ThinkResearch Podcast

Sudeshna Fisch, PhD, is the associate director of a busy and prolific preclinical core in Cardiovascular Physiology in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Fisch’s research focuses on preclinical therapeutic studies using mouse, rat, and zebrafish models which include surgical and non-surgical techniques, including advanced cardiac imaging and data analytics. Her prior work includes intellectual property and research commercialization and grant-funding strategies, with stints at the Broad Institute, Nanobiosym, Harvard’s Office of Technology Development, Partners Office for Research Ventures and Licensing, and Fish & Richardson, LLP. She was born in Calcutta, India, and earned her BS and MS degrees in zoology and genetics from Calcutta University, where she received a National Merit Scholarship. Fisch received her PhD in biological sciences on a full scholarship from Bowling Green State University in Ohio before moving to Harvard Medical School for postdoctoral work.

Georg Gerber, MD, PhD is an associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and associate pathologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Advanced Molecular Diagnostics. His research interests involve building novel computational models and high-throughput experimental systems to understand the role of the microbiota in human diseases, and applying these findings to develop new diagnostic tests and therapeutic interventions to improve patient care. He has founded several companies focused on developing and applying 3D graphics technologies to create feature and IMAX® films. Gerber completed a fellowship in infectious disease pathology and molecular microbiology, and a residency in clinical pathology at BWH. He received his MD from HMS, master’s and PhD in computer science from MIT, and a master’s in infectious diseases and BA in pure mathematics from UC Berkeley.

Onyinyechi Eke, MD, currently serves as faculty and director of global ultrasound in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Her research interests include the development of point-of-care ultrasound education and training in resource-limited settings, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the efficient utilization of point-of-care ultrasound to facilitate patient care in the emergency department. She completed her clinical ultrasound fellowship at MGH and her emergency medicine residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Eke received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Elena Aikawa, MD, PhD, is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Vascular Biology Program at the Center for Interdisciplinary Sciences, founding director of the Heart Valve Translational Research Program, and associate head of section of Cardiovascular Life Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She holds editorial positions at Circulation Research, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, PLoS ONE, and Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Aikawa’s research focuses on the development of new therapies to prevent, treat, and cure calcific aortic valve stenosis.

Anna Etchin, PhD, is an advanced nurse fellow in polytrauma/traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation at the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders within the VA Boston Healthcare system. She is committed to improving the holistic wellbeing of veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life. Her program of research focuses on post-9/11 U.S. veteran resilience and health functioning, particularly within the context of childhood and deployment trauma. Etchin’s clinical background is in geriatric, psychiatric, hospice and palliative, and long-term care nursing with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. She is a baccalaureate-level registered nurse and received her PhD in nursing from Northeastern University.

Hardeep Ranu, PhD, is a project manager for Translational Innovator and is responsible for managing a diverse set of clinical and translational research project teams. Ranu joined Harvard Catalyst from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she managed the TaqMan genotyping core for 13 years. As the genotyping project manager, Ranu worked with faculty of Harvard Medical School, Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School affiliated hospitals, and external institutions to design and develop genotyping projects. Her role as genotyping project manager involved coordinating with two funding entities, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) and Partners Healthcare|Personalized Medicine as well as working with senior management and faculty from DF/HCC to write and prepare reports for DF/HCC submissions and renewals.

Melissa Dell, PhD, is the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She is also a senior scholar at the Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research focuses on economic growth and political economy. She has examined the factors leading to the persistence of poverty and prosperity in the long run, the effects of trade-induced job loss on crime, the impacts of U.S. foreign intervention, and the effects of weather on economic growth. She has also developed deep learning powered methods for curating social science data at scale, released in the open-source package Layout Parser. This work supports many of her current projects, which rely on digitizing historical sources too large for manual digitization. She received an AB in economics from Harvard, an MPhil in economics from Oxford University, and a PhD in economics from MIT.

Walid Yassine, DMSc, MMSc, is a research fellow at the Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroimaging at McLean Hospital and a research fellow in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on several neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Yassine uses different approaches including imaging, behavioral assessment, and artificial intelligence to better understand the brain. His ultimate goal is to be able to assess risk factors, discover objective biomarkers, elucidate disorder spectrum and symptom overlap, and provide targeted therapeutic interventions in various disorders of the mind. Currently, he is focusing on better understanding the different effects of drugs on the brain.