We believe that the future of healthcare is an organic blend of technology, innovation, and human connection.
At the Decode Laboratory, we function as on one integrated unit with the mission of advancing Precision Health for all.
Our team is composed of Neurologists, Clinical Scientists, Biochemists, Engineers, Machine Learning experts, Geneticists.
Vida Abedi, MS, PhD
Dr. Abedi, our AI director, leads the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-driven projects for the team. Dr. Abedi, formally trained as an Engineer and Biochemist, with a masters in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, has a broad interdisciplinary background in mathematical framework, Natural Language Processing (NLP), statistical tools, and Techniques with a good understanding of biological and medical sciences. Dr. Abedi is an Associate Professor at the College of Medicine at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Abedi is leading a Special Issue on the topic of AI and Healthcare.
Ramin Zand, MD, MPH
Dr. Zand, our clinical director, is board-certified in Vascular Neurology. Dr. Zand is a professional member of American Heart Association, American Academy of Neurology, European Stroke Organizations, and World Stroke Organization. He is actively involved with American Heart Association as the chair of Great River Affiliate Stroke Task Force; and mission chair of American Heart Association Northeast Pennsylvania. His research expertise spans multiple interdisciplinary fields, including imaging markers of acute stroke, machine learning, and genomic medicine. Dr. Zand is a Professor of Vascular Neurology at the College of Medicine at the Pennsylvania State University.
Alireza Vafaei-Sadr, PhD
Dr. Vafaei Sadr, a trained physicist, is a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State University, College of Medicine. Alireza is working on a number of projects, including AI, big data, medical images and deep learning, imputation, anomaly detection, and outcome prediction modeling. Dr. Vafaei Sadr is co-leading a Special Issue on the topic of Machine Learning Technology in Predictive Healthcare.
Ajith Vemuri, PhD Candidate
Ajith, a Staff Scientist at Penn State College of Medicine, specializes in AI-enabled interventions using wearable technology to promote behavioral changes in patients with complex conditions such as stroke. Ajith’s research focuses on multi-agent modeling in dynamic environments, with applications in automated health coaching, among others.
Sasan Bahrami, MD
Dr. Bahrami is the Research Project Manager. Sasan holds an MD, with a specialization in Neurology. Dr. Bahrami brings many years of pharmaceutical and biotech research experience to support the team in making an impact on the lives of our patients.
Jiang Li, MD, PhD
Joined us from the University of Northwestern, Dr. Li brings to the team a specialized research portfolio that includes an array of expertise, recently more focused on Pharmacogenomics, Drug Discovery and Precision Health. Dr. Li’s seven years of extensive experience from Hartwell Center for Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Core facility at St. Jude research hospital in addition to his six years of experience as research faculty at Northwestern University, are a great asset to our team and collaborators.
Venkatesh Avula, MS
Venkatesh is a Machine Learning scientist working at the interface of predictive modeling and clinical decision system. His recent work with our team has been focused on stroke outcome prediction and its risk factors.
Durgesh P Chaudhary, MBBS
Dr. Chaudhary joined our team in 2019 as a postdoctoral fellow. His focus is on Big Data and applied statistics in the field of cerebrovascular medicine. His recent contribution is on analyzing comprehensive Electronic Health Record (EHR) data on more than 50,000 patients. Dr. Chaudhary has joined Penn State University’s residency program in Neurology in 2022 and continues to work with the team on various research projects. Dr. Chaudhary has over 50 publications with the team.
Shima Shahjouei, MD, MPH
Dr. Shahjouei joined our team in 2020 as a postdoctoral fellow. However, Dr. Shahjouei has worked under the guidance of Dr. Zand since 2015 on clinical and epidemiological research in Cerebral Artery Occlusion, stroke, and pathogenesis of drug treatment. Dr. Shahjouei joined Penn State University’s residency program in Neurology in 2023, but continues to work with the team on different projects. Dr. Shahjouei has over 80 publications in the field.
Students
Hasiholan Tiroi Simorangkir, RN
Hasiholan is a graduate student in the DrPH Program at Penn State University. His passion is for the field of health informatics with a focus on stroke care. His long-term goal is to help achieve health equity and eliminate disparities in stroke patients.
Zixuan Feng
Zixuan is a Ph.D. student in the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State. Zixuan’s primary research advisor is Dr. Qiushi Chen. His research interest includes mathematical and statistical modeling and data analytics techniques in the field of public health. Zixuan has worked with different types of healthcare data. He is co-mentored by Dr. Abedi and Dr. Zand.
Fatima Sadjadpour
Fatima is a PhD candidate in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research focus is on applications of AI and system dynamics to improve healthcare. Fatima’s primary research advisor is Dr. Hosseinichimeh; she is also co-mentored by Dr. Abedi.
Asma Poursoroush
Asma joined our team in 2019. Her research is focused on the application of machine learning in the medical field. Asma is Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering from a joint program between the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). Dr. Abedi is Asma’s research mentor.
David (DJ) Schnabel, Jr., MSN, RN, CCRN, CFRN
David (DJ) Schnabel is a Ph.D. student pursuing a dual-title degree in Nursing and Clinical & Translational Sciences. Prior to graduate school, he worked for 10 years as a pediatric critical care nurse. His research interests include the impact of altered pubertal timing on future health outcomes. Dr. Abedi is part of the DJ’s mentoring team with Dr. Lorah Dorn.
Grace Hwang, MPH
Grace, a medical student at the Penn State College of Medicine, joined our team in 2023. Grace will be researching knowledge and attitudes toward the adoption of AI-based tools in healthcare.
Eddah Mauti
Eddah is a graduate student in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on the intersection of, healthcare policy, and the application of AI, with special emphasis on readmission in stroke patients. Eddah is co-mentored by Dr. Hosseinichimeh, Dr. Abedi, and Dr. Zand.
Alumni
Vishakha
Sharma, MS
Vishakha joined our team in 2019 and her research focuses on the intersect of stroke, and actionable risk factors, including nutrition, microbiome diversity, and obesity. Vishakha starts medical training in 2020.
Negar Darabi, MS, PhD
Dr. Darabi is a graduate (2020) from the Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on healthcare operations and policy as well as application of machine learning in healthcare. Co-mentored by Dr. Abedi. Link to Dissertation.
Thomas Nate Person, MS
Nate has contributed towards our study on genetics of neurological disorders and rare diseases, leading to important advances in the field of precision medicine.
Manu K Shivakumar, MS
Manu had a background in computer science and was a highly proficient programmer working with our team at Geisinger.
Nariman Noorbakhsh-Sabet, MD
Dr. Noorbakhsh-Sabet is a clinical scientist with focus in Cerebral Microbleeds and Stroke.
Nuria Tubau-Juni, PhD
Dr. Tubau-Juni is a graduate (2019) from Virginia Tech in the Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology program, with focus on immunology and infectious diseases. Co-mentored by Dr. Abedi.
Andrew J. Leber, PhD
Dr. Leber is a graduate (2017) from Virginia Tech in the Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology program, with focus on immunology, advanced computational modeling, data analytics, AI, and drug development. Co-mentored by Dr. Abedi. Link to Dissertation.
Ayesha Khan, MD
Dr. Khan joined the team as a postdoctoral fellow and laboratory manager. Dr. Khan’s expertise is in neurological diseases, including stroke, as well as rare genetic disorders of the nervous system. Dr. Khan joined Geisinger’s residency program in 2020.
Emily Rieder
Emily is a medical student and has been working with our team since 2020. Emily’s research is centered around stroke, multiple sclerosis and genetics.
Vaibhav
Sharma
Vaibhav is a medical student and has been working with our team since 2018. Vaibhav’s research is centered around stroke, malnutrition and diagnostic accuracy.
Eric Koza
Eric is a medical student and has been working with our team since 2020. His research focus has been to investigate the prevalence and factors associated with oral anticoagulant undertreatment of atrial fibrillation among patients with stroke outcomes as well as sex disparity of care.
Shreya Bavishi, MBBS
Shreya joined our team in 2020 and her research focuses on the clinical outcomes in stroke and its association with common comorbidities. She is also pursuing her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology with a focus in Neuroscience at the Tulane University.
Johan Diaz
Johan is a medical student and has been working with our team since 2020. His research focus has been to investigate the prevalence and factors associated with oral anticoagulant undertreatment of atrial fibrillation among a cohort of rural patients with stroke outcomes.
Alireza Sadighi, MD
Dr. Sadighi has contributed to a number of studies, with focus on stroke, stroke mimic, transient ischemic attack (TIA) and diagnostic error (2017-2020).
Clare Lambert
Clare is a former professional athlete as well as medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland. Clare’s research is centered around stroke disparity. Clare joined Yale University for residency training in 2021 while contributing to the team’s research effort to improve care for stroke patients.
Michelle Anyaehie
Michelle was a research extern with the Center of Excellence at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and an active member of our team from 2020 to 2021. Michelle’s research was focused on long-term stroke outcomes in young adults.
Mohammed Bany Muhammad, PhD
Dr. Muhammad is a graduate (2020) from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Memphis. Bany’s research focuses on interpretable and optimized machine learning technology designed for clinical applications. Co-mentored by Dr. Abedi.
Remco
Hack, MD, MSc
Dr. Hack is a PhD Candidate at the Leiden University Medical Center, working on CADASIL. Dr. Hack is co-mentored by Dr. Zand.
Nathan Chaclas
Nathan joined our team during the summer of 2017 to work on EHR. During this internship Nathan learned some basic R programming and how to work with EHR data.
Meghna Verma, MS, PhD
Dr. Verma is a graduate (2019) from Virginia Tech in the Translational Biology, Medicine and Health program. Her research focuses on the development of novel computational models to improve our understanding of complex biological systems, with focus on immunology and infectious diseases. Co-mentored by Dr. Abedi. Link to Dissertation.
Oluwaseyi
Olulana
Oluwaseyi was a research extern with the Center of Excellence at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and an active member of our team from 2019 to 2021. Her research was focused on stroke and disparity. Oluwaseyi started her medical training in 2020. Follow the link to learn more about her.