Research IT organization changes
Research IT is now part of a bigger and unified Research Technology team led by Dr. Todd Ferris. Research IT is renamed to Research Technology Engineering Services. The REDCap team, previously part of Research IT, is now part of Research Technology Application Solutions. The Research Technology team also includes Data Services (fka Research Informatics Center). Stay tuned for a more comprehensive update.
The following page represents the members of Research Technology Engineering Services team.
Research Technology Engineering Services Teams
Our teams are named after gemstones. The teams are cross-functional with diverse expertise.
Coral Team
Priyamvada Desai, MS, is the technical lead of Coral team. Her team of data scientists and data engineers are responsible for STARR data integrity, quality, standardization, documentation and data science training.
Opal Team
David Love, MS, is the technical lead of the Opal team. The team supports other Research IT teams by streamlining business operations (e.g., invoicing), partner management (e.g., contracting), agile program and project management in collaboration with PMO.
Ruby Team
Susan Weber, PhD, is the technical lead of Ruby team. Her team has a broad range of software engineering and application development experience. The team builds and supports enterprise applications like STARR Tools (fka STRIDE), HRIF, and SEAL.
Team Members
Alphabetical order (Last Name)
Álvaro Álvarez
Coral Team
Álvaro A. Álvarez is a IT Business Analyst who is now training as a Data Engineer. Alvaro has extensive experience in data and database management, and research workflow analysis. Prior to joining Stanford, he was Resource Coordinator at Genentech and Data Manager at Caucaseco Scientific Research Center in Columbia.
Deepa Balraj, MS
Sapphire Team
Deepa Balraj, MS, is a Software Developer. She has extensive experience in software development, vendor management, project management, performance engineering, and application administration. Prior to joining Stanford, she was at IBM. Her interests outside work involves classical dance and traveling.
Srinivasan Boosi
Ruby Team
Srinivasan Boosi is a Technical Manager. He has extensive experience in software engineering and application development. Prior to joining our team, he was working with UIT/OOD developing J2EE based applications for alumni.stanford.edu site and data integration solutions for ADAPT system. He brings us over a decade of experience in dealing with multiple technology platforms and solutions to the real world problems.
Stephanie Byrne
PMO
Stephanie is from TDS PMO. She has extensive experience in customer and project management. Prior to joining our team, she was restuarant and HR manager at Limon in Walnut Creek. Prior to Limon, she was Executive Assistant and Office Manager at Steelwedge Software in Pleasanton. She is currently majoring in Business Management from University of Phoenix.
Jiawei (Jay) Chen
Sapphire Team
Jay joins TDS Research Technology as an Associate Software Developer building the next generation of our STARR data pipelines and tooling. Jay has extensive experience in data mining and windows application development. Prior to joining Stanford, he worked for Electric Power Group and PolarOnyx, creating and enhancing windows applications and support infrastructure. In his free time, he enjoys playing PC games, switch, and mobile games.
Hannah Morgan Cooper
Coral Team
Hannah joined earlier this month as a Biomedical Informatics Data Scientist on the Research Technology team. She has a background in Physics and worked in the semiconductor industry for a few years before transitioning to data science. In her last role she worked at a renewables-only energy company in the UK helping to predict energy demand. Hannah enjoys hiking, camping, running, reading, and cooking delicious meals for friends!
Somalee Datta, PhD
Director
Somalee Datta, PhD, is a Scientific Leader. Somalee has extensive experience in scientific product development. Somalee comes to Research IT from the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine where she pioneered technology platforms in the areas of Big Data and Genomics, including innovative cloud-based methods for genomic analysis. Prior to that she spent a dozen years working in Bay Area focused on next generation sequencing (Thermo Fisher), and drug development (Verseon). Somalee has a Ph.D. in Computational Physics from Boston University. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, gardening, and reading.
Priyamvada (Priya) Desai, MS
Coral Team
Priya Desai, MS, is a Scientific Manager. She has extensive experience in data science. Prior to this role, she was a Biomedical Scientist at Stanford Department of Genetics and Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Prior to a career in Data Science in biomedical area, she was an astrophycisist with Space Science Laboratory in UC Berkeley and Chandra Software Data Systems Group at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. She has a Masters in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
Natasha Flowers, MS
Natasha Flowers, MS, is a data scientist. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a data analyst at Acumen, LLC, where she was involved in the design and implementation of epidemiology studies using Medicare data with clients at the FDA. She has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Carleton College and a master’s degree in data science from UC Berkeley.
Darren Guo
Darren is a Senior Software Developer in Research IT. Darren has over five years of experience in commercial health care software development, both frontend and backend. Darren has a double bachelor’s degree in computer science and accounting. In his free time, Darren enjoys all things soccer: coaching, game photography and even getting friends together for a quick match.
Smita Limaye
Sapphire Team
Smita joins TDS Research Technology as a Senior Software Developer building the next generation of our STARR data pipelines and tooling. Smita most recently worked at Symantec (Broadcom) and brings extensive experience as a Java developer in scalable systems (on-prem and cloud). She enjoys listening to music and volunteering at Indian classical music events including concerts and workshops, and occasionally hosts artists. Before the pandemic, she had an opportunity to volunteer at the Tech Museum and looks forward to a repetition soon.
Eileen Loh, MS
Ruby Team
Eileen Loh, MS, is a Software Developer. She has extensive experience in software engineering and application development. Eileen began her software career at Sun Microsystems, optimizing performance of early versions of Java. She has over ten years of experience analyzing, optimizing and implementing application server and middleware code. Prior entering the software industry, Eileen worked as a scale-up/manufacturing engineer in the pharmaceutical industry and has a BS in Chemical Engineering.
David Love, MS
Opal Team
Dave Love, MS, is a Technical Leader. Dave has extensive experience in DevOps, and Operations. Dave comes to IRT after many years at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he played a variety of lnformation Technology leadership roles. Prior to joining Stanford in 2002, he worked at several Bay Area technology startup companies. He has a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley and a Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Sanjay Malunjkar
Ruby Team
Sanjay Malunjkar is a Technical Manager. He has extensive experience in software engineering and application development. He is a computer scientist and software professional who had developed applications in financial services, legal, pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications, marketing, and airline sectors using web services and J2EE before joining Research IT in 2006.
Glenna Mayo
Ruby Team
Glenna is a Software Developer. She has extensive experience in software engineering and application development. She brings experience in both software development and healthcare data processing from Bay Area firms ranging from stalwarts HP & Yahoo, to startups, to a proof of concept government grant for the Veterans Administration converting old data to JSON-LD FHIR. Glenna has a lifelong interest in clean design/well-tested software architecture and beautiful user interface that helps improve quality of life for people. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, gardening, photography, and culinary experiments.
Joe Mesterhazy
Sapphire Team
Joe Mesterhazy is a Technical Manager. He has extensive experience in higher education IT, clinical and research software development with subject matter expertise in medical imaging. He joins us from the UCSF Department of Radiology at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
Boris Panitch, MS
Boris Panitch, MS, is a Software Developer, experienced in software engineering and application development. Prior to joining Stanford, he worked for several Bay Area companies, creating and enhancing various finance, audit, tax, e-commerce, and support applications. Outside of work, he enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.
Garrick Olson
Emerald Team
Garrick is a Technical Leader. He is a proficient system architect with extensive experience in data security. After studying mathematics and computer science, he built software for banking and corporate finance before joining us in 2007. His research interests include application security, performance, and data visualization.
Teresa Pacht
Emerald Team
Teresa Pacht is a Software Developer. She has extensive experience in software engineering and application development. Prior to joining Research IT she was with Stanford University Libraries as a Systems Developer for their "Bench>Press" product, a web-based manuscript tracking and management services application. Teresa is a computer scientist and software professional with extensive system design and development experience across a wide range of applications including publishing, manufacturing, finance and supply chain management.
Joe Pallas, PhD
Ruby Team
Joe Pallas PhD., is a Software Developer. He has extensive experience in software engineering and distributed computing. He has a PhD from Stanford’s Computer Science department, and has returned to Stanford after working for a number of Silicon Valley companies large and small. His software interests include distributed systems, tools for data manipulation and analysis, and strategies for software quality and maintainability. Outside of work Joe practices the equestrian sport of dressage.
Sneha Ravi
Coral Team
Sneha Ravi, Ph.D., is a Data Scientist. Prior to joining our team, Sneha worked as Data Scientist at Uber, as well as an educator on the Numerade platform. Sneha has a Masters in Bioengineering from UPenn and a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Duke University.
Jonasel Roque
Ruby Team
Jonasel Roque is a Software Developer. Prior to this role, he served the School of Medicine as a clinical research coordinator in the Emergency Department and Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, primarily running clinical trials and biobanks related to sepsis, Acute respiratory Distress Syndrome, and COVID-19.
Tina Seto, MS
Coral Team
Tina Seto is a Software Developer. She specializes in data engineering and has deep domain expertise in EHR data. She has a MS in Computer Science from Stanford and previously worked at Oracle and a startup before joining Research IT in 2009.
Nivedita Shenoy, MBA
PMO
Nivi is an IT Business Analyst from TDS PMO. She has a Bachelors in Commerce, from Delhi University, India and MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, India.
Tyler Tollefson
Sapphire Team
Tyler Tollefson is a Software Developer. Tyler’s strengths include testing, automation, and optimization of data extracts and is proficient in C# and Java. Tyler is a graduate of Northern Arizona University, with major and minor degrees in Computer Science and Math.
Susan C. Weber, PhD
Ruby Team
Susan C. Weber, PhD, is a Technical Leader. She is proficient in software engineering, and application development. She has a PhD in Computer Science and 20 years' experience as a professional software developer. She has been with the team since 2003.
