Notable People 2015

December 2015

Kanwaljeet Anand, MBBS, DPhil

Anand was appointed chief of palliative care and critical care medicine at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health. He was also appointed professor of pediatrics and of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, effective Oct. 1. He will lead the pediatric intensive care unit, which will expand from 24 to 36 beds in 2017.


Glenn Chertow, MD, MPH

Chertow, the Norman S. Coplon/Satellite Healthcare Professor in Medicine and professor and chief of nephrology, was awarded the Belding H. Scribner Award by the American Society of Nephrology. He received the award in November at the society’s annual meeting in San Diego. 

 


 C. Garrison Fathman, MD

Fathman, professor of medicine, received a 2015 Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumni Award in November. The award recognizes the achievements of Mayo alumni in clinical practice, research, education and leadership who exemplify the clinic’s ideals and mission. Fathman specializes in molecular and cellular immunology.


Amato Giaccia, PhD

Giaccia, the Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor and professor of radiation oncology, has been appointed chair of the Basic Mechanisms of Cancer Therapeutics Study Section at the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review. His term lasts through June 2017. He is director of the medical school’s cancer biology program and co-director of the radiation biology program in the Stanford Cancer Institute. 


Daniel Jarosz, PhD

Jarosz, assistant professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology, was awarded a 2015 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, one of 18 fellowships given by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to support early-career scientists and engineers. He will receive $875,000 over five years. He specializes in the molecular biology of protein conformational switches and their influence on evolution, disease and development. 


Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

Mackey, the Redlich Professor, professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine and chief of pain medicine, received the National Institutes of Health Director’s Award in recognition of his leadership in the development of the National Pain Strategy. He co-chairs the oversight panel for the strategy, which is a national effort to advance pain care, education and research.


Lloyd Minor, MD

Minor, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine and professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, received the Joseph Toynbee Memorial Award from the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal College of Surgeons of England in recognition of his achievements in otology and academic leadership. At the November ceremony in London, he delivered a lecture titled “My innovation journey: From lab to leadership.”

 


Philip Pizzo, MD

Pizzo, former dean of the School of Medicine, was named a 2015 “Influencer in Aging” by NextAvenue, a PBS media provider for older Americans. He has also been appointed to the advisory board of the Milken Institute’s new Center for the Future of Aging. Pizzo founded and directs the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute. He is the David and Susan Heckerman Professor and a professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology. 


Stephen Quake, PhD

Quake, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and a professor of bioengineering and of applied physics, received the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine from the Jacob and Louise Gabbay Foundation for advancements in the basic science of microfluidics and its applications to biomedical research. He received $15,000 and presented a lecture at Brandeis University in October.


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.


Linda Boxer, MD, PhD

Boxer, vice dean of the School of Medicine, was awarded the J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine by the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association. She earned a medical degree and doctorate from the School of Medicine. She is the Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor, a professor of medicine and chief of hematology. Her research focuses on hematologic malignancies.


Edward Diaz, MD

Diaz was appointed assistant professor of urology, effective Sept. 1. He specializes in the use of robotic surgery in pediatric urology. His most recent project examines how genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells can promote bladder tissue regeneration. 


Rami El Assal, DDS

El Assal, postdoctoral scholar in radiology, was named a fellow of the Academy of Dentistry International, an honor for distinguished dentists worldwide. His research focuses on the use of nanotechnology and bio-inspired materials in regenerative and transplantation medicine.

Susan Hintz, MD

Hintz, professor of pediatrics, was appointed co-director of the Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health. She will continue to serve as the medical director of the Fetal and Pregnancy Health Program. She holds the Robert L. Hess Family Professorship. Her research focuses on neurodevelopment in premature and high-risk infants.


Tanya Stoyanova, PhD

Stoyanova was appointed assistant professor of radiology, effective Nov. 1. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer development. In particular, she studies signaling cascades initiated by cell surface receptors that are involved in prostate cancer initiation and progression.


Dean Winslow, MD

Winslow was appointed professor of medicine, effective Sept. 1. As academic physician-in-chief at Stanford Health Care-ValleyCare and vice chair of the Department of Medicine, he will develop clinical, teaching and research programs at Stanford's community hospital system in the East Bay. He also focuses on bedside medicine and mentoring students, residents and junior faculty. 


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 analyzing the performance of a variety of devices to see which result 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.


Ravindra Majeti, MD, PhD

Majeti, assistant professor of medicine, was awarded a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award. The award provides $110,000 a year over five years for salary and benefits. His research focuses on developing treatments for acute myeloid leukemia. 


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. 


Steven Lin, MD

Lin, clinical instructor of medicine, has been named the California Academy of Family Physicians’ Preceptor of the Year. He founded a resident leadership program at Stanford and started a hepatitis B clinic in East San Jose. He is a 2010 graduate of the School of Medicine. 


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.

Kristen Ganjoo, MD

Ganjoo was promoted to associate professor of medicine, effective Feb. 1. She is working to establish a world-class multidisciplinary sarcoma center at the Stanford Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on developed new therapies for sarcoma.


Tirin Moore, PhD

Moore was promoted to professor of neurobiology, effective Feb. 1. He studies the neural basis of cognition by examining the activity of neurons in visual and motor structures within the brain.


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. 

Hua Shan, MD, PhD

Shan was appointed professor of pathology, effective April 1. Her research focuses on international blood safety and availability. She directs the Transfusion Medicine Service and is a co-director of the Transfusion Medicine Program.


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.


William Maloney III, MD

Maloney, the Elsbach-Richards Professor in Surgery, was elected second vice president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He is chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and specializes in hip and knee replacement.


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.


Ginna Laport, MD

Laport, professor of medicine, was elected president-elect of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. She is the associate director for education at the Stanford Cancer Institute and specializes in blood and marrow transplant clinical trials.


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. 


Shashank Joshi, MD

Joshi was appointed associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, effective Nov. 1. He focuses on child and adolescent psychiatry and psychiatric education. 


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. 


Robert West, MD, PhD

West was promoted to professor of pathology, effective Dec. 1. He specializes in breast pathology and conducts genomics research on breast and head and neck neoplasia. 


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. 


Robin Kamal, MD

Kamal was appointed assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, effective Oct. 1. He treats hand, wrist and elbow disorders. His research concentrates on assessing and maintaining quality in hand surgery, and on studying wrist kinematics to improve wrist reconstruction. 


Lei Stanley Qi, PhD

Qi was appointed assistant professor of bioengineering, effective Oct. 1. He develops techniques to edit and regulate animal genomes, and studies the genetics and epigenetics of cell proliferation, differentiation and complex disease. 


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. 


Of Note Archive

2024 ISSUE 2

How the smallest units of life determine our health