Congratulations to the 2014 Inspiring Change Leadership Award Recipients

Rohit joined the Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC) three years ago in order to lead a specimen processing and biobanking group with the HIMC. He saw the need for a detailed online database to track specimen inventory and found an open source biobanking software which he customized to meet the needs of the department.

He worked with the software developers and did his own coding and testing. He further supervised the migration of all specimen data into the new system, a move which was preceded by a massive physical re-cataloging of tens of thousands of banked vials to ensure accuracy of the information transferred.

While this created a state-of-the-art system, Rohit's most innovative initiative was to create his own online query tool for the biobank database. This elegant website (biobank.stanford.edu) allows investigators to get instant summary reports on their inventory, as well as to design custom queries for samples based on clinical, demographic or other criteria.

Rohit is now leading an effort to link this system further to laboratory data, to allow searches for lab data associated with particular specimens. This type of system is unmatched anywhere in the research world. Rohit's vision for the Biobank group, together with his hands on approach, programming skills, and keen design sense, have created a truly innovative online tool that is furthering Stanford immunology research.

Lyn has been instrumental in revamping and overhauling the entire Biodesign curriculum. She made major contributions to bringing the curriculum into the digital age with the launch of the Biodesign curriculum website, which includes an organized curriculum of professional videos of all topics from the new textbook that she edited and compiled.

Lyn is an incredible person that has inspired the entire Biodesign program through her hard work. The whole group reoriented their thinking around the textbook she developed for and with the faculty. This led to a full reassessment of the innovation Fellowship training program, the Biodesign undergraduate elective course, the Executive Education course and the new Faculty Fellows Innovation Program.

Lyn led the process of this reassessment and provided invaluable insight that resulted in specific and overall changes to our strategy and tactics in educational efforts.

She followed this up with a revision of the Biodesign Textbook incorporating much of the new thinking developed. The tremendous accomplishment of creating a video library covering almost all aspects of the material covered by Biodesign is beyond anything we could have imagined ourselves as faculty. She is truly an inspiring leader and an open-minded change-agent

- Richard L. Popp, MD

Lyn's work is transforming the way that we teach our classes- which link medicine, engineering and business - in my 16 years, I don't think I have seen anyone who has contributed more to transformative innovation 

- Thomas M. Krummel, MD