Current Monje Lab Members

Michelle Monje, MD, PhD

Michelle Monje, MD, PhD is a Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Her research program focuses at the intersection of neuroscience and brain cancer biology, with a particular focus on mechanisms and consequences of neuron-glial interactions in health, glial dysfunction in neurological disease and neuron-glial interactions in malignant glioma. Together with these basic studies, her research program has advanced preclinical studies of novel therapeutics for pediatric high-grade gliomas and cancer therapy-related cognitive impairment in order to translate new therapies to the clinic.

Avishai Gavish, MD, PhD

Avishai is a seasoned scientist with extensive experience in academia and healthcare. Currently a Senior Scientist at Stanford University, he has held significant roles at the Weizmann Institute of Science and MetaSight Diagnostics. His expertise spans scientific research and medical affairs, supported by a robust educational background with an MD from Tel Aviv University and a PhD in Computational Biology from the Weizmann Institute.

Anna Geraghty, PhD

Anna is a senior staff scientist in the department of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University. She received her doctorate degree in the Integrative Biology department at UC Berkeley. She specialized in neuroendocrinology, investigating how chronic stress inhibited hypothalamic neural circuit regulation of reproduction in rodents using a combination of molecular and behavioral techniques. Currently her research focuses on developing CAR T-cell therapies for pediatric brain tumors and researching the repercussions of CAR T-cell induced neuroinflammation after therapy on the brain microenvironment and cognition.

Dave Rogawski, MD, PhD

Dave is a neuro-oncologist and post-doctoral fellow in the Monje Lab interested in developing new therapies for brain tumors. Dave has a bachelor's degree in biology and mathematics from Williams College and a master's degree in biochemistry from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He was an MSTP student at the University of Michigan in Jola Grembecka's lab, where he worked to develop first-in-class small molecule inhibitors for the histone methyltransferase ASH1L. He completed neurology residency and neuro-oncology fellowship at Stanford. He is very excited to be working in the Monje Lab to identify molecules that target cancer neuroscience vulnerabilities in glioma.

Belgin Yalcin, PhD

Belgin received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2016, after completing an undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Istanbul Technical University in 2011. In the Monje lab, her research focuses on understanding myelin plasticity of the brain. Specifically, she is investigating the basis of heterogeneity in the response of myelin-forming cells to neuronal activity.

Admin

Ann-Helen Liljensten
Scientific Research Liaison

Ann-Helen Liljensten has a broad role, supporting Dr. Monje and her lab administratively, operationally, and organizationally. She is also serving as project manager for research projects and is one of the tissue navigators for Gift from a Child, a program of the Swifty Foundation, to help children who are diagnosed with brain cancer. Ann-Helen received her Registered Nurse degree in Sweden and has worked in diverse healthcare settings in both the U.S. and Sweden, including the Neurosurgery Department at Boulder Community Hospital, Colorado and the Center for Multiple Sclerosis at the Clinical Neuroscience Department, University of Gothenburg.

Mei-Ling Li
Administrative Assistant

Beatriz Robinson, MS, PhD
Scientific Research Liaison

Beatriz Robinson brings over 10 years of diverse research experience in neurodevelopment and molecular neuroscience in several animals models. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a BS in Neurosciences (2015), and from Stanford University with a Masters in Medicine and PhD in Neurosciences (2023). In her role as a research administrator, she manages the operational and administrative infrastructure supporting the lab and international research initiatives led by Dr. Monje.

Lab Manager

Pamelyn Woo
Lab Manager

With a spirit of inquiry, Pam found her way back to science after receiving a BA in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and graduate work in film studies at the University of Chicago. She has been a neuroscience research assistant at Stanford since 2010 working on a variety of in vivo projects. Currently she focuses on colony management, behavior, and translational research on pediatric brain tumors.

Life Science Professionals

Shawn Babitsky
Life Science Research Professional

Shawn graduated from Vassar College in 2025 with a B.A. in Neuroscience & Behavior where previous research focused on optimizing the detection of calcium-dependent fluorophores via microendoscopy and fiber photometry in dopaminergic neurons within the VTA. In the Monje Lab, his work focuses on studying the interaction between gliomas and their microenvironment as well as investigating the role of glial cells in other diseases. Outside of lab, Shawn enjoys exploring San Francisco with friends and spending time with his cat and a good book.

Delphine Chu
Life Science Research Professional

Delphine graduated from San Jose State University with a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and a specialized certification from the CIRM-funded SCILL program. Prior to earning her degree, she spent eight years working as a Medical Laboratory Scientist in Taiwan. In the Monje Lab, she focuses on cell culture and histology techniques to support the team’s research. Outside the lab, she enjoys hiking, watching thriller movies, and relaxing at home with her cats.

Lijun Ni
Life Science Research Professional

Lijun’s research experience includes 15 years of being a research associate at Indiana University Cancer Center. She has a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology. In the Monje Lab, Lijun focuses on quantitative microscopy, including electron microscopy (EM), as well as cell culture work. Since her move to the west coast, Lijun enjoys exploring the scenic wonders of the Bay Area during frequent road trips with her family.

Theresa Pham
Life Science Research Professional

Theresa graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Human Biology and a concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience and Bioethics. In the Monje Lab, she focuses on understanding neuro-immune interactions after peripheral immune challenges and CAR T cell therapy. Outside of the lab, she enjoys making ceramics and going to the beach.

JoAnn Buchanan, MS, PhD

JoAnn received her M.S. and Ph.D. at Northeastern University. Prior to earning her Ph.D. in 2022, JoAnn worked as an R.A. at Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale University, Stanford University and the Allen Institute. Her specialty is electron microscopy, and she played a critical role in the IARPA MICrONs volume EM project. Using this data, she discovered that oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) were phagocytic and could engulf collateral axons in the mouse visual system. In the Monje lab, she is studying the synaptic connections between tumor cells and neurons and wants to know more about the role of calcium signaling in satellite glia.

Youkyeong Byun, PhD

Youkyeong (Gloria) received her PhD from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Her graduate study with Dr. Won-Suk Chung focused on understanding the roles of astrocytes in early life stress and psychiatric disorders. In Monje lab, she is focused on elucidating how neural activity influences low-grade glioma progression and the influences of adrenergic signaling on glioma pathophysiology.

Richard Drexler, MD, PhD

Richard received his training at Semmelweis University (Hungary) and the University of Oxford (UK), graduating as an MD in 2020. In 2021, he obtained his PhD in Cancer Biology from Hannover Medical School (Germany), where his research focused on pancreatic cancer and metastatic spread. Following his medical school graduation, Richard worked as a resident in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany), specializing in the translational aspects of epigenetics and malignant neural signatures in glioblastoma. In the Monje lab, he is currently Investigating the interaction between serotonergic as well as cholinergic neurons and glioma cells, with the aim of understanding their impact on neuron-to-glioma networks.

Albina Ibrayeva, MS, PhD

Albina received her MS and PhD from University of Southern California, Los Angeles USA. Her graduate work was focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the decline of hippocampal activity with age. In Monje lab she focuses on understanding how different immune challenges accelerate neurodegeneration and cognitive decline during physiological aging.

Grzegorz Krzak, PhD

Greg received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he investigated the metabolic regulation of myeloid cells during chronic neuroinflammation. In the Monje lab, he studies how myeloid cells regulate neuroinflammation following post-acute viral infections.

Felicia Reinitz, MD, PhD

Felicia completed both her MD and PhD at Stanford School of Medicine. She received her PhD in the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative medicine program where she studied epigenetic mechanisms of aging in neural stem cells in murine Alzheimer’s Diseased models. She went on to complete her internship in Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and returned to Stanford to continue residency in Pediatric Neurology. In the Monje lab, she is studying the effects of noradrenergic signaling on oligodendrocyte precursor cell function during early normal development and following perinatal injury.

Patrick Steadman, MD, PhD

Patrick completed his MD-PhD at the University of Toronto in 2021, where his doctoral research with Dr. Paul Frankland at the Hospital for Sick Children examined adaptive myelination and neuronal network mechanisms underlying memory. He then began his neurosurgery residency at the University of Toronto before coming to Stanford. In the Monje lab, he is currently investigating neuropeptide signalling in neuronal-glioma networks to better understand the relationship between neuronal circuits, behavior and tumor progression.

Embla Steiner Malka, MD, PhD

Embla received her medical degree from Karolinska Institutet in 2019 and is completing her clinical training in Neurology at the Karolinska University Hospital. She completed her PhD in 2024 in Dr. Jonas Friséns lab, focusing on cell turnover dynamics and neuroinflammatory processes in the human brain using carbon-14 dating and spatial transcriptomics approaches. In the Monje lab, Embla studies the brain tumor microenvironment, with a particular focus on the neuro-immune-cancer interactions that drive tumor progression and shape responses to immunotherapy, using spatial transcriptomics.

Andrew Stewart, PhD

Dr. Andrew Stewart graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a degree in Medicinal Chemsitry (BS), where his research focused primarily on elucidating epigenetic mechanisms that drive drug seeking. His graduate work was done in Dr. Ian Maze’s lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, focusing on unbiased characterization of substrates of protein dopaminylation, and their role in patho- and adaptive physiology. In the Monje Lab, Andrew is focused on characterizing ‘malignant’ synapses at the protein level to identify cell-intrinsic drivers of neuronal-activity induced proliferation.

Hayley Strasburger, PhD

Hayley completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. She received her PhD in Dr. Anne Schaefer’s lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she studied signaling between microglia and neurons. In the Monje lab at Stanford, Hayley is investigating bidirectional communication between microglia and glioma cells.

Minhui Su, PhD

Minhui studied Biochemistry in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She received her PhD from the Molecular Biology Program – International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) at the Georg August University Göttingen, Germany. She is currently investigating voltage-sensitive mechanisms of glioma growth. Glioma progression is dependent on neuronal activity via growth factors and integration into neural circuits. Minhui wants to understand how membrane depolarization regulates glioma growth in the tumor microenvironment.

Vrunda Trivedi, PhD
Yuvaan Tiwari Foundation Fellow

Vrunda received her MS and PhD from the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. Her graduate work with Dr. Duane Mitchell was focused on developing personalized mRNA vaccines and combinatorial immunotherapy approaches, including adoptive T-cell therapy, for the treatment of malignant brain tumors. In the Monje lab, she is working on optimizing the GD2 CAR T-cell therapy to improve the persistence and fitness of the T-cells for the treatment of DIPG.

Michael Von Gunten, PhD

Michael Von Gunten is an electrophysiologist who earned his PhD from Brigham Young University in 2025. During his graduate training, he studied synaptic plasticity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), focusing on how opioids, THC, and LSD alter neural circuit function using whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Monje Lab, where he studies the electrophysiology of glioma cells and the functional properties of neuron–glioma synapses.

Haojun Xu, PhD

Haojun (Lucy) obtained her Ph.D. from the Human Biology Program at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 2022, after completing a BS in Life and Environmental Sciences at the same university. Her Ph.D. study focused on a safeguard system in stem cell therapies. In the Monje lab, Lucy is interested in investigating how microglia mediates brain fog after infection in a region-specific manner.

Lauren Koepke
Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine

Lauren graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt in 2017 with a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a minor in Wildlife Biology. After graduating, she spent four years as a lab manager at Stanford where she studied skeletal stem cells in the context of aging and injury and established a novel therapeutic for osteoarthritis. Lauren is currently a Ph.D. student in the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine program, with an interest in neural stem cell populations. In the Monje lab, she is studying the role of glial cells in response to injury, inflammation, and disease.

Karen Malacon
Neurosciences Program

Karen graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Neurobiology and a minor in Global Health and Health Policy in 2019. Her previous research explored the effects of environmental stressors and microbial and dopaminergic modulation during development on social behavior at Duke University. Karen is currently an MSTP student in the Neurosciences program, with an interest in early life immune challenge and the effects of secondary insults. In the Monje lab, she is studying the effects of non-CNS infections during early life on long-term neurocognitive dysfunction.

Kamsi Nwangwu
Neurosciences Program

Kamsi graduated from Yale University in 2019 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. His previous research at the NIH explored the mechanisms underlying a disease causing mutation in the lysosomal chloride transporter CLC-7. Kamsi is currently an MSTP student in the Neurosciences program, with an interest in studying the role of CNS inflammation and glial cell dysregulation within the context of various disease states. In the Monje lab, his work focuses on understanding the molecular machinery of microglia and the diverse states they can occupy under various conditions.

Abigail Rogers
Biology Program

Abigail graduated from the University of Michigan in 2021 with a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a B.M. in Cello Performance. Her previous research focused on glial cell biology in neurological movement disorders and after peripheral nerve injury. Abigail is currently a PhD student in the Biology program, with an interest in studying the response of myelin-forming cells to neuronal activity. In the Monje Lab, she is focused on investigating myelin plasticity of neuromodulatory circuits.

Debebe Theodros, MD, PhD
Neurosurgery Resident, Researcher

Debebe completed his MD & PhD training at Johns Hopkins University in 2022. His PhD was in Immunology, and he was co-mentored by Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD and Jelani Zarif, PhD. His thesis work involved validating the role of a novel myeloid-restricted immune checkpoint molecule and explored its role in cancer immunotherapy. He then matched for residency in neurosurgery at Stanford University and is currently a 4th year neurosurgical resident. In the Monje lab he is studying the role of Dexamethasone in DIPG.

John Steven Ekman, MD, PhD
Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellow

Kim Kilian
Visiting Student Researcher
Boehringer-Ingelheim-Fonds Fellowship

Kim is a medical student from Hamburg, Germany, currently conducting research in the Monje Lab as a Visiting Student Researcher. Prior to his research stay, he worked in a lab for pediatric neuro-oncology investigating local brain infiltration in medulloblastoma. In the Monje Lab, his research focuses on neuron-glioma interactions and is supported by a Boehringer Ingelheim MD Fellowship.