PRISM Mentors

Evolution, extinction, Earth system history.

Our research aims to improve population health by creating high quality evidence about what health interventions work in whom and where, when, and how to implement them. Most of our research is focused on infectious diseases, including malaria, diarrhea, soil-transmitted helminths, and influenza. Our focus is on improving the health of vulnerable populations from low-resource settings, both domestically and internationally. We use a variety of epidemiologic, computational, and statistical methods, including causal inference and machine learning methods.

Our team is committed to finding ways to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and equity by leading research that identifies effective leverage points for change, from upstream 'macro' social and structural factors, to downstream 'micro' clinical factors through a collaborative research approach that integrates epidemiologic approaches with community engagement and systems thinking.

Disparities are prominent in maternal and infant health, so a lot of our work is centered on equity.  Focusing on highest-risk groups will improve health for everyone.

Much of our current research focuses on severe maternal morbidity (SMM). SMM encompasses adverse conditions that put pregnant people at risk of short and long-term consequences related to labor and delivery, including death.

We also study other important perinatal outcomes, including stillbirth, preterm birth, structural congenital malformations and other maternal morbidities.  We are interested in these outcomes individually, as well as in how they are connected to each other -- from a mechanistic standpoint (ie, do they share the same causes), and a lifecourse perspective (eg, how does an adverse newborn outcome affect the mom's postpartum health, and vice versa).

Dr. Carmichael's training is in perinatal and nutritional epidemiology.  She deeply appreciates her multi-disciplinary colleagues who make this work more meaningful by bringing their own varied perspectives and lived experiences, and their expertise in clinical care, qualitative and mixed methods, community engagement, and state-of-the-art epidemiologic approaches and biostatistical methods.

The goal of the Food for Health Equity Lab is to generate evidence of the effectiveness of 'Food as Medicine' programs that can be implemented in diverse healthcare settings to address food insecurity in a way that improves patient outcomes. This work particularly focuses on improving nutrition and reducing chronic diseases within under-resourced communities and communities of color. The lab includes diverse studies including two large-scale randomized controlled trials, a large scale evaluation of a produce prescription program, and multiple pilot studies in different clinical and demographic populations. We use a community-based participatory research orientation and have a Community Advisory Board for our project. The ultimate goal of our research is to inform health policy that will support programs that address food insecurity and reduce inequities in chronic disease. 

I am an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist    OUr lab is well know internationally in two major areas:  1.  The role of infections in chronic diseases and 2.  Physiologic changes in humans over time, specifically the decrease in human body temperature.  3. Novel surveillance projects, especially serosurveys done through the mail and  the use of wastewater to track infections.  Right now, projects that could integrate a post-doctoral fellow include:  In addition, my research group works on gun violence prevention.  

1.  Analysis of a California population-based serosurvey on SARS-COV2 infection, including information on human behaviors (mask wearing, social , vaccination) and demographics (age, race, education),  We could expand this study to look at other infectious diseases as well.

2.  Research assessing the association between high normal body temperature and longevity.

3.  Gun violence prevention.  Gun violence is a national tragedy.  We have two major projects in this area:

     a.  A project with Santa Clara County Department of Public health that combines the many data sources on gun violence across the county (Police, hospitals,EMT, schools, health departments), bring together stakeholders at community organizations across the county fighting gun violence and work with health care workers to identify strategies to educate patients on gun violence prevention.

     b.  Educational project development to teach physicians across the county how to talk to patients about gun violence

Stanford Solutions Science Lab.

The Stanford Solutions Science Lab designs solutions to improve health and well-being of children, families, and the planet.  Dr. Robinson originated the solution-oriented research paradigm. He is known for his pioneering obesity prevention and treatment research, including the concept of stealth interventions. His research applies social cognitive models of behavior change to behavioral, social, environmental and policy interventions for children and families in real world settings, making the results relevant for informing clinical and public health practice and policy. His research is largely experimental, conducting rigorous school-, family- and community-based randomized controlled trials. He studies obesity and disordered eating, nutrition, physical activity/inactivity and sedentary behavior, the effects of television and other screen time, adolescent smoking, aggressive behavior, consumerism, and behaviors to promote environmental sustainability. Rich longitudinal datasets of physical, physiological, psychological, behavioral, social, behavioral, and multi-omics measures are available from our many community-based obesity prevention and treatment trials in low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations of children and adolescents and their parents.

Stanford Screenomics Lab - Human Screenome Project.

People increasingly live their lives through smartphones. Our Stanford Screenomics app captures everything that people see and do on their smartphone screens – a record of digital life – by taking a screenshot every 5 seconds. The resulting sequence of screenshots, make up an individual’s screenome, an unique and dynamic sequence of exposures, thoughts, feelings, and actions. To date, we have collected more than 350 million screenshots from 6-12 months of phone use from national samples of about 500 hundred adults and adolescents and their parents. Opportunities available to study the screenome to understand digital media use and its impacts on health and behavior,  develop novel diagnostics and prognostics from the screenome, and deliver precision interventions to improve health and well being. An opportunity to help build this paradigm-disrupting new science.

My research focuses on the influence of the external environment on entrepreneurship. Specifically, I have sought to be a leader in investigating the types of environments that encourage the founding of high growth, technology-based firms. Although I build on previous work that focuses on individual characteristics, network ties, and strategy, my major contribution is to demonstrate that institutions matter. I have broken new ground in showing that effective institutional change influences who starts firms, not just how many firms are started. I have repeatedly studied entrepreneurship in a single country (China, Chile, Japan, and the U.S.) before and after a major institutional change. My work is divided into three streams: (1) formal institutions (policies and regulations), (2) university and industry environments, and (3) informal institutions (social movements).

STREAM 1: My research in this stream advances theory by introducing novel mechanisms (e.g. barriers to growth and failure, institutional inconsistency), introducing new concepts (e.g. skill adequacy and context relevance) and in theorizing that institutional changes that lower barriers to growth and to failure alter who becomes an entrepreneur, the type of firms, and performance.
STREAM 2: My work in this stream changes the way we think about team composition as well as what characteristics lead to venture performance by linking their impacts to industry environments.
STREAM 3: In this stream, I explored how social movement organizations can change firms.

My research changes the way we think about how the environment – formal institutions, informal institutions, and industry contexts – influences entrepreneurship. I am a leader in situating ventures within environments and showing that interactions between environments and entrepreneurs matter. I am among the first to argue and show that policies that foster high-growth entrepreneurship are different than those that spawn small businesses. If policy leaders wish to foster technology-based start-ups, then we must consider how institutions operate. My research shows that institutional changes can significantly influence the types of firms that are created, who creates them, and how they perform. My research challenges widely accepted ideas about entrepreneurship by highlighting taken-for-granted notions that are incomplete or misleading. My studies call into question the assumption that institutions that make it easier to start firms are unambiguously beneficial, and that experienced, diverse founding teams are always superior. My theoretical contributions include introducing such concepts as institutional barriers to growth, skill adequacy and context relevance. I lead the way in broadening our conception of entrepreneurship beyond the developed North American economies. I have contributed methodologically by (A) showing how to measure talent, (B) collecting data internationally, (C) using randomized field experiments, and (D) analyzing multi-industry databases with state-of-the-art statistics (instrumental variables, differences-in-differences). I have been a pioneer in overcoming the challenges of inferring causality, by finding changes that altered the landscape for entrepreneurship, along with collecting novel data in international settings. In future work, I plan to do more studies incorporating software development for data collection and digital platforms for randomized experiments focusing on issues related to strategic change and entrepreneurship training. 

Heilshorn's interests include biomaterials in regenerative medicine, engineered proteins with novel assembly properties, microfluidics and photolithography of proteins, and synthesis of materials to influence stem cell differentiation. Current projects include tissue engineering for spinal cord and blood vessel regeneration, designing injectable materials for use in stem cell therapies, and the design of biomaterials for culture of patient-derived biopsies and organoids. Postdoctoral candidates with expertise (or an interest in learning) preclinical animal models of injury and disease are particularly encouraged. Department URL: https://mse.stanford.edu

The Pop Lab is a research group led by Prof. Eric Pop in Electrical Engineering (EE) and Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) at Stanford University. We are located in the Paul Allen Center for Integrated Systems (CIS), working in the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF). We are affiliated with the Stanford SystemX Alliance and the Non-Volatile Memory Technology Research Initiative (NMTRI).

Our research is at the intersection of nanoelectronics and nanoscale energy conversion, exploring topics such as:

• Energy-efficient transistors, data storage (memory), and thermoelectrics
• 2D materials (graphene, h-BN, MoS2, WSe2,...) and phase-change materials (GST, VO2)
• Fundamental physical limits of current and heat flow, e.g. ballistic electrons and phonons
• Applications of nanoscale energy transport, conversion and harvesting

Our work includes nanofabrication, characterization, and multiscale simulations. On-campus collaborations include Materials Science, Physics, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering, and off-campus they range from UIUC, UC Davis, Georgia Tech, UT Dallas, Univ. of Tokyo and Singapore (NUS), to TU Wien, Univ. Bologna and Poli Milano.

To learn more about us, please visit http://poplab.stanford.edu

Prof. Wang directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. 

Mechanics and Manufacturing. Development of novel materials for additive manufacturing such as nanocomposite two photon lithography resins, and metal-ceramic magnetic composites. Mechanics of energy materials (battery materials, materials for the hydrogen economy). Structural materials such as lightweight alloys and metallic glasses. 

Research activities in our group focus on the computational modeling and experimental analysis of turbulent and chemically reacting flows. Applications include propulsion systems, renewable energy, carbon sequestration, and high-speed and multiphase flows. Particular emphasis is directed towards improving the fundamental understanding of underlying physical processes involving the coupling between turbulence, reaction chemistry, pollutant formation and noise emission. Our research approach combines classical theoretical analysis tools (including linear stability analysis, rapid distortion theory, and stochastic models), numerical models, and the utilization of direct numerical simulation (DNS) results for the development, analysis, and validation of computational models. Current research interests include:

• Fundamental analysis of non-equilibrium and supercritical flows
• Heat-transfer and boundary layers
• High-order numerical techniques for chemically reacting flows
• Development of models for application to kinetics-controlled combustion, including auto-ignition, low-temperature combustion, and combustion-dynamic processes
• Particle-laden flows and atmospheric entry
• Heterogeneous flows in micro-, meso-, and nano-porous flows
• CO2 capture and sequestration

Another active area of research involves the experimental analysis of ultrafast non-equilibrium processes using X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy, specfically focusing on sub-picosecond physico-chemical processes in complex fluids and chemical systems. For this, we're closely working with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the Advanced Light Source at LBNL and other facility to perform X-ray experiments.

We are an interdisciplinary research laboratory that focuses on model-based analysis, design, and control of biological function at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels to optimize therapeutic intervention.

Near-future research directions

• Design and implementation targeted synthetic microbe therapies
• Interorgan communication in health and disease
• Synthetic pattern formation in growing microbial populations

The Mayalu Lab is seeking bright, talented, and motivated graduate students and postdocs to fill several positions.

These are great opportunities to work on control theoretic and experimental aspects of model-based design of synthetic biological and biomedical systems. 

Postdocs with additional training in synthetic microbiology, genetic recombination technology, bioengineering or related fields are encouraged to apply to help launch the experimental research program.

We invent and develop systems which couple fluid flow, chemical reactions, mass transport, heat transfer, and/or electric fields and apply these to chemical and biological assays.  We design, build, and test microfluidic devices that couple electrokinetics with chemical reactions for on-chip analyses of DNA and high-throughput flow systems for cell assays.  We have two funded projects for which we seek a motivated postdoctoral researcher:

1. We are developing a microfluidic device for fully automated detection of the RNA of SARS-CoV-2 RNA (the virus which causes Covid-19) in less than 60 min.  The device will feature electric field control and enhancement of four processes: RNA extraction, reverse transcription, LAMP amplification, and highly specific detection using CRISPR/Cas enzymes.  See a preliminary version of this assay here:  Ramachandran et al., PNAS, 117, 47 (2020).

2. We are conducting a fundamental study of CRISPR/Cas enzymes with the goal of exploring the ultimate sensitivity of CRISPR-based diagnostic systems.  This work includes developing experimentally validated models of enzyme kinetics and detailed models for the signal-to-noise ratio associated with CRISPR diagnostics.  See Ramachandran & Santiago, Analytical Chem., 93, 20 (2021). Department URL: https://me.stanford.edu

Two postdoc positions in the lab of Prof. Sindy Tang are immediately available in the areas of microfluidics, nanofabrication, and spatial proteomics.

The spatial organization of proteins within biological tissues plays a critical role in the normal functioning of the tissue and disease development. The goal of this NIH-funded project is to develop a high throughput and scalable technology to perform tissue microdissection that preserves tissue spatial information and couples directly to established LC-MS/MS workflow for deep and unbiased spatial mapping of the proteome. Our approach integrates a novel tissue micro-dicing device, a nanodroplet sample preparation platform for LC-MS/MS analysis with single-cell sensitivity, and novel microfluidic device to transfer the diced tissue pixels while preserving their spatial order. This position will allow exciting opportunities to collaborate with the Pacific Northwest National Lab and the Stanford School of Medicine. 

The project is expected to accelerate MS-based spatial proteomics for deep and unbiased mapping of tissue heterogeneity down to single-cell resolution, thereby accelerating biomedical research and clinical diagnostics towards a better understanding of the role of tissue heterogeneity in pathophysiology, such as the role of the tumor microenvironment on cancer initiation and progression. The deep and unbiased proteome coverage will enable the discovery of novel protein biomarkers and molecular pathways to identify new therapeutic targets, which would be difficult using antibody-based approaches. Our ability to quantitatively map ECM and secreted proteins will facilitate the elucidation of the role of ECM, such as their remodeling, in disease progression. Finally, while this project focuses on spatial proteomics, we expect our technology and workflow to be extended to other biomolecules that LC-MS/MS can readily measure, such as lipids and metabolites, thereby opening the opportunity for spatial multi-omic measurements in future studies.

Skills useful for this project include: • Microfluidics design and integration, and related areas • Micro- and nanofabrication, e.g., silicon micromachining, high resolution 3D printing (e.g., Nanoscribe) • Experience working with biological samples (tissues)

The micro-nano-bio lab under the direction of Prof. Sindy Tang aims to develop innovative micro and nanoscale devices that enable precise manipulation, measurement, and recapitulation of biological systems, in order to understand the "rules of life" and accelerate precision medicine and material design for a future with better health and environmental sustainability. Current projects include: food allergy diagnostics, single cell wound repair, microdissection of multicellular structures for organoids and spatial biology. Check out our website for latest updates.

One of the key ways that the gut microbiome impacts human health is through the production of bioactive metabolites. By understanding how microbes produce these molecules, we aim to develop new approaches to promote human health and treat disease. Our laboratory employs bacterial genetics, metabolomics, and gnotobiotic mouse colonization to uncover the chemistry that underlies host-microbe interactions in the gut.

Our basic research program focuses on understanding the roles of virus-host interactions in viral infection and disease pathogenesis via both molecular and systems virology/immunology single cell approaches. This program is combined with translational efforts to apply this knowledge for the development of broad-spectrum host-centered antiviral approaches to combat emerging viral infections, including dengue, encephalitic alphaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 and Ebola, and means to predict disease progression.

Our studies focus on the following emerging concepts that are transforming our understanding of virus-host interactions:

1. Understanding the pathogenesis of flaviviral infections via an integrative systems immunology single cell approach. The goal of this project is to elucidate the cellular and molecular factors contributing to increased severity of dengue and Zika disease in distinct patient populations (children, adults, pregnant women). To achieve this goal, we are advancing and utilizing various single-cell immunological approaches (virus-inclusive single cell RNA-seq, CyTOF etc) and samples from our large Colombia dengue cohort (>500 patients) and Zika cohort. We are mapping an atlas of viral immune cellular targets and studying critical protective and pathogenic elements of the host response to these viruses in multiple distinct infected and bystander cell subtypes with an unprecedented resolution. The translational goals of this project are to identify candidate biomarkers associated with infection outcome and candidate targets for antiviral therapy, as well as improve vaccine strategies.

2. Deciphering the intracellular membrane trafficking pathways essential for viral pathogens. We have used proteomic and genetic approaches to identify proteins that are critical for the replication of multiple globally relevant RNA viruses including dengue virus, Zika virus, encephalitis alphaviruses, SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis C virus, and Ebola virus. We are studying the molecular mechanisms by which these viruses hijack intracellular membrane trafficking pathways for mediating key steps in their viral life cycle and are characterizing the roles these factors play in cellular biology using viruses as complexed probes. Ongoing work focuses on the roles of cellular kinases and adaptor protein complexes in viral trafficking during viral entry, assembly, release, and direct cell-to-cell spread, the role of the ESCRT machinery in intracellular viral budding, and the roles of ubiquitin signaling pathways in the regulation of trafficking during viral assembly and release.

3. Advancing the development of small molecules targeting host functions as broad-spectrum antivirals. Most direct antiviral strategies targeting viral enzymes provide a “one drug, one bug” approach and are associated with the emergence of viral resistance. We have discovered several host functions exploited by multiple viruses as targets for broad-spectrum antivirals. We have demonstrated the utility of a repurposed approach that inhibits these factors in suppressing replication of multiple RNA viruses both in vitro and in mouse models and are advancing this approach into the clinic and studying its mechanism of action. In parallel, we are developing chemically distinct small molecules targeting various cellular functions as pharmacological tools to study cell biology and viral infection and as broad-spectrum antivirals to combat SARS-CoV-2, dengue virus, encephalitic alphaviruses and Ebola virus.

With a creative, collaborative, biophysical mindset, we aim to understand the ability of parasites to interface with their host-cell to a point at which we can exploit the mechanisms not only for finding cures against the disease the parasites cause but also to make parasite mechanisms a tool that we can use to engineer the host’s cells. By developing approaches that allow a quantitative understanding and manipulation of molecular transport our research transforms parasites from agents of disease to tools for health.

Specifically, we are studying how the malaria parasite takes control over red blood cells. By learning the biophysical principles of transport in between the host and the parasite we can design ways to kill the parasite or exploit it to reengineer red blood cells. The transport we study is broadly encompassing everything from ions to lipids and proteins. We use variations of quantitative microscopy and electrophysiology to gain insight into the unique strategies the parasite evolved to survive.