Dorigo was appointed associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective July 1. He is interested in the treatment of patients with gynecologic cancers, including ovarian, cervical, endometrial, vaginal and vulva cancer. In addition to his clinical practice, he is committed to the development of innovative new therapies for patients with gynecologic malignancies, in particular immune therapy for ovarian cancer. Dorigo also serves as director of gynecologic oncology.
Gerald Grant, MD
Grant was appointed associate professor of neurosurgery, effective Oct. 1. His clinical interests focus on the surgical treatment of children with pediatric brain tumors and intractable epilepsy. He is an expert in pediatric brain mapping. His research focuses on finding novel ways to modulate the blood-brain barrier to augment drug delivery to the brain to better treat pediatric brain tumors.
Keith Humphreys, PhD
Humphreys was promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with tenure, effective Dec. 1. (His previous appointment was untenured.) His research focuses on interventions for substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. He focuses particularly on evaluating the outcomes of professionally administered treatments and peer-operated self-help groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, developing health services research-related applications for innovative qualitative and quantitative research techniques, and analyzing national mental health policy.
Lianne Kurina, PhD
Kurina was appointed associate professor (teaching) of medicine, effective Dec. 1. Her research projects include a study of sleep among older Americans, and a study of health and disability trajectories among active-duty U.S. Army soldiers.
Patricia Nguyen, MD
Nguyen was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. She is interested in applying imaging technology to translate promising basic science findings into clinical applications and to gain a better understanding of coronary artery disease in men and women.
Stephen Quake, PhD
Quake, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and professor of bioengineering and of applied physics, has been named inventor of the year by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association for discovering ways to extract information from DNA. Quake has pioneered the analysis of DNA fragments that spill out of dead cells and has devised techniques to fish these fragments out of the bloodstream and use them as clues to diagnose a variety of ailments, including cancer.
David Studdert, LLB, ScD, MPH
Studdert was appointed professor of medicine and of law, effective Nov. 1. Studdert is a leading expert in the fields of health law and empirical legal research. His scholarship explores how the legal system influences the health and well-being of populations.
Edith Sullivan, PhD
Sullivan was promoted professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with tenure, effective Dec. 1. (Her previous appointment was untenured.) Her research focuses on the application of magnetic resonance imaging modalities and component process analysis of cognitive, sensory and motor functions to identify brain structural and functional mechanisms disrupted in neurodegenerative conditions (such as alcoholism, Alzheimer's disease, HIV infection and normal aging).
Minang (Mintu) Turakhia, MD, MAS
Turakhia was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. His research program uses large-scale data sets to evaluate the quality of care, effectiveness and risk of drug- and device-based therapies for heart-rhythm disorders. He also serves as director of cardiac electrophysiology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.
December 2013
Sanjay Basu, MD, PhD
Basu, assistant professor of medicine, has made the 2013 list of Foreign Policy's "Top 100 Global Thinkers." The annual list is compiled by the magazine. Basu was chosen for his research on the public health effects of different economic policy responses to the recession.
Katrin Andreasson, MD
Andreasson has been promoted to professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective Nov. 1. She is interested in understanding the basic mechanisms by which neurons die in stroke and in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Mark Blumenkranz, MD
Blumenkranz, the H.J. Smead Professor in Ophthalmology and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, is the recipient of the Jackson Memorial Lecture Award presented by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Journal of Ophthalmology. As part of the honor, Blumenkranz, delivered this year's Jackson Memorial Lecture, titled "The History and Evolution of Lasers in Ophthalmology: A Review of the Interactions Between Physicians, Patients and Photons," during the academy's 2013 annual meeting in November in New Orleans.
Fanny Chapelin
Chapelin, a life science research assistant in the lab of Heike Daldrup-Link, MD, associate professor of radiology, is the recipient of France's Best Young Engineer of the Year in Science award. The award is sponsored and organized by L'Usine nouvelle magazine and is intended to promote engineering studies in France. Chapelin's research focuses on the development of cellular therapies for clinical applications. Her current projects involve in vivo tracking of stem cell transplants and immune cells through magnetic-resonance imaging. She was honored on Dec. 4 at a ceremony in France.
Jaimie Henderson, MD
Henderson has been promoted to professor of neurosurgery, effective Nov. 1. His research interests encompass several areas of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, including frameless stereotactic approaches for therapy delivery to deep brain nuclei; deformable patient-specific atlases for targeting brain structures; cortical physiology and its relationship to normal and pathological movement; neural prostheses; and the development of novel neuromodulatory techniques for the treatment of movement disorders, pain and other neurological diseases. He also is director of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery.
Seung Kim, MD, PhD
Kim, professor of developmental biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is the recipient of the 2013 Gerold & Kayla Grodsky Award presented by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. This award is given annually to a researcher who has made outstanding scientific contributions to diabetes research. Kim was chosen for his leadership and innovation in beta cell biology and diabetes research. He was honored Dec. 4 at the foundation's annual board retreat dinner in New York.
Anupama Narla, MD
Narla has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective July 1. She is starting a new lab focusing on translational hematology, with a particular emphasis on inherited bone marrow failure syndromes. Her clinical work will be in pediatric hematology/oncology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Jochen Profit, MD
Profit has been appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in perinatal health services research, specifically in organizational and health systems characteristics that promote better, safer health-care delivery for sick newborns.
Christy Sandborg, MD
Sandborg, a professor of pediatrics and a pediatric rheumatologist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, has been honored with a distinguished service award from the American College of Rheumatology. The award recognizes "outstanding and sustained service" to the college.
Stanley Schrier, MD
Schrier, professor emeritus of hematology, is the recipient of the 2013 Mentor Award for Clinical Investigation and Training presented by the American Society of Hematology. Over his more than 50-year hematology career at Stanford, Schrier has been dedicated to advancing the clinical and research skills of his colleagues and trainees.
November 2013
Yair Blumenfeld, MD
Blumenfeld has been appointed assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective Oct. 1. His research interests include prenatal diagnosis, genetics and clinical obstetrics. Blumenfeld also serves as medical director of labor and delivery at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Paola Betancur, PhD
Betancur is a recipient of 2013 CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowships, the Cancer Research Institute's longest-standing continuous program. Fellows receive up to $164,500 over three years and train under the guidance of a leading immunologist. Betancur is being sponsored by Irving Weissman, MD, professor of pathology and of developmental biology.
Vincent Christopher Luca, PhD
Luca is a recipient of 2013 CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowships, the Cancer Research Institute's longest-standing continuous program. Fellows receive up to $164,500 over three years and train under the guidance of a leading immunologist. Luca is being sponsored by Christopher Garcia, PhD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of structural biology.
David Chan, MD, PhD
Chan has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Nov. 1. His research focuses on the micro-foundations of variation in productivity within U.S. health care. In particular, he is interested in studying what drives more or less efficient physician behavior, including organizational features of workplace design, financial and social incentives, and the use of information.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D.H. Chen Professor and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of bioengineering, is the recipient of the 2013 Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience, presented by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. The award recognizes outstanding mental health research achievements. Deisseroth was chosen for his pioneering work in the development of two technologies: CLARITY, which can convert biological systems into a fully transparent form, and optogenetics, which allows scientists to control individual types of neurons in living animals. He was honored Oct. 25 at the foundation's national awards dinner in New York City.
Maximillan Diehn, MD, PhD
Diehn, assistant professor of radiation oncology, is the recipient of a 2013 V Scholar grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a leading cancer research foundation. The $200,000 grants are provided to top young researchers who are developing their own independent laboratory research projects. Diehn will use the grant to investigate the KEAP1-NRF2 pathway in lung stem cells and lung cancer.
Christopher Gardner, PhD
Gardner has been promoted to professor (research) of medicine, effective Nov. 1. He conducts research on nutrition and preventive medicine, with a particular focus on plant-based diets, cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, differential response to weight loss diets by insulin resistance status, the link between dietary behavior change and social movements, stealth nutrition and food systems.
Keith Glover
Glover, a forth-year medical student, is the recipient of the 2013 Herbert W. Nickens Award sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The award, named after the founding vice president of the AAMC's Diversity Policy and Programs unit, is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to promoting justice in medical education and health-care equity in the United States. This year, Glover co-led the Stanford University Minority Medical Alliance Conference and co-taught the course, "Rural and American Indian Health Disparities," which included a trip to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. He received a $5,000 award and gave the Nickens Lecture at the AAMC's annual meeting Nov. 4 in Philadelphia.
Jennifer Lee, MD, PhD
Lee has been appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. Her research focuses on the molecular epidemiology, disease prevention, outcomes and treatment response related to hormonal and metabolic perturbations. She is particularly interested in the clinical and population impact of these alterations that occur in multiple complex chronic diseases during critical hormonal stages across the life span, and with aging.
Kenneth Mahaffey, MD
Mahaffey has been appointed professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. His primary research interest is the design and conduct of multicenter clinical trials and analyses of important clinical cardiac issues using large patient databases. He also serves as vice chair of clinical research in the Department of Medicine.
Ciaran Phibbs, PhD
Phibbs has been appointed associate professor (research) of pediatrics, effective Nov. 1. His primary research interests are perinatal and neonatal care, and how hospital competition interacts with costs, demand and outcomes.
Julia Salzman, PhD
Salzman has been appointed assistant professor of biochemistry, effective Nov. 1. The goal of her research is to use experimental and statistical tools to construct a high-dimensional picture of gene regulation, including various ways of controlling the full repertoire of RNAs expressed by cells. Her lab focuses on studying the biogenesis and function of circular RNA.
Gary Shaw, DrPH
Shaw, professor of pediatrics and associate chair for resarch in the Department of Pediatrics, has received the March of Dimes Agnes Higgins Award for outstanding acheivements in the field of maternal-fetal nutrition. The award was presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Shaw is co-principal investigator of the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Stanford University.
Kipp Weiskopf
Weiskopf, graduate student, was awarded top prize in the graduate student division of the 2013 Collegiate Inventors Competition. The annual competition, sponsored by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and AbbVie Foundation, recognizes undergraduate and graduate students for their outstanding work and achievements in the fields of science, engineering and technology. He won for the idea of creating high-affinity SIRP-alpha molecules to block the CD47 "don't eat me" signal that keeps macrophage cells from consuming and destroying cancer cells. The molecule has the potential to vastly boost the power and killing ability of antibody therapies against a variety of cancers. He will share the top prize of $15,000. His advisors, Irving Weissman, MD, and Christopher Garcia, PhD, willl also be awarded $5,000.
Aaron Ring
Ring, graduate student, was awarded top prize in the graduate student division of the 2013 Collegiate Inventors Competition. The annual competition, sponsored by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and AbbVie Foundation, recognizes undergraduate and graduate students for their outstanding work and achievements in the fields of science, engineering and technology. He won for the idea of creating high-affinity SIRP-alpha molecules to block the CD47 "don't eat me" signal that keeps macrophage cells from consuming and destroying cancer cells. The molecule has the potential to vastly boost the power and killing ability of antibody therapies against a variety of cancers. He will share the top prize of $15,000. His advisors, Irving Weissman, MD, and Christopher Garcia, PhD, willl also be awarded $5,000.
Heng Zhao, PhD
Zhao has been promoted to professor (research) of neurosurgery, effective Nov. 1. His work focuses on the protective effects of postconditioning and remote preconditioning against stroke.
Members of Stanford's Primary Care Associate Program Class of 2014 were named champions of the National Medical Challenge Bowl, a competition coordinated by the Student Academy of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. During the Jeopardy-style competition, 48 teams answered medical-related questions. Stanford's winning team comprised students Rich Blackmon, Gourab Das, Hilary Hammond, and faculty coach Michele Toussaint, PA-C, a clinical instructor in the Physician Assistant Program. The event was held during the AAPA's annual conference in Washington, DC.
Michel Dumontier, PhD
Dumontier has been appointed associate professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. He is interested in computational methods to better understand how living systems respond to chemical agents. His lab uses semantic technologies to integrate and analyze biomedical data and enable knowledge-based discoveries in biology, biochemistry and medicine.
James Faix, MD
Faix, clinical professor of pathology, is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the College of American Pathologists. Faix was recognized for his contributions in the area of clinical chemistry. He was honored Oct. 15 during the group's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Iris Schrijver, MD
Schrijver, professor of pathology, is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the College of American Pathologists. Schrijver was recognized for her efforts to ensure quality laboratory practices and improve patient care. She was honored Oct. 15 during the group's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Olivier Gevaert, PhD
Gevaert has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Oct. 1. His research focuses on using advanced machine-learning methods to integrate molecular data from cancer patients.
Geoffrey Gurtner, MD
Gurtner, associate professor of surgery, will receive about $3 million to work with a consortium of researchers to develop new treatments for wounded soldiers. The five-year, $75 million federally funded project focuses on applying regenerative medicine to battlefield injuries.
Keith Humphreys, PhD
Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been appointed to the American Civil Liberties Union's new panel studying marijuana legalization in California. The panel, headed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, will engage in a multiyear research effort.
Seth Ammerman, MD
Ammerman, clinical professor of adolescent medicine, has been appointed to the American Civil Liberties Union's new panel studying marijuana legalization in California. The panel, headed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, will engage in a multiyear research effort.
Robert Siegel, MD, PhD
Siegel has been promoted to professor (teaching) of microbiology and immunology. He is interested in medical education and curricular development, especially in the areas of infectious disease, virology, HIV and molecular biology.
Juliane Winkelmann, MD
Winkelmann has been appointed professor of neurology and neurological sciences, effective Oct. 1. She investigates the genetic architecture of neurological complex genetic diseases. Winkelmann's lab focuses on restless legs syndrome and aims to understand how the functional organization of neuronal sensor motor circuits is altered in RLS patients leading to disease manifestation.
Jong Yoon, MD
Yoon has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Oct. 1. His research focuses on the development and application of neuroimaging methods to identify the neural bases of major psychiatric conditions, particularly psychosis and schizophrenia.
October 2013
Paul Blumenthal, MD, MPH
Blumenthal, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is the recipient of the 2013 Allan Rosenfield Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Family Planning, presented by the Society of Family Planning. The annual award is given to individuals who have made important contributions to international family planning through research, writing, teaching, institutional leadership or policy work, or a combination. Blumenthal is chief of gynecology, director of family planning services and research, and director of the Stanford Program for International Reproductive Education and Services.
Euan Ashley, MD
Ashley has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. His laboratory is focused on the application of genomics in medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. Ashley also directs the Clinical Genome Service, the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease and the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center.
Bryan Bohman, MD
Bohman was selected to participate in the California Healthcare Foundation's Health Care Leadership Program, a two-year fellowship to help them prepare for challenges facing our state's health care system. Bohman is a clinical associate professor of anesthesia and associate chief medical officer for quality, safety and improvement at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Catherine Forest, MD, MPH
Forest was selected to participate in the California Healthcare Foundation's Health Care Leadership Program, a two-year fellowship to help them prepare for challenges facing our state's health care system.
Carlos Bustamante, PhD
Bustamante, professor of genetics, and Sharon Plon, MD, PhD, of the Baylor College of Medicine, have been awarded $8.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to lead a research group that will use computational and informatics tools and databases to determine which genomic variants have strong evidence for being associated with disease risk. They also will prioritize the variants for further study. The group is part of a consortium developing the Clinical Genome Resource, a framework for evaluating which genomic variants play a role in disease and those that are relevant to patient care.
Emilie Cheung, MD
Cheung has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, effective Sept. 1. Her research focuses on clinical outcomes following revision of total shoulder replacements, revision of total elbow replacements, and treatment of complications following shoulder and elbow reconstruction procedures. She also serves as chief of the shoulder and elbow service at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Catherine Forest, MD, MPH
Forest, clinical assistant professor of medicine and interim clinic chief at Stanford Family Medicine, is the recipient of the 2013 Hero of Family Medicine Award, presented by the California Academy of Family Physicians. The award honors a family physician who has "gone above and beyond the call of duty" to advocate for his or her patients, family physician colleagues and the profession of family medicine.
Steven Goodman, MD, PhD, MHS
Goodman, associate dean for clinical and translational research and professor of medicine and of health research and policy, has been appointed vice chair of the methodology committee of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The independent, nonprofit organization was authorized by Congress in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act. It has an annual $500 million budget to fund patient-centered, comparative-effectiveness and methods research to provide evidence that will help patients, their caregivers and clinicians make better-informed health-care decisions.
Joseph Levitt, MD
Levitt has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. His research focuses on the physiologic and biomarker characteristics of early acute lung injury prior to need for mechanical ventilation. He also serves as associate program director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
John Morton, MD, MPH
Morton, associate professor of surgery, has been named president-elect of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons, the largest society for this specialty in the world, with 4,000 members from over 44 countries. Morton is a leading weight-loss surgeon and serves as director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
September 2013
Ann Folkins, MD
Folkins was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective Aug. 1. She is interested in gynecologic and obstetric pathology, specifically in the origin and pathogenesis of serous ovarian carcinoma and the diagnostic difficulties surrounding trophoblastic disorders and neoplasia in the placenta.
Shai Friedland, MD
Friedland was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in techniques and outcomes in gastrointestinal endoscopy, development of new endoscopic devices, diagnosis of intestinal ischemia, and high-risk endoscopic resection.
John Higgins, MD
Higgins was promoted to professor of pathology, effective July 1. He works as a diagnostic surgical pathologist doing translational research in renal neoplasia and medical renal disease and neoplastic and medical liver disease.
Lawrence Hofmann, MD
Hofmann was promoted to professor of radiology, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in acute and chronic deep venuous thrombosis, peripheral arterial diseases and interventional oncology. Hoffman also serves as chief of interventional radiology and co-medical director of cardiac and interventional radiology at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Andrea Kossler, MD
Kossler was appointed assistant professor of ophthalmology, effective Aug. 1. Her research interests include thyroid eye disease, adenoid cystic carcinoma of the lacrimal gland, lacrimal gland stimulation for the treatment of dry eyes, neurostimulation, orbital tumors, floppy eyelid syndrome and obstructive sleep apnea. She also serves as co-director of ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery and the thyroid eye disease clinic.
Ginna Laport, MD
Laport was promoted to professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. Her research interests include haploidentical transplantation, adoptive immnotherapy, follicular lymphoma and supportive care. Laport also serves as director of medical informatics at the Stanford Cancer Institute.
Gordon Lee, MD
Lee was promoted to associate professor of surgery, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in surgical education and training in plastic surgery. Lee has also studied surgical outcomes in breast reconstruction, head and neck reconstruction, abdominal wall reconstruction and genital reconstruction.
Robert Lowsky, MD
Lowsky was promoted to professor of medicine, effective July 1. His research focuses on understanding the role of regulatory T cells in the prevention of graft-versus-host disease and in promoting immune tolerance following organ transplantation.
AC Matin, PhD
Matin, professor of microbiology and immunology, is leading a team of Stanford researchers that has received a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences to study the clinical utility of extracellular RNA in the development of new cancer therapies. The Stanford group is part of a national consortium receiving approximately $20 million to study this subject. In addition to Matin, who is the principal investigator, other members of the Stanford group are Mark Pegram, MD, professor of oncology; Stefanie Jeffrey, MD, professor of surgery; Christopher Contag, PhD, professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology; and Bradley Efron, PhD, professor of statistics and of health research and policy.
Jason Merker, MD, PhD
Merker was appointed assistant professor of pathology, effective July 1. The goal of his research is to identify somatic genetic changes and associated hematologic neoplasms using high-throughput, whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing methods.
Alan Pao, MD
Pao was appointed assistant professor of medicine, effective Aug. 1. He is interested in the hormonal and signal transduction pathways that control epithelial ion transport. Clinical implications of Pao's work include a better understanding of the pathogenesis of salt-sensitive hypertension and hypertension associated with the insulin resistance syndrome.
Lucy Tompkins, MD, PhD
Tompkins, professor of infectious diseases and of microbiology and immunology, is the recipient of 2013 Walter E. Stamm Mentor Award presented by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Named to honor the memory of a former president of the society who was renowned for nurturing the careers of others, the award recognizes "individuals who have served as exemplary mentors, and who have been exceptional in guiding the professional growth of infectious diseases professionals."
Eric A. Weiss, MD
Weiss was promoted to professor of surgery, effective Aug. 1. The focus of his research is wilderness medicine, including hypothermia, heat illness, altitude illness, improvised medical care in austere environments and wound care. Weiss also has a strong interest in disaster medicine, travel medicine and international health and pandemics.
Michael Zeineh, MD
Zeineh, assistant professor of radiology, has been awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant from the Radiological Society of North America Research and Education Foundation. His project, titled "Multimodal MRI to Detect Brain Injury in Athletes," will focus on the detection of subtle brain pathology using advanced MRI. The project "should provide important information concerning the potential accumulated risk to athletes of mild concussive brain impact," said Burton Drayer, MD, a member of the foundation's board of trustees and RSNA's board of directors.
Catherine Blish, MD, PhD
Two Stanford physician-scientists have been selected to receive 2013 Clinical Scientist Development Awards presented by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The award — $486,000 each over three years — provides funding for "physician-scientists in the process of establishing their own research teams and enables them to secure 75 percent of their professional time for clinical research." Blish, assistant professor of infectious diseases, will study "Systems Immunology to Understand Antiviral Deficits during Pregnancy."
Shirit Einav, MD
Two Stanford physician-scientists have been selected to receive 2013 Clinical Scientist Development Awards presented by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The award — $486,000 each over three years — provides funding for "physician-scientists in the process of establishing their own research teams and enables them to secure 75 percent of their professional time for clinical research." Einav, assistant professor of infectious diseases and of microbiology and immunology, will study the "Development of AAK1 and GAK Inhibitors for Combating Drug-Resistant HIV."
August 2013
Joseph Liao, MD
Liao has been promoted to associate professor of urology, effective July 1. Much of Liao's research is focused on translating molecular diagnostics for urological diseases from bench to bedside, with a particular interest in in harnessing the diagnostic potentials of urine using ultrasensitive molecular biosensors and incorporating optical and molecular imaging to improve the outcome of cancer surgery. Liao serves as chief of urology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and co-director of laparoscopic and minimally invasive urologic surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Daniel Herschlag, PhD
Herschlag, professor of biochemistry and senior associate dean for graduate education and postdoctoral affairs, has been awarded a multi-site project grant from the General Medicine Science Institute to study the principles by which RNA molecules fold into their biologically active structures. The project, titled "The Fundamental Studies of RNA folding," will bring together seven investigators from Stanford, Rutgers, the University of Michigan and University of Texas-Austin. Herschlag, the project director, will share Stanford's approximately $5 million portion of the five-year grant with Stanford co-investigators Rhiju Das, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry; Hideo Mabuchi, PhD, professor and chair of applied physics;, and Sebastian Doniach, PhD, professor of applied physics.
July 2013
Clarence Braddock, MD, MPH
Braddock, professor of medicine and associate dean for undergraduate and graduate medical education, has been named chair-elect of the board of directors for the American Board of Internal Medicine. ABIM sets the standards and certifies physicians practicing in internal medicine and its subspecialties.
Rush Bartlett
Bartlett, Stanford Biodesign fellow, was awarded second place in the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance's annual Biomedical Engineering Innovations, Design and Entrepreneurship Awards competition. His company, AWAIR, was chosen for creating the Wyshbone drug delivery catheter, which continuously applies topical anesthetic to the throat to reduce discomfort from an endotracheal tube.
Ryan Van Wert
Van Wert, Stanford Biodesign fellow, was awarded second place in the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance's annual Biomedical Engineering Innovations, Design and Entrepreneurship Awards competition. His company, AWAIR, was chosen for creating the Wyshbone drug delivery catheter, which continuously applies topical anesthetic to the throat to reduce discomfort from an endotracheal tube.
Steven Chu, PhD
Chu has been appointed professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of physics, effective April 23. Chu served as U.S. energy secretary from January 2009 to April 2013. Previously, he has held positions as director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, professor of physics and of molecular and cell biology at UC-Berkeley, and professor of physics at Stanford. He shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997 for his contributions to the laser cooling and trapping of atoms. At Stanford, Chu plans to continue efforts in applying new biophysical techniques to the study of biological systems, with an eye toward disease research.
Huy Do, MD
Do has been promoted to professor of radiology, effective May 1. His research has been targeted at understanding the effectiveness of vertebroplasty as a treatment for painful spinal compression fractures, developing embolic materials to treat arteriovenous malformation and for tumor embolization, aneurysm therapy and acute stroke treatment.
Christopher Holsinger, MD
Holsinger has been appointed professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), effective June 1. He also serves as chief of the Division of Head and Neck Surgery.
Angela Makalinao Guerrero
Guerrero, a second-year medical student, is among the 15 winners of a competition to create videos to help students prepare for the revised Medical College Admission Test to be administered in 2015. The contest was sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Khan Academy and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which are collaborating in an effort to provide free, online resources to help students prepare for the new test. The competition winners will participate an all-expenses-paid, weeklong training program facilitated by Khan Academy staff and scholars to create tutorials — i.e., collections of videos, questions and articles — about concepts that will be tested in the new exam.
Paul Nuyujukian
Nuyujukian, an eighth-year MD/PhD student, is among the 15 winners of a competition to create videos to help students prepare for the revised Medical College Admission Test to be administered in 2015. The contest was sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Khan Academy and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which are collaborating in an effort to provide free, online resources to help students prepare for the new test. The competition winners will participate an all-expenses-paid, weeklong training program facilitated by Khan Academy staff and scholars to create tutorials — i.e., collections of videos, questions and articles — about concepts that will be tested in the new exam.
James Huddleston, MD
Huddleston has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, effective May 1. His primary research interests include arthritis, clinical outcomes of primary and revision hip and knee replacement surgery, evaluation of the inflammatory cascade that leads to premature failure of hip and knee replacements, biomaterials, and the design of hip and knee implants and instrumentation. He serves as associate residence program director and medical director of Stanford Hospital & Clinics' Total Joint Replacement Center.
Ning Liu, PhD
Liu, a postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is the recipient of a translational postdoctoral fellowship from Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization. The fellowship was created to support talented scientists pursuing training in autism-related translational research. Liu will receive $121,355 over two years for a project using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to enable therapists to monitor brain activation responses in individuals with autism during therapy sessions. This feedback can also be shared with the individuals receiving therapy.
Paul Sharek, MD, MPH
Sharek has been named the inaugural Paul V. Miles Fellow in Quality Improvement by the American Board of Pediatrics. The award was created to honor Miles' passion for improving children's health care. Miles, MD, served at the board for more than a decade, most recently as senior vice president for maintenance of certification and quality. Sharek's research focuses on quality-of-care improvement in hospitals, particularly pediatric patient safety. He is a chief clinical patient safety officer and medical director of quality management at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Ellen Yeh, MD, PhD
Yeh has been appointed assistant professor of pathology, of biochemistry and of microbiology and immunology, effective May 1. Her lab studies the novel biology of the apicoplast, a plastid organelle, with the goal of developing therapeutics against malaria and related pathogens.
June 2013
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth, the D.H. Chen Professor and professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been awarded Brandeis University's 16th annual Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine. Other winners of this year's Gabbay Award are Gero Miesenböck of Oxford University and Edward Boyden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The three scientists were selected for their contributions to the discovery and applications of optogenetics, which allows neurons can be selectively activated or inhibited with pulses of light. They will share a $15,000 prize and present lectures in the fall.
John Pringle, PhD
Pringle, professor of genetics, has been awarded the E.B. Wilson Medal for lifetime contributions to cell biology. This is the highest honor conferred by the American Society for Cell Biology. He was chosen for his pioneering work in using yeast genetics to discover general principles of cell-polarity development, cytokinesis and the septin cytoskeleton. Pringle, who also serves as associate chair of the Department of Genetics and was formerly senior associate dean for graduate education and postdoctoral affairs, will be presented with the medal and deliver the E.B. Wilson Lecture at the society's annual meeting on Dec. 17 in New Orleans.
Manu Prakash, PhD
Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering, has been named a 2013 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. As one of 22 early-career scientists selected for this honor, he will receive $240,000 over four years to pursue innovative solutions for improving human health. A physicist by training, Prakash is a pioneer in the "frugal science" movement, completely rethinking appropriate medical solutions for underserved regions of the world. His most recent work is focused on developing low-cost microfluidic tools to rapidly measure infection rates of the West Nile virus, malaria and Dengue within mosquito populations in field conditions.
Kimberly Allison, MD
Allison has been appointed professor of pathology, effective May 1. Her research interests include how standards should be applied to breast cancer diagnostics (such as HER2 testing), the utility of molecular panel-based testing in breast cancer, and identifying the most appropriate management of specific pathologic diagnoses. She is the author of Red Sunshine, a memoir about her personal experience with breast cancer.
Sepideh Bajestan, MD, PhD
Bajestan, a fourth-year resident in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is a recipient of 2013 Laughlin Fellowship presented by the American College of Psychiatrists. Each year, 10 third-, fourth- and fifth-year residents are chosen by ACP to attend the college's annual meeting and participate in all educational functions. The ACP's 2013 meeting was held Feb. 23 on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.
Christina Tara Khan, MD, PhD
Khan, a first-year child and adolescent psychiatry community track fellow, is a recipient of 2013 Laughlin Fellowship presented by the American College of Psychiatrists. Each year, 10 third-, fourth- and fifth-year residents are chosen by ACP to attend the college's annual meeting and participate in all educational functions. The ACP's 2013 meeting was held Feb. 23 on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.
Edward Bertaccini, MD
Bertaccini has been promoted to professor of anesthesiology, effective May 1. His research interests focus on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of anesthetic action via the techniques of computational chemistry and molecular modeling.
Steven Coutre, MD
Coutre has been promoted to professor of medicine, effective May 1. His work emphasizes translational clinical research involving hematologic cancers, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Coutre also serves as vice chair of clinical affairs for the Department of Medicine.
George Fisher, MD, PhD
Fisher has been promoted to professor of medicine, effective May 1. His research program focuses on clinical trials for patients with gastrointestinal cancers. Fisher also serves as director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office.
Amato Giaccia, PhD
Giaccia is the recipient of a 2013 gold medal from the American Society for Radiation Oncology. The award is the society's highest honor and recognizes distinguished members who have made outstanding contributions to the field of radiation oncology, including research, clinical care, teaching and service. Giaccia, who is director of the Division of Radiation and Cancer Biology at Stanford, will be honored at the society's 55th annual meeting in Atlanta.
Robert Shafer, MD
Shafer, professor of medicine, has been recognized with an award from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology. Shafer was awarded the 2013 Ed Nowakowski Senior Memorial Clinical Virology Award, which is given to an individual whose contributions to clinical virology have had a major impact on the epidemiology, treatment or understanding of the pathogenesis of viral diseases. Much of his work focuses on the mechanisms and consequences of virus evolution, with a focus on HIV therapy and drug resistance. He also created the Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database.
Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD
Pinsky, assistant professor of pathology and of medicine, has been recognized with an award from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology. Pinsky was given the 2013 Young Investigator Award, which recognizes a significant contribution to the field of clinical or diagnostic virology by an early-career researcher. Pinsky's work focuses on the development and implementation of diagnostic assays for the detection and identification of clinically important viruses. He also serves as director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Stanford. The award consists of a $1,000 prize and a plaque, and was presented at the society's annual meeting in April.
Leanne Williams, PhD
Williams has been appointed professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective May 1. She conducts research in applied personalized neuroscience, focusing on novel ways of classifying mood, anxiety and attention disorders and of predicting treatment outcome.
Joseph Wu, MD
Wu has been promoted to professor of medicine and of radiology, effective May 1. His lab works on biological mechanisms of adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. Wu also serves as co-director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
May 2013
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
Butte, chief of systems medicine and associate professor of pediatrics and of genetics, was recently elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Butte is one of 80 new members from top scientific institutions across the country to be honored this year. He was formally inducted April 26 at the society's annual meeting in Chicago.
Amrapali Maitra
Maitra is among the 30 recipients of the 2013 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Established in 1998, the program acknowledges the "extraordinary promise, diversity, drive and determination of recent immigrants — and children of immigrants — to this country." Each fellow is awarded up to $50,000 in grants and up to $40,000 in tuition support for two years. Maitra was born in India and came to Texas when she was 10. She earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard and completed field research in Tanzania and Bangladesh with a focus on health-care needs of women affected by violence-related trauma. She is now working toward both a medical degree and a doctorate in anthropology at Stanford.
Guillem Pratx, PhD
Pratx was appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, effective May 1. His research interests center around three areas of medical physics: radionuclide imaging, X-ray molecular imaging and high-performance medical computing. Pratx's research aims to advance cancer care by integrating new imaging techniques into the clinical workflow, and further basic understanding of cancer biology by designing new assays that can probe subtle biochemical processes in single cells.
Nicole Yamada, MD
Yamada, a postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, is the recipient of the 2013 Klaus Research Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The award provides $5,000 to support her research on deviations from the standard algorithm for neonatal resuscitation and focused strategies for remediation. That project is also supported by a grant from the AAP Neonatal Resuscitation Program.
Robert Haile, PhD
Haile was appointed professor of medicine, effective May 1. He joined the Stanford faculty from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. A recognized leader in the genetic epidemiology of cancer, Haile's research focuses on the causes and prevention of colorectal and breast cancer.
Ngan Huang, PhD
Huang was appointed assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery, effective May 1. Her lab aims to understand the chemical and mechanical interactions between extracellular matrix proteins and pluripotent stem cells that regulate vascular and myogenic differentiation.
Suzanne Pfeffer, PhD
Pfeffer, the Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor in the Medical Sciences and chair of the Department of Biochemistry, is one of seven Stanford faculty elected members of American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. Founded in 1780, the academy is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious honorary learned societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Pfeffer, who is the only member from the School of Medicine, is among 4,600 members and 600 foreign fellows, which include some of the world's most accomplished leaders from academia, business, social policy, energy, global security, the humanities and the arts. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony Oct. 12 at the academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
Yasser El-Sayed, MD
El-Sayed, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, was appointed obstetrician in chief at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. He also serves as director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics. El-Sayed succeeds Maurice Druzin, MD, who has stepped down from the position after 22 years but will continue to care for patients, teach and conduct research. Prior to becoming chief, El-Sayed served as associate director of maternal-fetal medicine and obstetrics. He is the founder of the Stanford-Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Research Collaboration, and is the co-principal investigator of the NICHD Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network.
April 2013
Preetha Basaviah, MD
Basaviah, clinical associate professor of medicine, was appointed assistant dean for pre-clerkship education. She will oversee the required MD program curriculum in the pre-clerkship years and provide leadership for the pre-clerkship course director group. In addition to her role as director of the Practice of Medicine course, she is also one of the founding members of the Educators for CARE program.
Michael Cherry, PhD
Cherry was promoted to professor (research) of genetics, effective March 1. His research focuses on identifying, validating and integrating scientific information into encyclopedic databases essential for investigation as well as scientific education.
Craig Comiter, MD
Comiter was promoted to professor of urology, effective March 1. Using various animal models of bladder outlet obstruction, he is investigating how intervening with pharmacotherapy, neuromodulation and other novel therapies may help to reverse the adverse changes in the bladder caused by the obstruction. Comiter also serves as vice chair of the Professional Practice Evaluation Committee in the Department of Surgery.
Nishita Kothary, MD
Kothary was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective March 1. Her research interests include imaging and therapies for primary liver cancer. She also serves as director of clinical operations for the Division of Interventional Radiology.
William Kuo, MD
Kuo was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective March 1. He pioneered treatment of complications arising from the use of filters implanted in the inferior vena cava using advanced endovascular techniques, and his team at Stanford was the first in the world to successfully use this procedure in humans. His research has led to improvements in the treatment of venous thromboembolism and new protocols for managing embedded IVC filters.
Henry Lee, MD
Lee was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective March 1. His research interests include perinatal and neonatal epidemiology, health outcomes and quality improvement. He also serves as director of research at the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative.
Irene Loe, MD
Loe was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective March 1. Her research interests focus on executive function deficits, attention and learning difficulties, and behavior problems in children at risk for these problems because of premature birth and family history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. She is also interested in interventions to improve outcomes in children with or at risk for developmental disabilities.
George Sledge, MD
Sledge was promoted to professor of medicine, effective March 1. He is chief of the Department of Medicine's Division of Oncology, and is a former president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. As a clinician-scientist, he is interested in innovative treatments for breast cancer.
Lu Tian, PhD
Tian was promoted to associate professor of health research and policy, effective March 1. His research interests include survival analysis and semiparametric modeling; resampling method; meta-analysis; high dimensional data analysis; and personalized medicine for disease diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
Suzanne Tharin, MD, PhD
Tharin was appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, effective March 1. The long-term goal of her research is the repair of damaged corticospinal circuitry.
Bioinformatics team
A team of five scientists and software developers at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research has won second place and a $10,000 prize in the national Health Data Platform Metadata Challenge. The contest's participants were asked to analyze 380 data sets in the Health Data Initiative and to provide mechanisms for integrating information in these data sets. The Stanford team consisted of Mark Musen, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and head of the Center for Biomedical Informatics Research; senior research scientist Natasha Noy, PhD; undergraduate student Amy Sentis; and software developers Csongor Nyulas, MS, and Manuel Salvadores, PhD.
March 2013
Stephen Roth, MD, MPH
Roth, professor of pediatric cardiology, has been elected to a second consecutive term on the board of directors of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society. The society is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote excellence in pediatric cardiac critical care medicine. Roth is the James Baxter Wood and Yvonne Craig Wood Endowed Director for the Pediatric CVICU and chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Marius Wernig, MD, PhD
Wernig has been selected as the recipient of the fifth annual International Society for Stem Cell Research-University of Pittsburgh Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2013. He is recognized for his research demonstrating that previously specified cells have the capacity to be reprogrammed directly to other, distantly related cell types, a discovery that has transformed the field of cellular reprogramming. Wernig, as assistant professor of pathology, will receive his award and present his latest research at the ISSCR annual meeting in Boston on June 15.
Jeffrey Axelrod, MD, PhD
Axelrod has been promoted to professor of pathology, effective Feb. 1. His lab studies developmental patterning events at the level of morphogenesis, using a combination of genetic, molecular, cell biological and mathematical approaches. The goal of his research is to understand how genes orchestrate the elaborate choreography of development to reproducibly give rise to morphological patterns seen in multicellular organisms.
Jonathan Bernstein, MD, PhD
Bernstein was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics, effective Jan. 1. He is interested in the genetics of autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders. He is working with other Stanford researchers on developing induced pluripotent stem cell models of genetic disorders associated with autism and developmental disability. Bernstein also serves as associate director of the medical genetics residency program.
Paul Buckmaster, DVM, PhD
Buckmaster has been promoted to professor of comparative medicine, effective Feb. 1. The goal of his research is to better understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of temporal lobe epilepsy so that rational and effective therapies can be developed. He uses electrophysiological, molecular and anatomical techniques to evaluate neuronal circuitry in normal and in epileptic brains.
Liang Feng, PhD
Feng has been appointed assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, effective March 1. He is interested in the structure, dynamics and function of eukaryotic transport proteins mediating ions and major nutrients crossing the membrane; the kinetics and regulation of transport processes; the catalytic mechanism of membrane-embedded enzymes; and the development of small-molecule modulators based on the structure and function of membrane proteins.
Everett Meyer, MD, PhD, MS
Meyer, senior clinical fellow in the Department of Medicine, has been awarded a three-year, $240,000 grant from the Amy Strelzer Manasevit Research Program for the Study of Post-Transplant Complications, which supports research in blood and marrow transplantation. The program was created by Martin Strelzer, who lost his daughter to post-transplant complications in 1997. Meyer will use the grant to work on a project titled "Immune Monitoring of Regulatory T Cell Therapy to Treat Steroid Refractory Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease."
Lucy O'Brien, PhD
O'Brien has been appointed assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, effective March 1. Her research interests focus on the adaptive dynamics of stem cells and tissues, with emphasis on heterogeneity and tissue-level control of stem cell populations.
David Rosenthal, MD
Rosenthal was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Feb. 1. He is primarily interested in improving the care of children with heart failure and cardiomyopathy. Rosenthal also serves as director of the PACT Program for pediatric heart failure and heart transplantation at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
February 2013
Sandip Biswal, MD
Biswal was promoted to associate professor of radiology, effective Jan. 1. He also serves as director of the musculoskeletal imaging fellowship in the Department of Radiology.
Paul Bollyky, MD, DPhil
Bollyky was appointed assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases), effective Jan. 1. His research is focused on the role of extracellular matrix in inflammation and infection.
Anne Dubin, MD
Dubin was promoted to professor of pediatrics, effective Feb. 1. She is interested in the diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmia in pediatric heart failure, especially the use of resynchronization therapy in the pediatric and congenital heart population.
Lisa Giocomo, PhD
Giocomo was appointed assistant professor of neurobiology, effective Feb. 1. Her lab studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the organization of cortical circuits important for spatial navigation and memory.
Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Wysocka, associate professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology, is the recipient of a 2013 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. The awards were established in 2009 to encourage and support younger immigrants "who have already demonstrated exceptional achievements, and who often face significant challenges early in their careers," according to the Vilcek Foundation website. Wysocka is originally from Poland. She will receive a $35,000 cash prize for her work that has led to the discovery of novel and crucial insights into regulation of cell fate and lineage determination. She plans on addressing the questions related to gene regulation in human diversity as she moves forward with her research.
January 2013
Geoffrey Gurtner, MD
Gurtner, professor of surgery, is the recipient of a Harrington Scholar-Innovator grant awarded by the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals-Case Medical Center. The inaugural grant program is focused at supporting physician-scientists and their efforts to accelerate promising drug discoveries into novel treatments for patients. Gurtner will receive up to $200,000 over two years to work on the development of a novel topical drug to heal wounds, particularly in diabetic populations.
Mark Kay, MD, PhD
Kay, the Dennis Farrey Family Professor in Pediatrics and professor of genetics, will receive the 2013 Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy. Kay is also director of the School of Medicine's Program in Human Gene Therapy. He conducts studies on how diseases such as hemophilia, diabetes, and hepatitis B and C could be alleviated with gene therapy. He will accept the award and deliver a presentation about his research at the society's annual meeting in May in Salt Lake City.
John Kerner, MD
Kerner, professor of pediatric gastroenterology, and the nutrition support team at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, were recently named the recipient of the ASPEN Clinical Nutrition Team of Distinction Award. The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition selected Kerner and the entire team, including leaders Robert Poole, PharmD; Colleen Nespor, RN, CNS; and Andrea Gilbaugh, RD, for their excellent service and leadership in interdisciplinary clinical nutrition practice.
Michael Lin, MD, PhD
Lin, assistant professor of pediatrics and of bioengineering, is the recipient of a 2013 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The grant of $450,000 over three years is awarded to early career scientists whose projects have the potential to significantly impact the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Lin's project, ""Building the magic bullet: Protein switches for sensing oncogenic signals and executing therapeutic programs," aims to take a new approach to cancer treatment by reprogramming viruses to replicate specifically in cancer cells, triggering their destruction.
Nihar Nayak, PhD
Nayak has been appointed associate professor (research) of obstetrics and gynecology as of Dec. 1. His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms of endometrial angiogenesis and vascular remodeling during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Nayak's main goal is to identify the abnormalities in implantation that may lead to various pregnancy-related vascular complications.
Monica Ortiz
A paper written by Ortiz, a PhD student in the lab of Drew Endy, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, was chosen as the "Article of 2012" by the Journal of Biological Engineering. Pieces are selected based on the number of accesses during the calendar year. "Engineered cell-cell communication via DNA messaging" was accessed 7,331 times in less than four months from the time of its publication on Sept. 7 to the end of the year. Ortiz's paper will be recognized during the Institute of Biological Engineering's annual meeting in March in Indianapolis.
Iris Schrijver, MD
Schrijver has been promoted to professor of pathology as of Dec. 1. Her research interests include the characterization of the molecular basis of inherited disorders such as hereditary hearing loss and cystic fibrosis, genotype-phenotype correlations, and development of novel molecular diagnostic tools. She also serves as director of the molecular pathology laboratory at Stanford.
Mehrdad Shamloo, PhD
Shamloo has been appointed associate professor (research) of comparative medicine as of Dec. 1. The goal of his research is to rapidly advance the understanding of normal brain function at the molecular, cellular, circuit, behavioral and functional levels, and to reveal the pathological process underlying malfunction of the nervous system following injury and neurologic disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease and autism. His effort will focus on the beta 1-adrenergic receptor and Npas4, a transcription factor.
December 2012
Adam de la Zerda, PhD
De la Zerda, assistant professor of structural biology, has been named one of Forbes Magazine's "30 under 30." Each year, the magazine compiles a list of 30 up-and-coming stars under the age of 30 in 12 different categories. Nominations are submitted by readers and a panel of experts in each category. De la Zerda, who was chosen for the science category, pioneered novel molecular-imaging techniques in which he uses nanotechnology to watch how molecules move within the body, leading to insights at the cellular level of what goes wrong in diseases such as cancer and age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.
Cara Bohon, PhD
Bohon has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on the neural bases of eating disorders and obesity. She is particularly interested in the way emotion and reward is processed in the brain, and how that may contribute to eating behavior and food restriction.
Edward Bertaccini, MD
Bertaccini, associate professor of anesthesia, had research that was selected as "Best of abstracts: Basic science" by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He gave an oral presentation of the scientific abstract titled, "Assessment of homology templates and the anesthetic binding site within the GABA receptor," during the ASA's annual meeting in October.
Gerald Crabtree, MD, PhD
Crabtree, professor of pathology, is one of 13 recipients of a cancer grant from the Mary Kay Foundation to fund innovative gynecological cancer research. He will use the $100,000 grant to investigate the function of the protein ARID1A. Using a combination of biochemistry and mouse genetics, Crabtree hopes to uncover how ARID1A functions within a certain complex to protect cells from becoming oncogenic.
Tracy George, MD
George has been promoted to associate professor of pathology as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on translational hematopathology, which includes systemic mastocytosis and other myeloproliferative neoplasms, laboratory hematology, post-transplant and immunodeficiency-related lymphoproliferative disorders, and reactive lymphadenopathies.
Leonard Herzenberg, PhD, and Leonore Herzenberg, PhD
The Herzenbergs have been selected to receive the ABRF Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies presented by the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities. The award recognizes those who develop powerful tools that serve as the foundation of the modern biological research enterprise. Since 1959, they have jointly operated research groups at Stanford focused on gene regulation in the immune system, the development and function of B cell subpopulations, and applications of fluorescence-activated cell sorting. The award will be presented at the annual ABRF meeting in March 2013.
Ware Kuschner, MD
Kuschner has been promoted to professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. He is interested in occupational and environmental lung disease; pulmonary and systemic responses to toxicant inhalation; and indoor and outdoor air pollution health effects. Kuschner also serves as chief of the pulmonary section at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.
Sean Mackey, MD, PhD
Mackey has been promoted to professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine and of neurology and neurological sciences as of Nov. 1. His primary research interest involves the use of advanced research techniques — such as neuroimaging, psychophysics and neurobehavioral assessment — to investigate the neural processing of pain and neuronal plasticity in patients with chronic pain. Mackey also serves as chief of the Division of Pain Management and co-director of the Stanford Pain Research and Clinical Center.
Tracey McLaughlin, MD
McLaughlin has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. She conducts a number of clinical research studies related to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. McLaughlin also serves as chair of the diabetes task force at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.
Beverly Mitchell, MD
Mitchell is the recipient of the 2012 Mentor Award winner for Clinical Investigation, presented by the American Society of Hematology. The award recognizes hematologists who have excelled in mentoring trainees and colleagues. Mitchell, MD, the George E. Becker Professor and director of the Stanford Cancer Institute, developed the Clinical Research Training Institute, a career-development programs now in its 10th year. She accepted the award at ASH's annual meeting Dec. 9.
Mindie Nguyen, MD
Nguyen has been promoted to associate professor of medicine (gastroenterology & hepatology) as of Nov. 1. Her research interests include the clinical aspects, molecular epidemiology and pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma with an emphasis on disease determinants, diagnostic and screening tests, and ethnic differences. She is also interested in epidemiological and clinical behaviors of viral hepatitis, particularly in hepatitis C patients with novel genotypes and in understudied populations.
Andrew Quon, MD
Quon has been promoted to associate professor of radiology as of Nov. 1. He is interested in multimodality fusion imaging with PET, CT and MRI for oncology; translational research bringing new radiotracers to clinical use; and cardiovascular multimodality PET/CT imaging.
Steven Shafer, MD
Shafer has been appointed professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine as of Nov. 1. He is interested in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of intravenous anesthetics, including drug interactions and continuous measures of drug effect; model-based drug development; target-controlled drug delivery; and advanced models of drug behavior.
Manjula Tamura, MD
Tamura has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. Her primary interest is in improving the quality of end-stage renal disease care among older adults. Her work aims to describe outcomes in older patients and to compare the effectiveness of different renal-disease management strategies on these outcomes.
Heather Wakelee, MD
Wakelee has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. Her research is focused on clinical trials in patients with lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, such as thymoma and thymic carcinoma. She also works with novel agents for all malignancies as part of the developmental therapeutics group of Stanford's cancer center. Other interests include translation projects in thoracic malignancies, and collaborations with population scientists regarding lung cancer questions.
Irene Wapnir, MD
Wapnir has been promoted to professor of surgery as of Nov. 1. Her research includes exploring the activity of breast iodide transporter in breast cancer, which has lead to translational research protocols. She also serves as chief of breast surgery for the surgical oncology section.
Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Wysocka is the winner of the Harland Winfield Mossman Award in Developmental Biology presented by the American Association of Anatomists. The award recognizes Wysocka for her role in the study of epigenetic regulation of gene expression in developmental biology, using biochemical approaches in her investigations of chromatin in embryonic stem cells and in embryos leading to seminal contributions such as identification of chromatin regulators of stem cell fate and discovery of epigenetic priming of developmental enhancers in pluripotent cells. She will present an award lecture at the AAA annual meeting in 2013.
November 2012
Donald Barr, MD, PhD
Barr has been promoted to professor (teaching) of pediatrics as of Nov. 1. His research focuses on undergraduate premedical education, and how innovative approaches to teaching can contribute to enhancing the academic and cultural diversity of students applying to medical school. He is working to develop integrated, web-based teaching resources in human behavior and in health disparities.
Lloyd Minor, MD
Minor has been appointed professor of otolaryngology as of Sept. 1. Minor, who will become the dean of the School of Medicine on Dec. 1, specializes in the diseases and disorders of the inner ear.
Gregory Scherrer, PharmD, PhD
Scherrer has been appointed assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine as of Oct. 1. He is interested in resolving the identity of the neurons in the nerves, spinal cord and brain that participate in generating the sensation of pain, and to uncover the molecular mechanisms by which opioids regulate neural activity in pain circuits.
Julie Theriot, PhD
Theriot has been promoted to professor of biochemistry and of microbiology and immunology as of Nov. 1. Her group studies the mechanics and dynamics of cell structure, organization and motility both in bacteria and in eukaryotic cells.
Sean Wu, MD, PhD
Wu has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Nov. 1. His lab seeks to identify mechanisms regulating cardiac lineage commitment during embryonic development and the biology of cardiac progenitor cells in development and disease. He received a 2008 NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and is an investigator for the NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium.
Joanna Wysocka, PhD
Wysocka has been promoted to associate professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology as of Nov.1. Her research focuses on understanding how chromatin modifications affect stem cell biology.
Justin Annes, MD PhD
Annes has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Oct.1. His research interests are in discovering new treatments for diabetes and a rare hereditary cancer known as the paraganglioma syndrome. These two disorders, while very different in clinical manifestation, have a common basis: pathologic disruption of cellular metabolism. His lab is finding ways to therapeutically leverage these disease-related defects in metabolic behavior. Annes is clinically interested in hereditary endocrine disorders and is developing a specialized clinic to care for these families.
Jan Carette, PhD
Carette, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, is the recipient of the 2012 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He will receive an unrestricted research grant of $875,000 over five years. Carette's lab uses a unique genetic approach in human cells to study the interplay between pathogens and their host. He believes that expanding and sharpening the genetic tools to dissect virus-host interactions is a powerful way to systematically discover genes paramount in health and disease.
Denise Monack, PhD
Monack has been promoted to associate professor of microbiology and immunology as of Oct. 1. The primary focus of her research is to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms of intracellular bacterial pathogenesis. She uses two model systems, Salmonella typhimurium and Francisella tularensis, to study the complex host-pathogen interactions.
Joy Wu, MD, PhD
Wu has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Oct. 1. As a physician-scientist with a clinical focus on osteoporosis, her lab addresses the mechanisms guiding the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, and how mesenchymal lineages support hematopoiesis in the bone marrow.
October 2012
Russ Altman, MD, PhD
Altman, the Kenneth Fong Professor and professor of genetics and of medicine, has been appointed to two new positions: president-elect of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics and chair of the science board to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The ASCPT is the largest scientific and professional organization serving the discipline of clinical pharmacology. He will assume the presidency in March 2013. As chair of the FDA's science board, he will provide advice to the FDA commissioner and to the agency's chief science officer. He will assume these duties this fall. Altman's research focuses on a molecular understanding of drug response, including pharmacogenomics, 3D structure-function relationships, data mining, and systems pharmacology.
Gabriel Garcia, MD
Garcia, professor of medicine, has been named the William and Dorothy Kaye University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, part of the Bass University Fellows in Undergraduate Education program. Established in 2001, the appointment recognizes faculty for extraordinary contributions to undergraduate education, including faculty from the graduate and professional schools. Garcia also serves as associate dean for MD admissions.
Jennifer Cochran, PhD
Cochran has been promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, as of Oct. 1. Her lab uses interdisciplinary approaches in chemistry, engineering and biophysics to study complex biological systems and develop new technologies for biomedical applications, including regenerative medicine and cancer imaging and therapy.
Monte Winslow, PhD
Winslow, assistant professor of genetics and of pathology, is the recipient of a 2012 V Scholar grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a leading cancer research foundation. He is one of 17 researchers to win the $200,000 two-year grant, which funds "rising star" scientists as they begin their careers in cancer research. Winslow will use this funding to better characterize the molecular mechanisms that govern lung cancer metastasis.
John Adler, MD
Adler, the Dorothy and Thye King Chan Professor in Neurosurgery, Emeritus, is the recipient of the 2012 Cloward Award given by the Western Neurosurgical Society. The award honors the late Ralph Cloward, MD, and his pioneering efforts to establish anterior cervical and posterior lumbar interbody fusion plus the numerous instruments he devised. Adler was chosen for his work in the development and implementation of computerized, image-guided surgical tools to be used during minimally invasive brain operations, particularly his invention of the Cyberknife, which administers radiation deep into the brain and the body to treat cancer. The award, which includes a medal and a special lecture, was presented in September during the WNS' 58th annual meeting in Colorado.
September 2012
Valerie Baker, MD
Baker has been promoted to associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology as of Sept. 1. She is interested in primary ovarian insufficiency/premature ovarian failure, infertility and outcomes from assisted reproductive technology. Baker serves as medical director of the Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center In Vitro Fertilization and Reproductive Endocrinology Program and research-committee chair of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a national professional organization.
Stephen Baccus, PhD
Baccus has been promoted to associate professor of neurobiology as of Aug. 1. He studies how the neural circuitry of the retina transforms visual images into electrical signals in the optic nerve. He uses a combination of physiological experiments and computational approaches to understand rules of how neural circuits of the brain function.
Victor Carrion, MD
Carrion has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of Sept. 1. His research examines the interplay between brain development and stress vulnerability via a multi-method approach that includes psychophysiology, neuroimaging, neuroendocrinology and phenomenology. Carrion is particularly interested in treatment development that focuses on individual and community-based interventions for stress-related conditions in children and adolescents who experience traumatic stress.
Stephanie Chao, MD
Chao has been named to receive the 2012 Association of Women Surgeons Hilary Sanfey Outstanding Resident Award for clinical excellence and accomplishments during professional development years. The award will be presented at the 2012 annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 in Chicago. Chao, who is now a chief resident in the Department of Surgery, will be joining the pediatric surgery division for a two-year fellowship at the completion of her residency. She is the third Stanford surgery resident to receive the award.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD
Deisseroth has been promoted to professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Sept. 1. His research focuses on developing optical, molecular and cellular tools to observe, perturb and re-engineer brain circuits. He is both a practicing psychiatrist and the developer of optogenetics, a technique that allows scientists to tease apart the complex circuits that compose the brain so that the role of individual circuit components in brain function can be studied with high precision.
Jason Dragoo, MD
Dragoo has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery, as of Sept. 1. His research has focused on the development of viable tissue-engineered structures of the knee including articular (hyaline) and meniscal (fibrocartilage) cartilage, as well as bone. The goal of this research will be curing the patient's arthritis by re-establishing articular cartilage using their own stem cells. Dragoo also serves as the head team physician for the Stanford football program.
Stefan Heller, PhD
Heller, the Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in the School of Medicine, has been elected as a member of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. Established in 1926, CORLAS is an association of otorhinolaryngologists with more than 400 members. Heller, a leader in stem-cell based research on the inner ear, has recently focused on two paths for possible cures for deafness: drug therapy and stem cell transplantation into the inner ear. He delivered two presentations during the CORLAS annual meeting in Rome on Aug. 26-29.
Henry Lowe, MD
Lowe has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of Sept. 1. His research focuses on the development of novel uses of information technology and computer science to improve human health. Lowe also serves as chief information officer at the School of Medicine; senior associate dean for Information Resources and Technology; and director of both the Stanford Center for Clinical Informatics and the CTSA Translational Informatics Program.
Walter Park, MD
Park has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Sept. 1. His research interests are in the diagnosis and management of pancreatic cysts, acute and chronic pancreatitis, and quality improvement in gastrointestinal diseases. His approach includes translational collaborations in biomarker discovery and methods in health services research including the use of large observational data sets and cost-effectiveness studies. He also serves as medical director of the Pancreas Clinic within the Digestive Health Center.
Anand Veeravagu, MD
Veeravagu, a neurosurgery resident, has been appointed by President Barack Obama to be one of the 15 members of the 2012-13 class of White House fellows, based on his record of professional achievement, evidence of leadership potential and proven commitment to public service. Veeravagu works on advancing minimally invasive diagnostic and surgical techniques for diseases of the central nervous system and has developed a novel radiotherapeutic to treat glioblastoma multiforme, a malignant brain tumor. He most recently served as chief neurosurgery resident at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, caring for soldiers returning from Afghanistan with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries.
Jeffrey Yao, MD
Yao has been promoted to associate professor of orthopaedic surgery as of Sept. 1. His research interests include developing minimally invasive and arthroscopic treatment alternatives for common hand and wrist disorders and using stem cells for the biologic augmentation of tendon repair strategies.
Edward Riley, MD
Riley has been promoted to professor of anesthesia as of Aug. 1. The primary focus of his research is on anesthesia for cesarean delivery and labor analgesia.
Six researchers from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences have been selected to receive the 2012 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant, which provides up to $60,000 over two years to enable promising investigators to either extend research fellowship training or begin careers as independent research faculty. This year's recipients and their research focus are: Alexander Urban, PhD, (schizophrenia); Ami Citri, PhD, (addiction and related disorders); Sergiu Pasca, MD, (schizophrenia); Lara Foland-Ross, PhD, (depression); Melissa Warden, PhD, (depression); and Amit Etkin, MD, PhD, (anxiety). The grants, which are considered one of the highest distinctions in the field of mental health research, are awarded by Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
August 2012
Dean Felsher, MD, PhD
Felsher has been promoted to professor of medicine and of pathology as of Aug. 1. His laboratory has shown that tumors are addicted to oncogenes and exploits this to develop novel therapies for cancer.
Adam de la Zerda, PhD
De la Zerda has been appointed assistant professor of structural biology as of Aug. 1. His lab focuses on developing new optical imaging instrumentation and chemistry tools to study the complex spatiotemporal behavior of biomolecules in living subjects. The lab uses animal models for cancer and ophthalmic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.
Aaron Gitler, PhD
Gitler has been appointed associate professor of genetics as of July 1. His lab studies the cell biology and genetics underpinning human neurodegenerative diseases, which include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).
Joanna Kelley, PhD
Kelley, postdoctoral scholar in genetics, is the recipient of the 2012 L'Oréal USA Fellowships For Women in Science. Recipients receive up to $60,000 toward their postdoctoral research. Kelly will explore the genomic basis of adaptation to environments containing high levels of hydrogen sulfide. She will use sulfide spring populations of the fish Poecilia from three river drainages to study adaptive trait divergence, differentiation in gene sequences and gene expression patterns.
Anthony Oro, MD, PhD
Oro, professor of dermatology, has won a $600,000 translational grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, one of the nation's leading cancer research foundations. He is one of 10 research teams to win the three-year grant, which aims "to bridge the gap between the laboratory and patient bedside" and "bring the benefits of new basic-level understandings to patients more quickly and efficiently." Oro plans to work on novel therapies for hedgehog-dependent cancers.
Jean Tang, MD, PhD
Tang, assistant professor of dermatology, has won a $600,000 translational grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, one of the nation's leading cancer research foundations. She is one of 10 research teams to win the three-year grant, which aims "to bridge the gap between the laboratory and patient bedside" and "bring the benefits of new basic-level understandings to patients more quickly and efficiently." Tang plans to work on novel therapies for hedgehog-dependent cancers.
Judith Prochaska, PhD
Prochaska has been appointed associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center as of July 1. Her research focuses on developing treatments for tobacco dependence and other leading risk factors (e.g., sedentary behavior, obesity, stress and distress), with a focus on complex and multi-problem groups including the homeless, the unemployed and people with serious mental illness, alcohol and drug problems, and heart disease.
Diane Tseng
Tseng, an MD/PhD student, is a recipient of grants from the Cancer Research Institute to further her research in cancer immunology. The CRI funds global research efforts to develop immunotherapies to prevent, treat and eventually cure all cancers. Tseng, who works in the lab of Irving Weissman, MD, the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor, will be focusing on characterizing the role of anti-CD47 therapy on antigen presentation in solid tumors.
John Burg, PhD
Burg, a postdoctoral scholar in molecular and cellular physiology, is a recipient of grants from the Cancer Research Institute to further his research in cancer immunology. The CRI funds global research efforts to develop immunotherapies to prevent, treat and eventually cure all cancers. Burg, who is being sponsored by Christopher Garcia, PhD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of structural biology, will be working on structural studies of the calcium release activated calcium.
Susan Hintz, MD, MS Epi
Hintz has been promoted to professor of pediatrics as of June 1. Her work focuses on understanding and improving short-term morbidities and neurodevelopmental outcomes of extremely premature and high-risk infants. Hintz is Stanford's principal investigator for neurodevelopmental follow-up as part of the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. She is also a leader in the California Children's Services/CPQCC High-Risk Infant Follow-Up Quality-of-Care Initiative, and serves as medical director of the Center for Fetal and Maternal Health at Packard Children's.
Robert Harrington, MD
Harrington has been appointed professor of medicine as of July 1. An interventional cardiologist and experienced clinical investigator in the area of heart disease, he joins Stanford as the new chair of the Department of Medicine. He came from Duke, where he served as director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
James Kahn, MD
Kahn has been appointed professor of medicine as of July 1. He serves as chief of medical services at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and vice chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford. Much of his work has focused on HIV/AIDS including antiretroviral therapy. His most recent research involves capitalizing on the data stored in electronic medical records for outcomes-based research, HIV disease modeling and developing a mentorship program for early career scientists.
Holbrook Kohrt, MD, PhD
Kohrt has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of Aug. 1. He is interested in immune cell allotransplantation and augmenting antibody therapy for curing cancer.
Sam Lolak, MD
Lolak has been selected as Rathmann Family Foundation Educators-4-CARE Medical Education Fellow in Patient-Centered Care for 2012-13. The program provides the part-time salary support for a Stanford faculty, fellow or chief resident to pursue further study and activities focused on promoting patient-centered care in medical education. Lolak, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate director of the psychosomatic medicine fellowship program, is interested in mindfulness practices and compassion cultivation in medical education, brief bedside psychotherapy for the medically ill and curriculum development in psychosomatic medicine.
Tracy Rydel, MD
Rydel has been selected as Rathmann Family Foundation Educators-4-CARE Medical Education Fellow in Patient-Centered Care for 2012-13. The program provides the part-time salary support for a Stanford faculty, fellow or chief resident to pursue further study and activities focused on promoting patient-centered care in medical education. Rydel, clinical assistant professor and co-director of the core clerkship in family medicine, is interested in a holistic approach to primary care with particular attention to nutrition, behavioral change and the mind-body connection in somatic disease, as well as fostering patient-centered communication in the clinical setting.
Jose Montoya, MD
Montoya has been promoted to professor of medicine as of Aug. 1. His work focuses on infections of immunocompromised hosts, laboratory diagnosis of toxoplasmosis and infectious triggers of chronic unexplained illnesses. Montoya also directs the National Reference Laboratory for the Study and Diagnosis of Toxoplasmosis.
Stephen Skirboll, MD
Skirboll has been promoted to associate professor of neurosurgery as of June 1. He is also chief of neurosurgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, and his primary clinical interest is in brain tumors. His research focuses on the characterization of cancer stem cells in human brain tumors, and he is working to develop a novel technique to identify cancer stem cell phenotypes in glioblastoma multiforme.
Christopher Ta, MD
Ta has been promoted to professor of ophthalmology as of Aug. 1. His research and clinical interests include cornea transplantation, the prevention and treatment of ocular infectious diseases, device development for dry eyes and ocular graft-versus-host disease.
C. Jason Wang, MD, PhD
Wang has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of July 1. His research focuses on using mobile consumer technologies to motivate patients to do a better job of following medical advice, and to enhance provider-patient communications and care coordination. He is the recipient of a 2011 NIH Director's New Innovator Award.
July 2012
Alexander Butwick, MBBS, FRCA, MS
Butwick has been appointed assistant professor of anesthesia as of May 1. His research in obstetric anesthesia focuses on investigating dynamic hematologic and hemostatic changes that occur in women during the peripartum and postpartum periods, as well as clinical and analytic strategies for better preventing and managing postpartum hemorrhage.
Garret Anderson, PhD
Anderson, postdoctoral scholar in neuroscience, has been awarded an Autism Speaks Postdoctoral Fellowship in Translational Research. Anderson received $108,700 to study the role of the CNTNAP2 gene in neuronal development and synaptic transmission. Autism Speaks funds autism research, increases awareness of autism and advocates for the needs of individuals with autism.
Dean Carson, PhD
Carson, postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been awarded an Autism Speaks Postdoctoral Fellowship in Translational Research. Carson received $104,200 to conduct a randomized, controlled trial of oxytocin treatment for social deficits in children. Autism Speaks funds autism research, increases awareness of autism and advocates for the needs of individuals with autism.
Daniel Chang, MD
Chang has been promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology as of June 1. He is interested in developing stereotactic body radiotherapy for tumors of the liver, both primary and metastatic, and in developing functional imaging as a means of determining treatment response with radiation. Other interests include developing image-guided radiotherapy to improve radiation delivery for GI cancers.
Nayer Khazeni, MD, MS
Khazeni has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of June 1. Her research interests include international health policy, pulmonary infectious diseases and strategic planning for global health catastrophes, with a focus on international pandemic influenza mitigation strategies.
Cesar Lopez Angel
Lopez Angel, a medical student and PhD candidate in immunology, has received a 2012 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Fellows receive tuition and living expenses of up to $90,000 over two academic years for study at a U.S. university. The fellowships were established for the children of immigrants and are awarded for creativity, originality, initiative and sustained accomplishment. Lopez Angel is studying the influence of age on T-cell function in the lab of Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and has worked with Stanford's free clinic.
Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD
Parvizi has been promoted to associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences as of June 1. As principal investigator in the Laboratory of Behavioral & Cognitive Neurology, he conducts research on the human brain using direct recordings from the cerebral cortex in patients implanted with intracranial electrodes, seeking to understand the anatomical and physiological basis for cognition in the human brain and how this might be broken during epileptic seizures.
Lee Sanders, MD
Sanders has been appointed associate professor of pediatrics as of June 1. His research focuses on the field of health literacy. Using social cognitive theory, he conducts interdisciplinary research to understand child and parent health literacy as potentially modifiable determinants of child health disparities, especially in kids with chronic illness and special health-care needs.
Alexander Ungewickell, MD, PhD
Ungewickell, a postdoctoral scholar, received the 2012 American Society of Hematology Research Training Award for Fellows, a $50,000 grant that encourages junior researchers to pursue careers in academic hematology by supporting their research during their fellowship training. He studies the role of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathway in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
June 2012
Jason T. Lee, MD
Lee, associate professor of surgery and program director in vascular surgery, was lead author of a study titled, “Simulation-based endovascular training improves resident performance in the OR: Results of a randomized prospective trial,” that was chosen as one of the top 10 abstracts of the June 8 annual meeting of the Society for Vascular Surgery in Washington, D.C. Co-authors included David Gaba, MD, professor of anesthesiology; Thomas Krummel, MD, professor of surgery; Ronald Dalman MD, professor of surgery; and Amy Peruzzaro, vascular research coordinator.
Fernando Mendoza, MD
Mendoza has received the 2012 Stanford President’s Award for Excellence through Diversity. The award is given to one individual and one group at the university each year. Mendoza, chief of general pediatrics at Packard Children’s and a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, was honored for creating a range of programs supporting diversity in medicine, including what is now the Leadership in Health Disparities Program, as well as the Center of Excellence in Diversity in Medical Education. Mendoza was also commended for his role as a mentor to physicians in training, and for his compassion, caring and dedication to public service.
Mark Pegram, MD
Pegram has been appointed professor of medicine as of May 1. He is head of the Breast Oncology Program and co-leader of the Molecular Therapeutics Program. Pegram’s research efforts include a continued focus on the oncogene that encodes HER-2, and developing new ways to target cancer cells expressing this marker. He is also pursuing various strategies for targeting estrogen receptors, implicated in some 70 percent of all breast cancer cases.
Richard Popp, MD
Popp, professor emeritus of cardiovascular medicine, is one of four recipients of the 2012 Rambam Award from Technion University’s Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. Popp was recognized for his pioneering technique of applying ultrasound technology to detect heart diseases as well as for his commitment to medical education and training in Israel. The award is the Rambam Health Care Campus’s highest honor.
Eila Skinner, MD
Skinner has been appointed professor of urology as of May 1. Her primary research interests are in the area of cancer prevention, bladder cancer and urinary tract reconstruction. She is the chair of the Department of Urology.
Edda Spiekerkoetter, MD
Spiekerkoetter has been appointed assistant professor of medicine as of June 1. She is working to develop an assay for screening FDA-approved drugs and small molecules for their potential to induce type-2 bone morphogenetic protein receptor signaling in cells. She is also studying microRNA expression in pulmonary hypertension and the potential of microRNAs to regulate BMPR2 expression.
Robert Tibshirani, PhD
Tibshirani, professor of health research and policy and of statistics, won the 2012 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada. This award recognizes a Canadian statistician who has made outstanding research contributions to statistical sciences. Tibshirani’s award citation notes his pioneering work in the development and implementation of statistical methodology in many important and evolving fields such as the bootstrap, generalized additive models, statistical learning, high-dimensional data analysis, multiple hypothesis testing and significance analysis of microarrays.
John Day, MD, PhD
Day has been appointed professor of neurology as of April 1. His research involves identifying the genetic cause of several neuromuscular disorders and working with patients to define these disorders more rigorously and to understand them more thoroughly, so that novel treatments can be developed.
Gabriel Garcia, MD
Garcia, professor of gastroenterology and hepatology, was named one of five finalists for the 2012 Campus Compact Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award. Founded in 1985 by the presidents of Brown, Georgetown and Stanford universities, Campus Compact is a national coalition of college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education. The award is named in honor of Thomas Ehrlich, former chair of the Campus Compact board of directors.
Suzana Kahn, PhD
Kahn, a postdoctoral scholar, was one of 10 researchers named 2012 Pew Latin American Fellows in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The fellowship, established in 1991, provides $30,000 salary support in each of two years for postdoctoral-level, Latin American scientists to work in top laboratories in the United States. Upon completion of the U.S.-based research, fellows returning to Latin America to establish labs in their home countries receive an additional $35,000 in funding. Kahn, from Brazil, studies cancer cell biology in the lab of Irving Weissman, PhD, director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Her work attempts to isolate and characterize cells that initiate cancer in the brain.
Nicholas Leeper, MD
Leeper has been appointed assistant professor of surgery as of April 1. His research interests include the investigation of the genetics of abdominal aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis, and translational studies of vascular regeneration therapies for patients with peripheral vascular disease.
John Ratliff, MD
Ratliff has been appointed associate professor of neurosurgery as of April 1. His research interests focus on preventing complications in spine surgery, assessing patient outcomes after spine surgery procedures and developing population-based metrics for assessing surgical outcomes. Trained in complex spinal reconstructive surgery, he is working to develop a clinical tool to assess the risk of complications in spine surgery procedures that could be used in patient counseling.
Phillip Yang, MD
Yang has been promoted to associate professor of medicine as of April 1. His research focuses on developing innovative in vivo cellular and molecular MRI of stem cell biology to understand the mechanism of cell therapy in restoring the injured myocardium. By combining the chemical sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance with high spatial and temporal resolution, a wide range of regenerative processes spanning from molecular to physiologic processes is visualized.
May 2012
Stephan Busque, MD
Busque has been promoted to professor of surgery as of April 1. His research interest centers on the improvement of clinical immunosuppression in kidney transplant patients, with the goal of achieving freedom from drugs now required to prevent rejection of donated organs. He also evaluates new immunosuppressive drugs and participates in trial design and data analysis of the drug development process from phase-1 to phase-3 studies.
Kiki Chang, MD
Chang has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of April 1. As director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorders Program, he conducts research into various facets of bipolar disorder. He is currently conducting phenomenologic, biologic, pharmacologic and genetic studies of the disorder in adults and children, and is particularly interested in detecting prodromal bipolar disorder in children who might then be treated to prevent the development of the full-blown form of the disease. He is the co-director of the Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic and the director of research initiatives for the Division of Child Psychiatry.
Lynne Huffman, MD
Huffman has been appointed associate professor (teaching) of pediatrics as of May 1. Her research interests and activities include the early identification and treatment of behavioral problems, particularly in children at increased risk for developmental disorders, and the use of evidence-based practices in behavioral health care.
Jason Lee, MD
Lee has been promoted to associate professor of surgery as of April 1. His clinical and research interests include endovascular treatment of aortic aneurysms, carotid angioplasty/stenting, endovascular lower extremity procedures, thoracic outlet syndrome, vascular disorders in high-performance athletes and surgical education.
Hillary Lin
Lin, a medical student, has been selected as one of the 2012-13 Bay Area Schweitzer Fellows. This year’s 15 local graduate-student fellows join approximately 230 from across the country in carrying out service projects that address the social determinants of health in underserved communities. For her project, Lin will assist in developing and implementing a new electronic medical record program to help patients at the medical school’s Pacific Free Clinic in San Jose keep track of upcoming appointments, prescriptions, tests and other medical services. The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship is a national nonprofit organization with offices located in Boston and hosted by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Philippe Mourrain, PhD
Mourrain has been appointed associate professor (research) of psychiatry and behavioral sciences as of May 1. His research focuses on neurobiology and genetics of sleep and associated behaviors. He uses zebrafish as a model to investigate the functions of sleep and the neural circuits underpinning its regulation.
Jeffrey Norton, MD
Norton, the Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery, received the 2012 Flance-Karl Award at the American Surgical Association’s annual meeting. The award recognizes a surgeon who has made a seminal contribution in basic laboratory research that has application to clinical surgery. The awards committee cited Norton’s work in advancing the understanding of tumor and cytokine interactions and in the immunotherapy of cancer, and noted that his translational studies have fundamentally altered the surgical therapy of a number of malignancies. The Flance-Karl Award was established in 1996 by Samuel Wells Jr., MD, who was then the ASA’s president.
Xinnan Wang, PhD
Wang has been appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery as of May 1. Her research studies the regulatory mechanisms controlling mitochondrial dynamics and function in cells, and the ways even subtle disturbances of these processes may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders.
Katrin Chua, MD, PhD
Chua has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective May 1. Her research interests include understanding molecular processes that underlie aging and age-associated pathologies in mammals.
Jorina Elbers, MD
Elbers has been appointed assistant professor of neurology, as of March 1. Her research interests include inflammatory vasculopathies and neuroimaging techniques for the study of stroke and inflammation. She is a member of Packard Children’s neurology team.
Neil Gesundheit, MD, MPH
Gesundheit has been promoted to professor (teaching) of medicine, effective July 1. An endocrinologist and the school’s associate dean for medical student advising, Gesundheit helped design the current Stanford medical school curriculum. His research interests include developing and validating the best educational practices to train competent and compassionate physicians and physician-scientists.
Sabine Girod, MD, DDS, PhD
Girod, associate professor of surgery, has been selected as a fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women at the Drexel University College of Medicine. The program prepares senior women faculty for leadership positions at academic health centers. Girod serves as chief of Stanford’s oral medicine and maxillofacial surgery service.
Karla Kirkegaard, PhD
Kirkegaard, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, has been elected fellow at the American Academy for Microbiology. She is among 80 microbiologists chosen as fellows through a peer-review process, based on her achievement and original contributions to the field.
Peter Sarnow, PhD
Sarnow, professor of microbiology and immunology, has been elected fellow at the American Academy for Microbiology. He is among 80 microbiologists chosen as fellows through a peer-review process, based on his achievement and original contributions to the field.
Maxence Nachury, PhD
Nachury, assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology, was awarded one of the Human Frontier Science Program’s eight 2012 Young Investigators research grants. The award provides $250,000 annually for the next three years for a project involving Nachury’s lab in collaboration with physicist Manuel Thery, PhD, of Grenoble, France. The researchers will probe how a cellular component, the microtubule, opens the cellular lattice to provide access to its interior. The grants are given to international teams of scientists who are all within five years of obtaining their first independent positions, and strong preference is given to intercontinental collaborations taking on risky projects relating to complex biological systems.
Edward Plowey, MD, PhD
Plowey has been promoted to assistant professor of pathology, as of March 1. His research focuses on novel roles for neuronal autophagy in synaptic development and dysfunction.
Biomedical informatics students
Hua Fan-Minogue, Katie Planey, Ken Jung, Tomer Altman and Jon Palma, all graduate students in the Biomedical Informatics Training program, won the Innovate 4 Healthcare Challenge, awarded by the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, for their project NeoStream. The team’s winning entry developed an online platform to improve outcomes for sick babies by better engaging parents in their care. The collegiate competition seeks to improve health care through new processes enabled by information technology applications and supported by a sustainable market strategy. NeoStream was chosen from among 26 entries and received the $20,000 first prize.
April 2012
Helen Bronte-Stewart, MD, MSE
Bronte-Stewart has been promoted to professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of April 1. Her research investigates the mechanisms of abnormal axial, limb and fine-motor control in people with movement disorders, and the role of neuronal oscillations in abnormal movement among patients undergoing deep brain stimulation. She serves as director of the Stanford Movement Disorders Center, co-director of the Stanford Balance Center and chief of the movement disorders division.
James Brooks, MD
Brooks has been promoted to professor of urology, as of April 1. His research interests encompass developing diagnostic and prognostic markers for urological diseases, including the use of genomic approaches to discover biomarkers. His laboratory focuses on prostate and kidney cancer research as well as kidney obstruction.
Yoon-Jae Cho, MD
Cho has been appointed assistant professor of neurology, as of March 1. He was recently recruited from Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School, and his laboratory studies medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children.
Manisha Desai, PhD
Desai has been appointed associate professor (research) of medicine, as of March 1. She is interested in applying biostatistical methods to all areas of medicine, and is involved in studies of HIV, breast cancer, obesity, women’s health and chronic fatigue syndrome. She works on methods for analyzing studies with correlated data and with missing observations. Desai is the director of the quantitative sciences unit in the Department of Medicine.
Grant Miller, PhD
Miller has been promoted to associate professor of medicine, as of April 1. His primary interests are health economics, development economics and economic demography. His research includes two major arms: one investigates the principal determinants of population health improvement around the world, and the other analyzes fundamental behavioral obstacles to further health gains using field experiments.
Stephen Ruoss, MD
Ruoss has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of March 1. His work focuses on both the basic and clinical aspects of non-tuberculous mycobacterial lung infections, as well as on clinical care and therapy research for women with lymphangioleiomyomatosis.
Kathleen Sakamoto, MD, PhD
Sakamoto has been appointed professor of pediatrics, as of March 1. She conducts research on the molecular regulation and development of blood cells. Her research focus is to understand how aberrancies in blood formation result in diseases, including leukemia, bone marrow failure and myeloproliferative disease. Sakamoto is also the director of the Bass Center for Cancer and Childhood Blood Diseases at Packard Children’s Hospital.
Christina Smolke, PhD
Smolke has been promoted to associate professor of bioengineering, as of June 1. Her research focuses on the design and application of new molecular tools for performing information processing, computation and control functions in living systems. These technologies are leading to transformative advances in how we interact with and program biology, and are being applied to address key challenges in cellular therapeutics and green biosynthesis strategies.
Glyn Williams, MD
Williams has been promoted to professor of anesthesia, as of March 1. His research interests pertain to pediatric cardiac anesthesia and include the perioperative management of children with conditions such as pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathy, coagulation disorders and low birth weight.
Steven Artandi, MD, PhD
Artandi has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Feb. 1. His research involves unraveling the molecular and cellular mechanisms with which telomeres and telomerase modulate stem cell function and carcinogenesis. Telomeres are the nucleotide repeats that cap and protect the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Without the telomerase protein, telomeres gradually shorten with each cell division.
Robert Jackler, MD
Jackler, the Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor in Otorhinolaryngology, was recently inducted as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England at a ceremony in London. During his visit, he gave a graduation oration to the school’s diplomates who had recently completed their surgical training.
Jennifer Johns, DVM, PhD
Johns has been appointed assistant professor of comparative medicine, as of Feb. 1. She studies hematologic changes in infectious diseases, and is investigating altered production and trafficking of immune cells during granulocytic anaplasmosis due to infection with the tick-borne pathogen A. phagocytophilum. She is a veterinary clinical pathologist and supervisor of the diagnostic laboratory in the Veterinary Service Center at Stanford.
Erica Machlin
The researchers won the 2011 Cozarelli Prize in biomedical science, awarded by the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for their paper, “Masking the 5’ terminal nucleotides of the hepatitis C virus genome by an unconventional microRNA-target RNA complex.” Machlin, is a graduate student in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. This paper and five other winners, each in one of the different disciplines that comprise the journal’s coverage, were chosen for their excellence and originality from more than 3,500 research articles that appeared in PNAS in 2011.
Peter Sarnow, PhD
The researchers won the 2011 Cozarelli Prize in biomedical science, awarded by the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for their paper, “Masking the 5’ terminal nucleotides of the hepatitis C virus genome by an unconventional microRNA-target RNA complex.” Sarnow, is a professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. This paper and five other winners, each in one of the different disciplines that comprise the journal’s coverage, were chosen for their excellence and originality from more than 3,500 research articles that appeared in PNAS in 2011.
Selena Sagan, PhD
The researchers won the 2011 Cozarelli Prize in biomedical science, awarded by the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for their paper, “Masking the 5’ terminal nucleotides of the hepatitis C virus genome by an unconventional microRNA-target RNA complex.” Sagan, is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. This paper and five other winners, each in one of the different disciplines that comprise the journal’s coverage, were chosen for their excellence and originality from more than 3,500 research articles that appeared in PNAS in 2011.
John Morton, MD, MPH
Morton, director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and associate professor of surgery, is one of three practicing physicians selected to receive a Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award for Clinical Excellence. Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. is a health-care research firm that publishes America’s Top Doctors, among similar titles. The award will be presented to Morton on March 26 in New York City.
Nihar Nayak, DVM, PhD
Nayak, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is one of seven scientists whose work will be supported by the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Initiative grants. The 2012 grants of almost $3 million bring the 8-year-old program’s total to more than $22 million. Nayak will investigate how the interaction of two genes in the placenta may contribute to pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy-related form of high blood pressure that contributes to about 15 percent of premature births. Pre-eclampsia can be fatal and the only effective treatment is early delivery.
February 2012
Anne Lynn Chang, MD
Chang has been appointed assistant professor of dermatology, as of Feb. 1. Her current studies focus on the genetics of healthy skin aging and on novel therapeutics for non-melanoma skin cancers. She also serves as director of the adult dermatological clinical trials.
Christopher Contag, PhD
Contag has been promoted to professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, as of Feb. 1. His lab develops and uses molecular imaging tools to understand oncogenesis, reveal patterns of cell migration in immunosurveillance, monitor gene expression, visualize stem cell biology and assess the distribution of pathogens in living animal models of human biology and disease. He serves as co-director of Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford; director of the Stanford Center for Photomedicine and the Stanford Center for Innovation in In Vivo Imaging; and associate chief of the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine.
Edward Damrose, MD
Damrose has been promoted to associate professor of otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), as of Feb. 1. His lab is primarily interested in laryngeal physiology and function, with a particular interest in the application of advanced imaging techniques in studying vocal fold physiology. Damrose is interested in developing a method of high-speed digital image analysis of normal and abnormal vocal fold vibration in a variety of states, including neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and spasmodic dysphonia.
Garry Gold, MD
Gold has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Feb. 1. His primary focus is in the application of new magnetic resonance imaging technology to musculoskeletal problems. Gold is currently studying the application of new MRI techniques such as rapid imaging, real-time imaging and short echo time imaging to learn more about the biomechanics and pathology of bones and joints.
Edward Graves, PhD
Graves has been promoted to associate professor of radiation oncology, as of Feb. 1. His research is focused on applications of emerging functional and molecular-imaging techniques in radiation therapy for cancer.
Gordon Li, MD
Li has been appointed assistant professor of neurosurgery, as of Feb. 1. His clinical practice will focus on patients with primary brain tumors. His lab studies the biology of brain tumors with the goal of developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of malignant tumors and translating that research into clinical trials.
Kim Butts Pauly, PhD
Pauly has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Feb. 1. Her research interests lie in the area of magnetic resonance and MR-guided, high-intensity, focused ultrasound for minimally invasive cancer therapy and neuromodulation. She also serves as director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging at Stanford.
Aaron Straight, PhD
Straight has been promoted to associate professor of biochemistry, as of Feb. 1. His research is focused on understanding how chromosomes are faithfully transmitted during cell division. Straight’s lab studies the structure and biology of chromosomes and the mechanisms of chromosome segregation during mitosis.
Nancy Fischbein, MD
Fischbein has been promoted to professor of radiology, as of Dec. 1. Her research interests include the imaging of head and neck cancer and diseases of the skull base, as well as the application of advanced imaging modalities for the diagnosis and evaluation of ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage and diseases of the spinal cord. Fischbein is chief of head and neck radiology and also serves as senior editor for head and neck for the American Journal of Neuroradiology.
Douglas Owens, MD
Owens, associate director of the Center for Health Care Evaluation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, has been appointed to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. The task force is an independent, volunteer panel of 16 experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that makes recommendations about preventive services for primary care clinicians and patients. As a member of the USPSTF, Owens will evaluate the benefits and harms of preventive services for specific groups of people. Owens is also director of the Center for Health Policy in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.
Barbara Sourkes, PhD
Sourkes has been promoted to professor of pediatrics, as of Dec 1. Her area of interest is pediatric palliative care. Sourkes established and developed the palliative care program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and has served as the first Elizabeth A. Haehl and John A. Kriewall Director of Palliative Care at LPCH since 2001. She has published several books on psychological aspects of life-threatening illness and bereavement, and co-edited the recently published Textbook of Interdisciplinary Pediatric Palliative Care.
James Spudich, PhD
Spudich, the Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular Disease, has won the 11th annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Science. The prize, established by the Wiley Foundation in 2001, recognizes breakthrough research in pure or applied life science that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. Spudich shares the award with Columbia professor Michael Sheetz, PhD, and UCSF professor Ronald Vale, PhD, for their work on the mechanisms of cell transformation. Understanding motor functions in cells is integral to understanding and treating deficiencies which lead to disease. The award will be presented at a ceremony in New York City in April.
Abraham Verghese, MD
Verghese, professor of medicine and senior associate chair for the theory and practice of medicine, reached on Feb. 5 the two-year mark —104 weeks — for his novel, Cutting for Stone, being on the New York Times best-seller list. The listing describes it as the story of “twin brothers, conjoined and then separated, growing up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia.” Most of its main characters are involved in the practice of medicine at two hospitals, one in Addis Ababa, the other in the Bronx.
Bertha Chen, MD
Chen has been promoted to professor of obstetrics and gynecology, as of Dec. 1. Her area of research is in abnormalities in connective tissue metabolism in women with pelvic-floor disorders. Chen, who also serves as co-director of urogynecology and pelvic reconstructive surgery, is interested in evaluating and treating female urinary conditions, pelvic organ prolapse, vaginal abnormalities and sexual dysfunction related to pelvic-floor disorders.
Louis Halamek, MD
Halamek has been promoted to professor of pediatrics, as of Dec. 1. He serves as director of the Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education, which he founded in 2002. His primary focus is using simulation-based learning methods to improve the performance of health-care professionals and systems and to enhance patient safety. He also directs the neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship program.
Safwan Jaradeh, MD
Jaradeh has been appointed professor of neurology and neurological sciences, as of Dec. 1. His research focuses on autonomic disorders, small fiber neuropathies and developing methods of testing and treating these disorders. Jaradeh, who serves as director of the autonomic disorders program at Stanford, also has an interest in the neurology of phonation and swallowing disorders, as well as peripheral nerve injury and repair.
Kiran Khush, MD
Khush has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. She is interested in evaluating donors and recipients for heart transplantation; mechanisms of adverse outcomes after heart transplantation, including coronary allograft vasculopathy and antibody-mediated rejection; the treatment of acute decompensated heart failure; and the cardio-renal syndrome.
Jennifer Tremmel, MD
Tremmel has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. She studies sex differences in cardiovascular disease, and is investigating differences in coronary endothelialmicrovascular disease in women and men who have chest pain, but also have normal-appearing coronary arteries. She is an interventional cardiologist and clinical director of Women’s Heart Health at Stanford.
P.J. Utz, MD
The Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program was one of nine organizations to receive grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support clinical research experiences for high school students from underrepresented minority groups. SIMR will receive a three-year grant of up to $194,400 to provide as many as 10 students per year the opportunity to participate in mentored, clinical research activities. P.J. Utz, MD, associate professor of medicine, serves as director of SIMR.
Ben Barres, MD, PhD
Barres, professor of neurobiology, of developmental biology and of neurology and neurological sciences, is one of four recipients of the 2012 Memory and Cognitive Disorders Award presented by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. The award encourages collaboration between basic and clinical neuroscientists, with the ultimate goal of helping to translate laboratory discoveries into diagnoses and therapies for brain disorders. Barres’ project is titled, “Do astrocytes control synaptic turnover? A new model for what causes Alzheimer’s disease and how to prevent it.”
Ken Cox, MD
Cox, professor and associate chair of pediatrics and senior associate dean for clinical affairs/pediatrics and obstetrics, will receive the American Liver Foundation’s 2012 “Salute to Excellence” Award. The award, which honors those who have made an outstanding contribution to biotechnology and medical innovation, will be presented at ALF’s annual gala in March. Cox also serves as chief medical officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as well as chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition and medical director of the pediatric liver transplant program.
Stuart Goodman, MD, PhD
Goodman, the Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The AIMBE is a nonprofit organization representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2 percent of medical and biological engineers. Goodman’s research focuses on adult reconstructive surgery, arthritis surgery, joint replacement, biomaterials, biocompatibility, tissue engineering and mesenchymal stem cells.
December 2011
Matthew Anderson, MD, PhD
Anderson has been appointed assistant professor of pathology, as of Nov. 1. His research interests include the use of high-throughput sequencing technologies for clinical diagnostics and biomarker discovery, focused on transplantation and the molecular pathogenesis of lymphoma.
Catherine Blish, MD, PhD
Blish has been appointed assistant professor of medicine, as of Dec. 1. Her research aims to provide insights into the prevention and control of HIV by studying the interplay between the virus and the host immune response. She hopes to gain additional insights into the control of infectious diseases by studying how co-infections and human conditions, including pregnancy and aging, modulate immune responses.
Matias Bruzoni, MD
Bruzoni has been appointed assistant professor of surgery, as of Nov. 1. He is interested in minimal access surgery, education and biodesign. He also is medical director of Packard Children’s vascular access program and serves as site director of pediatric surgery rotation-general surgery residents.
Luis de Lecea, PhD
De Lecea has been promoted to professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Dec. 1. His lab uses molecular, optogenetic, anatomical and behavioral methods to identify and manipulate neuronal circuits underlying brain arousal, with particular attention to sleep and wakefulness transitions. He also studies changes that occur in neuronal circuits in conditions of hyperarousal, such as stress and drug addiction.
Elizabeth Kidd, MD
Kidd has been appointed assistant professor of radiation oncology, as of Nov. 1. She is interested in radiation oncology, gynecologic malignancies, breast cancer, thyroid cancer and brachytherapy.
Clete Kushida, MD, PhD
Kushida, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Stanford Center for Human Sleep Research, has been elected president of the World Sleep Federation for a four-year term. Established in 1987, the WSF aims to increase public awareness of the importance of sleep research and the impact of sleep disorders, and support international training in sleep medicine and research. Kushida is a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which is one of the charter members of the WSF.
Yasoda Natkunam, MD, PhD
Natkunam has been promoted to professor of pathology, as of Nov. 1. Her research interests focus on the identification and characterization of key markers for hematolymphoid neoplasia. Natkunam also serves as co-director of the immunodiagnosis lab, and associate chair for faculty development and diversity and hematopathology.
Oxana Palesh, PhD, MPH
Palesh has been appointed assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as of Nov. 1. Much of her research is in the area of cancer control, with a particular interest in the impact of cancer treatments on sleep, fatigue and quality of life.
Mary Teruel, PhD
Teruel has been appointed assistant professor of chemical and systems biology, as of Nov. 1. Her lab uses a combination of engineering and biological approaches to investigate how the insulin-PI3K signaling network regulates actions in fat cells such as glucose uptake, differentiation and fatty acid uptake and release. Teruel’s long-term goal is to understand when and where in the fat-cell-signaling network to apply therapeutic interventions to treat adipose-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Philip Tsao, PhD
Tsao has been promoted to professor (research) of medicine, as of Dec. 1. His primary interests are in the molecular underpinnings of vascular disease as well as assessing disease risk. He is particularly interested in the role of microRNAs in gene expression pathways associated with disease. He also serves on the executive committee of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute.
Andrew Zolopa, MD
Zolopa has been promoted to professor of medicine, as of Nov. 1. His patient-oriented research program focuses on optimizing antiretroviral therapies for HIV infection and the associated complications of AIDS. He is the principal investigator for Stanford’s AIDS clinical trial unit, and is the founding director of the Positive Care clinic. His research has recently extended into immunologic studies of aging among those with HIV. He is also developing a clinical research mentoring program in Rwanda.
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