Faculty Research Contacts
Connect with some of our research faculty and learn more about their biomedical or clinical laboratory projects below.
For general Clinical Translational Research opportunities, contact Director of Learner Research, Sarah Sletten.
Colin Combs, Ph.D.: Specialties - Neuroimmune interactions during aging, chronic, and neurodegenerative diseases.
David Bradley, Ph.D.: Specialties - Natural and inducible immune responses to viruses and bacteria and to cancers.
Catherine Brissette, Ph.D.: Specialties - Bacterial pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, Lyme disease, relapsing fever, spirochetes. Visit lab page.
Holly Brown-Borg, Ph.D.: Specialties - Contributions of the endocrine system and metabolism to mechanisms of biological aging, and age-related diseases. Visit lab page.
Xuesong Chen, Ph.D.: Specialties - Role of endolyosome in the pathogensis of neurological disorders including Alzheimer's disease. HIV associated neurocognitive disorders, and COVID-associated neurological complications. Visit lab page.
Archana Dhasarathy, Ph.D.: Specialties - Chromatin, Epigenetics, Molecular biology, Breast cancer, Genomics. Visit lab page.
Van Doze, Ph.D.: Specialties - Adrenergic modulation of behavior, Aging brain, Epilepsy, Alzheimer's Disease
Susan Eliazer, Ph.D.: Specialties - Epigenetic mechanisms underlying the maintenance of skeletal muscle stems cells in disease and aging.
James Foster, Ph.D.: Regulation of the dopamine transporter via the post translational modifications, palmitoylation and phosphorylation and their role in health and disease.
Jonathan Geiger, Ph.D.: Specialties - Mechanisms underlying the pathogensis of neurodegenerative modifications, palmitolation and phosporylation and their role in health and disease.
Mikhail Golovko, Ph.D.: Specialties - Stroke research, Brain ischemia, Hypoxia, Angiogenesis, Neurochemistry, Lipid and purine metabolism, Mass spectrometry.
Amanda Haage, Ph.D.: Specialties - A&P Coordinator, STEM, Cell migration & adhesion, Cancer metastasis.
L. Keith Henry, Ph.D.: Specialties - Molecular, pharmacological, epigenetic, and computational analysis of the serotonin and dopamine transporters and their role in human disease.
Junguk Hur, Ph.D.: Specialties - Bioinformatics, Systems pharmacology, Epigenomics, Diabetic peripheral neuropathy, literature mining.
Saobo Lei, Ph.D.: Specialties - Neurotransmitters, Neuropeptides, Synaptic transmission and plasticity, Ion channels, Learning and memory, Epilepsy, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, Autism, Hippocampus, Entorhinal Cortex, Interneuron, Patch-clamp, Electrophysiology.
Masfique Mehedi, Ph.D.: Specialties - A virologist developing therapeutic vaccines for respiratory viruses. Visit lab page.
Barry Milavetz, Ph.D.: Specialties - Epigenetic mechanisms controlling the Simian Virus 40 life cycle. Visit lab page.
Eric Murphy, Ph.D.: Specialties - Lipids biochemistry, Fatty acid binding proteins, N-3 fatty acids, Brain lipid metabolism, Higher education, Faculty governance.
Michelle Murphy. Ph.D.: Specialties - Integrative systems physiology; Systems thinking and modeling in physiology education.
Kumi Nagamoto-Combs, Ph.D.: Specialties - Effect of peripheral inflammation on brain function and behavior, Neuroinflammation via gut-immune-brain communications, Allergy and behavioral disorders. Visit lab page.
Sergei Nechaev, Ph.D.: Specialties - Gene regulation, Epigenetics, Transcription, Genomics.
Matthew Nilles, Ph.D.: Specialties - Interaction of the plaque bacillus with the4 innate immune system and protein interactions that control the type III secretion system in Yersinia pestis.
Monica Norby, Ph.D.: Specialties - Undergraduate Microbiology courses and Medical Microbiology Laboratory.
Suba Nookala, Ph.D.: Specialties - HLA-Class II mediated immune responses to infections.
James Porter, Ph.D.: Specialties - Pharmacology, Sympathetic nervous system, Innate immunity, G-protein coupled, Peptide and toll-like receptors, Receptor cross-talk, signal transduction, Molecular mechanisms of pharmacological action, Arrestins, G-protein coupled receptor kinases, Gq-G11 GTP-binding proteins, MAP kinase signaling.
Benjamin Roche, Ph.D.: Specialties - Molecular mechanisms of cellular quiescence, epigenetic regulation of G0 state I metabolism. Visit lab page.
Thad Rosenberger, Ph.D.: Specialties - Lipid metabolism, Brain energy metabolism, Lipid-mediated signal transduction, Acyl-CoA, Arachidonic acid, Eicosanoids, Ether phospholipid, Plasmalogen, Phospholipases, Analytical lipid techniques.
Ken Ruit, Ph.D.: Specialties - Establishment of academia performance standards and implementation of valid and reliable method of which student learning is assessed.
Anthony Schroeder, Ph.D.: Specialties - Sex differentiation and development.
John Shabb, Ph.D.: Specialties - Proteomics, Bio-markers, Discipline-based education research.
Sarah Sletten, Ph.D.: Specialties - Scholarship of teaching and learning.
Shahram Solaymani-Mohammadi, Ph.D.: Specialties - Immunology, Mucosal immunology, Gut immunology, Mucosal inflammation microbiome, Infectious diseases, Parasitology host-pathogen interaction, Vaccine development.
Motoki Takaku, Ph.D.: Specialties - Epigenetics and chromatin regulation in cancer, Breast cancer reprogramming, Biochemistry, Cell biology, Genomics, Genome editing, cell free DNA. Visit lab page.
Chernet Tessema, M.D., Ph.D.: Specialties - Human anatomical variation: a cadaver dissection-based study of human structure.
Alexei Tulin, Ph.D.: Specialties - Epigenetics in normal development and pathogenesis, Chromatin regulation, Role of poly (ADP-ribose) metabolism in transcription regulation and oncogenesis, PARP-1 inhibitors in oncology, Drosophila and mammalian model organisms. Visit lab page.
Roxanne Vaughan, Ph.D.: Specialties - Dopamine transporter structure and function, Molecular mechanisms of cocaine and amphetamine, Protein post-translational modifications, Dopaminergic disorders. Visit lab page.
John Watt, Ph.D.: Specialties - Neural regeneration, Neuron-glia interactions, Neuroinflammation, CNS response to injury. Visit lab page.
Grace Karikari, Ph.D., M.P.H, CHES: Specialties - Global aging, global health disparities and equity, holistic health and wellness education, community based participatory research, and qualitative methods in socio-behavioral research.
Brynn Luger, Ph.D., M.A., L.P.C.C., N.C.C.: Specialties - Blending Indigenous healing practices with Western mental health frameworks in the treatment of mental health, efficacy of ceremony-assisted treatment for substance use disorders, secondary trauma among Indigenous mental health providers, and community-based participatory research methods.
Melanie Nadeau, M.P.H. Ph.D.: Specialties - American Indian health, health disparities, health equity, epidemiology, mixed methods, Indigenous-driven evaluation and tool development.
Shwanda Schroeder, Ph.D. M.A.: Specialties - Public/Indigenous health program evaluation, Indigenous/public health research methods, health equity.
Julie Smith-Yliniemi, Ph.D., L.P.C.C., N.C.C.: Specialties - Indigenous trauma & resilience, culturally adapted evidence-based trauma therapy, cultural immersion, community based participatory research, clinical mental health, school counseling, health education, suicide prevention & intervention.
Joel Steele, Ph.D.: Specialties - Intensive longitudinal data analysis, dyadic data analysis, dynamic systems modeling, statistical computing, data harmonization, data visualization, and open-source software.
Cary Waubanascum, Ph.D.: Specialties - Indigenous child welfare & reclaiming kinship; Indigenous research methodologies and methods; prenatal substance abuse exposure in Indian child welfare; Tribal Institutional Review Board development & engaging/including tribal communities in the process.
Peter C Kurniali, M.D.: Hematology and Medical Oncology
Tze Shien Lo, M.D.: Infectious Disease
Matthew Tinguely, M.D.: Hematology and Oncology
Anu Gaba, M.D.: Hematology and Medical Oncology
Avish Nagpal, M.D.: Infectious Disease
Bhargav Mistry, M.D.: Chronic kidney disease, surgical wounds (healing, infection), surgical conditions like herniae, pancreatic disorders
Timothy Pansegrau, M.D.: Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery
Carrie Brower-Breitwieser, Ph.D.: Pediatric Psychology
Sarmad Al-Marsoummi, Ph.D.: Specialties - Implications of environmental factors such as arsenic and cadmium on human diseases, specifically in the development of urothelial bladder and kidney cancers.
Emilie DeKrey, Ph.D.: Specialties - Flow Cytometry, Nucleic acid isolation and analysis, nutrition, cancer, intestinal diseases, in vivo mouse models & surgery.
Scott Garrett, Ph.D.: Specialties - Focus on the heavy metal cadmium and its effects in the kidney.
Aaron Mehus, Ph.D.: Specialties - Role of Arsenic in the development of urothelial cancer.
Sandeep Singhal, Ph.D.: Specialties - Data mining, statistical modeling, and artificial intelligence with strong background in personalize medicine and cancer genomics especially in biomarker discovery and toxicity testing.
Corey Smith, Ph.D.: Specialties - Finding effective informatics strategies that lead to increased public health capacity to address disparities in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and healing recovery from the mental disorders in rural, underserved populations.
Seema Somji, Ph.D.: Specialties - Role of arsenic and cadmium in the development of bladder cancer.
Cindy Flom-Meland, P.T., M.P.T., Ph.D.: Neuro-rehabilitation, clinical education, and professional behavior.
Mohamed Elhamadany, P,T., Ph.D., M.S., D.P.T.: Variations in movement system development, with the goal of better understanding how environmental and demographic factors contribute to children’s motor development and how this affects rehabilitation, and competency-based education.
Richard Morgan, P.T., D.P.T.: Exploring interrater reliability between raters, palm cooling, intracellular and extracellular water changes, throwing velocity, blood flow restriction.
David Relling, P.T., Ph.D.: Biomechanics of movement and physical therapy workforce.
Gary Schindler, P.T., D.P.T., Ph.D., O.C.S., S.C.S., A.T.C.: BFR and cross sectional area of the infraspinatus muscle, investigating how cooling our palms may improve endurance, peak quad force, and power via a vertical jump test, principle component analysis using the Vicon motion software during overhead throwing.
Jeanie McHugo, Ph.D. PA-C: Impact of self-selected activity choice on physician assistant student pathophysiology course performance, PA student stress.
Julie Solberg, MSPAS, PA-C: PA student stress.
Michelle Murphy, Ph.D.: Impact of self-selected activity choice on physician assistant student pathophysiology course performance, PA student stree.
Mentor Ahmeti, M.D.: Surgical critical care.