https://uscpostdochub.usc.edu/postdoc-research-grant/
Project: Electronic Cigarette Hazard-Responsive Gene Enhancers Identified through Profiling Activating Histone Modifications in Exposed Lung Cancer Cells
Theresa Ryan Stueve is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Ite Laird-Offringa at the USC Keck School of Medicine, Norris Cancer Center. Dr. Stueve investigates how environmental pollutants affect respiratory health, and was a 2012 recipient of an NIEHS Postdoctoral Training Fellowship (T32) in Environmental Genomics offered through the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Stueve received a Ph.D. in Molecular Toxicology from the University of California at Berkeley, where her graduate studies focused on promotion of hormonal disorders by environmental hazards.
Project: Effects of Hemorheology on the Fontan Circulation
Andrew L. Cheng, M.D., is currently a postdoc fellow in Pediatric Cardiology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley, and M.D. from University of Michigan. His research focuses on characterizing rheology in children with single ventricle congenital heart disease and utilizing this data to improve computational models of the Fontan circulation. He previously received the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery Research Fellowship Award, and has been invited to present at their upcoming annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Project: Nanoscale Surface-Machining of a Flexible, Biocompatible Substrate for Biomedical Implants
Kee Scholten, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate at the USC Biomedical Microsystems Laboratory under Professor Ellis Meng. Dr. Scholten received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan where he studied microfluidic sensors and optofluidic devices for microscale gas chromatography. His research interests include the integration of microstructures with nanomaterials, and applications such as fluidic and chemical sensing. His current efforts include research projects on implantable microdevices made from biocompatible polymers.
Project: The Role of Physical Stress on Risky Economic Decisions
Ryan Kendall received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California, Irvine, under the advisement of Dr. Donald Saari. He is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate working under the mentorship of Dr. Isabelle Brocas and Dr. Juan Carrillo at USC’s Los Angeles Behavioral Economics Laboratory (LABEL). His two current projects analyze human decision-making in two-person settings (or “games”). One project relies on a new mathematical decomposition of games in order to demonstrate that, even in very simple settings, humans make choices that are systematically different than is predicted by the leading models used in economics. A related project illustrates that a human subject’s choice in a game can be predictably manipulated by altering the physical environment of the game which, in turn, alters the subject’s physiological state when the choice is being made. These two projects share the same overarching goal of classifying traits of the decision-making setting that influence human choices. In addition, these projects demonstrate that human decision-making involves traits that exist outside of the traditional scope of economics such as the game’s underlying mathematical structure and the physical environment in which the game is played.
Project: Genetic Determinants of RNA-editing Levels in Human Genomes
Yerbol Kurmangaliyev completed his PhD in Bioinformatics in the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (Moscow) in 2011 under the supervision of Professor Mikhail S. Gelfand. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on aspects of regulation of the protein structure. In particular, he studied consequences of splicing errors and mutational patterns of phosphorylated sites. Kurmangaliyev is currently a postdoctoral scholar with Professor Sergey V. Nuzhdin’s lab at the University of Southern California – they performed the first splicing QTL mapping analysis in the Drosophila and discovered a novel type of functional genetic variation affecting the RNA editing of Drosophila transcripts. Kurmangaliyev’s research focuses on studying natural variation of gene regulation in large population-level transcriptomic datasets.
Project: Free-breathing Whole-heart First Pass Magnetic Resonance Myocardial Perfusion Imaging
Sajan Goud Lingala is a postdoctoral scholar research associate at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Electrical Engineering (EE) department, associated with the Magnetic Resonance Engineering Laboratory (MREL) and the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL). He is mentored by Professors Krishna Nayak, and Shrikanth Narayanan. Lingala received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa. His research lies in the development of novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition, reconstruction, image analysis, and processing methods to advance MRI in several diagnostic and research applications. His current application areas include: High speed real time MRI of the upper airway during speech production, and Free breathing robust whole heart perfusion imaging to characterize coronary artery disease. He is a recipient of several awards including the American Heart Association’s pre-doctoral fellowship, Outstanding doctoral dissertation in biomedical engineering (Univ. of Iowa), Outstanding graduate student award, Univ of Iowa, and Magna cum Laude merit awards from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) society.
