Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My research interest is in viral infections commonly affecting immunocompromised patients and the viruses' stimulation of the host's immune system. I have a special interest in latent and persistent viruses, such as cytomegalovirus, BK virus, adenovirus, hepatitis B virus and others. I focus on the host immune response to these viruses with the end goal of improving clinical practices. I collaborate with individual and core viral/immunology laboratories to conduct my research, primarily on T-cell responses.
As Co-director of the Stanford Childrens' Pediatric Infectious Diseases Program in Immunocompromised Hosts (PIDPIC), I develop and conduct clinical and translational studies to improve identification, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases in the immunocompromised patient population. In collaboration with the clinical teams, we establish best practices from our clinical studies and start innovative protocols, in order to improve our care for this complex patient population.
My scholarly work extends to medical education. I have a special interest in how people think and make decisions. These are vital skills to continually improve in order to provide high-quality care to patients. "Thinking" is a hidden process, so I am building tools to expose these hidden traits and taking advantage of large language models and AI to help detect and analyze these traits. Using design thinking principles and rooted in education pedagogy, I build assessment tools to promote continual learning. I collaborate with education experts in the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school).
