Celebrating 25 Years of Service

Julie Anderson

Department: Medicine/Stanford Prevention Research Center

Julie has been a key member of Stanford’s “HIP” Health Improvement program since 1992. Her contributions have impacted the health and well-being of close to a quarter of a million individuals. She has developed and ensured the success of HIP’s mission which is to support, educate, and make healthy living resources available to faculty, staff and retirees.

HIP was one of the very first employer-sponsored programs in the United Sates, and its messaging and presence helped to fuel a nationwide interest in partnering the workplace with employee health initiatives. One of Julie’s proudest achievements is being associate director of the Living Strong Living Well (LSLW) Program, founded and directed by Joyce Hanna. This community program helps persons with cancer to recover and regain strength and improve functional ability; LSLW continues to have a transformative impact on the quality of life of cancer patients.

Additionally, Julie has been actively involved with the Sierra Camp for the annual alumni Women’s Healthy Living Retreat for 24 years. She has also worked in conjunction with the Milpitas Police Dept for 21 years. Furthermore, she has contributed to developing curricula and learning tools as the intellectual property of Stanford University.

More than anything, however, it is Julie’s personal qualities of integrity, compassion, loyalty, and dependability that distinguish her as a remarkable member of the HIP team. She has built positive relationships and established a deep rapport with her professional associates, many of whom she has worked with for over 15 years. As a life-time ambassador of Wellness, the scope of Julie’s impact for the greater good will have a lasting impact for the next generation as well.

Klara Fekete

Department: Pathology

Klara has supported the work of my lab for the past 20 years. She has been unfailingly conscientious, hardworking, and a solid team player. From mundane tasks to sophisticated procedures, she approaches all of her work with appropriate care and attention to detail. She has continually sought to learn new things and expand her capabilities. Through all of this, she has played a critical role in most of the successes we have enjoyed over the years. Importantly, Klara does all of this with constant good cheer.

Beyond her strictly scientific contributions, Klara has been an invaluable contributor to the positive social atmosphere that is so important to maintaining a thriving and happy lab. She is a friend to all, she notices and lends a caring ear and supporting hand when needed, and on occasion treats us to some baked goodies to “sweeten” the day. In every way, the lab has been a more successful and happier place to work because of her efforts. Thank you, Klara!

Ann Hamon

Department: Cancer Clinical Trials Office

Ann has Southern roots, but after visiting California in 1959, she decided to make the Bay Area her home. After five years here, she travelled to Australia where she lived for over 20 years.  She returned to California in 1987 and joined Stanford in 1992 as a receptionist at the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention (now SPRC). In November of 2005, Ann moved to the Cancer Clinical Trials Office where she became part of our Finance Team. She has provided support to our growing CCTO organization. She is recognized for her dedication, helpfulness, kindness, and attention to detail. Ann loves the farmer’s market, and as a gourmet cook, prepares for us wonderful dishes that the entire team enjoys sampling at our department potlucks and social events.

Outside of work, Ann enjoys spending time with her family, especially her fourteen year old granddaughter who, like Ann, is a world traveler, with trips to Australia, China, and in July, South Africa.

The CCTO staff and leadership joins me in honoring Ann’s twenty five years of contributions to the Stanford School of Medicine.

Kyla Kent

Department: Pediatrics

Kyla continues to do a truly remarkable job of leading a complex and evolving state-of-the-art Center with new equipment that has not been used in children in the past. Her technical skills, expertise and initiative are unparalleled and have been critical to the success of our goal of establishing the international standards of for HR-pQCT in children. She is responsive, patient and flexible with complex patients, and has served as an important mentor for the center technician. She is a leader, scientist and generous citizen in our community and beyond. Our research program simply could not run without her.

Keshni Kumar

Department: Radiology

Keshni Kumar began her career at Palo Alto Medical Foundation in 1991 as a Radiologic Technologist. Briefly thereafter, she began working at Stanford Medical Center where she became a lead technologist and eventually learned to perform Computed Tomography (CT). After 11 years at Stanford Medical Center, Keshni took on a new challenge of working for Stanford School of Medicine, Department of Radiology 3D Laboratory, as a 3D imaging technologist. Keshni was among one of the first 3D imaging technologists in the country, the technology for providing this advanced visualization was derived in 1996.

Keshni still works for 3D Laboratory, which is now 3D and Quantitative Imaging Laboratory (3DQ Lab). During her 15 years of 3D imaging work, Keshni has become adept at navigating many nuances of medical image processing and clinical needs. Beyond this, Keshni has led multiple projects which brought new methods or combinations of image processing to 3DQ Lab. She has accepted these challenges and handles the uncertainty and technical difficulties with exceptional optimism.

Keshni’s most recent accomplishments include taking a lead role in performing and optimizing tumor response assessment reports for oncologists at Stanford. Extending on this role, Keshni has been working diligently with Radiologists to deploy a program that will help neuro-oncologists identify and track the changes in brain tumor changes. Keshni’s breadth of knowledge and unshakeable positive outlook help bring solutions into 3DQ Lab that impact patient care in many ways.

Cheryl Langford

Department: Hematology/Oncology

Cheryl is a consummate professional who personifies excellence in action and is a model for others in her role as a data manager. In her current role in Hematology/Oncology, she quickly recognizes and shares data trends, provides additional oversight in financial operations and prepares/supports regulatory audits that often lead to excellent/outstanding reviews.

Her diligence, exacting attention to detail, and calm demeanor inspire confidence in members of our clinical research team. She is critical thinker and problem solver; in Cheryl, we have an utterly reliable colleague who has demonstrated 25 years of loyalty to Stanford’s mission of translating clinical research to patient benefit.

Vanita Natu

Department: Stanford Functional Genomics Facility

Rosalie Nolley

Department: Urology

The contributions of Rosalie (Rosie) Nolley to the mission of the Department of Urology have been exceptional. Under the tutelage of Dr. John McNeal, she became a prostate histologist extraordinaire, and greatly contributed to the prostate cancer biomarker studies of Dr. McNeal and Dr. Tom Stamey. Working with Drs. Jim Brooks and Donna Peehl, she has used her knowledge of prostate cancer and, more recently, kidney cancer, to acquire tissues for the establishment of patient-derived models for preclinical studies. Rosie never shies away from learning new techniques, and the list of technologies that she has mastered is long. Most importantly, she takes great pride in a job well done, and can always be counted on to go beyond what is required. Her “institutional memory” is vast, and when there is a problem to be solved, she is the go-to person.

Borka Pavlovic

Department: Oncology

Borka Pavlovic has worked in the Division of Oncology for only nine years of her 25 years of service, but it feels like she has been by my side for decades. I honestly can't remember when she wasn't a part of our Oncology family. Borka became an integral member of our division immediately and is a valued work colleague. I trust her judgment completely and seek her counsel regularly. Borka's commitment to excellence is unwavering. Finally, on a personal note, Borka Pavlovic is a force of nature as anyone who knows her will agree.

Ranjani Rajapaksa

Department: Medicine

Ranjani Rajapaksa has been responsible for much of the success of the combined Levy Labs for the past 20+ years. With her many skills, her work ethic and her dedication to the group, she set an amazing example for others. Her current role is to develop the data on safety of a new monoclonal antibody therapeutic candidate. But this role has been added on to her responsibilities in management of our entire mouse colony including writing protocols, submitting them to the review committees, monitoring the breeding of special strains of animals and keeping an inventory. Ranjani performs immunoassays, flow cytometry and protein analysis. Ranjani has again and again shown her adaptability to the needs of the group, going way beyond the expected level of involvement. We are so lucky to have such a dedicated and skilled person, and we are thankful for her many years of service.

Rosalind Ravasio

Department: Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

Rosalind Ravasio came to Stanford in July, 1992 as Division Manager in the Stanford
Center for Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR), formerly Stanford Medical Informatics
(SMI). Over the last 25 years, she has been an agent for positive change in major medical
school units.

Within a few years of arriving at the BMIR, Rosalind implemented the SMI Affiliates Program. As the Director of the Program, Rosalind was responsible for marketing and fundraising. Within a short amount of time, program members included pharmaceutical and tech companies like Johnson & Johnson, Sun Microsystems and the Department of Defense. Benefits included access to SMI seminars, annual symposiums, and an industrial researcher visit. The program was a huge success and brought in significant unrestricted funding to SMI researchers.

In 2008, Rosalind was hired in to the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine as the Director of Finance and Administration. Rosalind stepped in to help the institute in its critical early years. She was a key manager in making a success of the Institute’s move from 1050 Arastradero to the new Lorry Lokey Stem Cell Research Building in September 2010. She is a much valued employee who continues to manage the financial structures that allow tens of faculty members, dozens of students and hundreds of employees to develop and utilize their talents to the fullest extent.

Diven Sharma

Department: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Diven has been a dedicated Stanford employee since 1992. He has taken on progressively higher level roles during his career. Diven has deep expertise in post-award research finance, having worked as a Financial Analyst in the Department of Neurology, a Research Accountant in the Office of Sponsored Research, an Accountant in the Genetics Department, and currently as a Research Administrator 3 (Finance Manager) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Diven works closely with his faculty to review and forecast their sponsored research, gift, endowment, and designated funds, and to ensure that we remain compliant with sponsor guidelines. Diven is a dedicated, reliable employee who is an excellent team player--always willing to mentor junior staff. Our department is lucky to have an employee like Diven.

Danyang Zhang

Department: Lane Library

For over 25 years, Danyang Zhang has provided computing and networking support to Lane staff and Lane Library users. Her contributions to Lane Library actually date back to the 1980s. She was initially hired in 1988 as a Recon Specialist, working with our Technical Services staff to barcode Lane Library’s extensive medical journal collection. In 1990, she went back to school to acquire her MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford. A couple years later, Danyang returned to Lane Library to work in the Acquisition Department. Meanwhile, she took courses in computer hardware, software and network technology. In 1997, she was hired as a Network and Workstation Support Specialist in the new Computing and Network Systems group in Lane.

Danyang has provided computing and networking support for hundreds of users over the years. She has been able to recover data and troubleshoot some of the most complex networking and computing issues. She manages printing services and works closely with Data Center Services and networking colleagues in IRT to stay abreast of all crucial upgrades to make sure library servers, as well as public computers, are up and running. She is the go to person in the library for any computer related issues, and she is always cheerful and eager to help.

Besides work, Danyang has many other interests. She is eager to learn new things and enjoys exercise classes that HIP offers. She has been biking to work for over 10 years. Last year, her artwork won “The Heart and Art of Your Commute” contest held by Stanford Parking and Transportation Services.

As computing technology becomes more complex and security more critical than ever before, Danyang keeps expanding her technology expertise by taking courses and collaborating with colleagues in IRT and ITSS.

Elizabeth Zuo

Department: Beckman Center

Elizabeth Zuo joined the Protein and Nucleic Acid (PAN) facility at the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine in March 1992, after completing her Master’s in chemistry at Georgia State University, Atlanta. Initially, her responsibilities included DNA Sequencing and Oligonucleotide Synthesis, both genomics technologies that, at the time, fundamentally changed the way discovery research was performed. Since then, Elizabeth’s responsibilities have increased significantly, and she demonstrated her leadership abilities when she served as interim Director of the PAN facility in 2004. During this time, she ensured that there was no interruption in the services being provided to the Stanford research community.

Elizabeth exhibits a high level of dedication to her work. She correctly diagnoses problems and is able to handle them both creatively and appropriately. She is highly motivated and shows great enthusiasm for everything she does. This is exemplified by how she has played a major role in successfully implementing several different gene expression profiling and genotyping technologies and used them to complete projects for different investigators as part of the Full Service Affymetrix Gene Expression Profiling Service within the PAN Facility. With the advent of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology, Elizabeth has applied her skills in this exciting area to serve the Stanford scientific community. There is considerable skill and adherence to detail required to successfully complete gene expression profiling projects. The consistent high-quality data that she has generated transformed the microarray section and with NGS is contributing significantly to the PAN facility’s operation, including advancing the research of Stanford's basic science investigators. From the client feedback that has been received, it is clear that she consistently produces work of the highest quality, and she has contributed to several publications in various peer reviewed professional and technical journals.

Elizabeth is an experienced scientist and a team player. She often steps up to help her co-workers in areas outside of her regular responsibilities.

Beyond Stanford, Elizabeth’s interests include being the mother of a daughter who is currently working on Wall Street and enjoying painting.

I am honored and privileged to have the opportunity to work with her.

We congratulate Elizabeth on her 25 years of service!!