Team
Our team is composed of researchers with expertise in areas like air pollution, data science, immunology, and cell research:
Dr. Kari Nadeau is one of the nation’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy and asthma. She is the Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University and is an endowed professor under the Naddisy Family Foundation. She leads a team of specialists spanning areas as diverse as allergy, asthma, and immunology; adult medicine; pediatric medicine; otolaryngology; gastroenterology; pulmonology; genetics; health research and policy, statistics, and informatics; immunity, transplant, and infectious diseases; psychology; pathology; chemical engineering; preventative medicine; and bioengineering.
Dr. Prunicki is the Director of Air Pollution and Health Research at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford. Dr Prunicki received her PhD from Northwestern University and her MD from Southern Illinois University. She leads studies which investigate the impact of air pollution and wildfires on immune health. Her goal is to use the research findings to both educate and shape policy.
Dr. Aguilera is a research scientist at Stanford University and joined the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research in 2020. His research focuses on the impact of wildfire smoke on cardiorespiratory and immune health in children, pregnant women, and firefighter cohorts. Juan obtained his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of Texas at El Paso and his MD from the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He has investigated the negative effects of traffic-related air pollutants on physical activity in children with asthma as well as the associations of traffic and transportation-related variables with cardiorespiratory biomarkers in low-income populations from a border community.
Olivia Kline
Olivia started in the Nadeau laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford as an undergraduate in 2020. She will graduate from Stanford with a BS in Biology with Honors in 2022. She assists with the smoke exposure and air pollution studies.
Youn Soo Jung
Dr. Jung joined the Nadeau laboratory at the Sean N.Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford as a Master student in October 2021. She received her bachelor’s degree in statistics and Economics from Ewha Womans University, Republic of Korea, in 2010 and completed her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Iowa in 2018. Her graduate work focuses on impact of Medicaid on vulnerable population and children. She decide to further apply epidemiological methods and studies to better improve health equity and community health. Her research interests are health and health care disparity, environmental justice and health policy. She currently working on multiple projects accessing air pollution and health outcome.
Hana Seastedt
Hana joined the Laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University in November 2021. Hana graduated from the London School of Hygiene in Tropical Medicine with a Master of Science in Public Health in 2021. Prior to that she obtained her BS degree in Public Health with a minor in Biology from Santa Clara University. Her past research experience included conducting latex agglutination tests for infectious diseases and evaluating disparities in accessing medical care in the United States and globally.
Rohan Bhowmik
Rohan Bhowmik is currently a senior at the Harker School in San Jose, California. He joined the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research of Stanford University as a research intern in Summer 2022. His research focuses on developing novel artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for wildfire prediction by analyzing trends in environmental, meteorological, and geological data with an aim to mitigate the impact of California’s devastating wildfire seasons. Rohan has been interning at Stanford since 2021. His other work included assessing respiratory disease exacerbation risks by real-time patient respiratory event monitoring via a novel spatio-temporal neural network architecture and local environmental condition tracking. He also developed a machine learning technique for automating patient facial condition assessment and surgery planning, processes which used to be completely manual. He has published papers based on his research projects in peer-reviewed journals, including IEEE Access and Electronics. He has a deep interest in physics and computer science, winning top national awards in the USA Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Junior Math, Computing, and Biology Olympiads.
Dr. Patel uses her extensive experience working for government, community organizations, and non-profits to advocate for children's health priorities in the US. She is previously the co-chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics Advocacy Committee, California Chapter 1 (AAP-CA1), co-founded the Climate and Health task force for AAP-CA1, and sits on the Executive Committee for the AAP's national Council on Environmental Health. She is the Advocacy and Policy Lead for the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research where she focuses on climate change and health. She is also the rotation director for the pediatric resident's Community Pediatrics and Child Advocacy Rotation.
Harry Allen
For over 20 years, Harry Allen has been a leader in field response to environmental pollution problems ranging from local oil spills to large-scale natural disasters. As part of this portfolio, he has worked to develop the definitive methodologies for characterizing microplastic pollution in environmental samples. Harry has lead multiple field studies in microplastic pollution and maintains a public-private network devoted to applying pollution science to microplastic detection and reduction strategies. He has a BS from Rutgers University and an MS from the University of San Francisco where he served as adjunct faculty.
Alumni:
Dr. Paudel is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford and joined the Nadeau laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research in 2019. As a computer scientist, his research focuses on developing machine learning and statistical models to solve problems that are inter-disciplinary in nature, including those from the socio-political, ecological, and biomedical sciences. He completed his PhD from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, developing new algorithms to improve recommendation diversity and algorithmic fairness. Dr. Paudel is keen on developing AI methods to investigate and mitigate the impacts of environmental and lifestyle changes on human health, particularly asthma and other inflammatory conditions that now pose significant health challenges all over the world.
Dr. Movassagh is a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University and joined the Nadeau Laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research in April 2019. His research focuses on understanding the immune mechanisms underlying the impact of air pollution on asthmatic individuals. Hesam obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Manitoba, Canada. He investigated the expression and function of a guidance cue, Semaphorin 3E, as a novel biomarker and treatment option in allergic asthmatic patients and mouse models. He works at Genentech.
Eric started in the Nadeau laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford as an undergraduate in 2017. He described the lab as an integral part of his education. After graduating Stanford with a BS in Biology with Honors, Eric started full time in the lab. He assists with air pollution studies and works with firefighters to grow the lab's smoke exposure projects. He is now pursing a medical degree at UCLA.
Stuart Cansdale
Stuart joined the Nadeau laboratory at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University in March 2021. He helps process samples in the lab and assists with wildfire and climate research. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 2020 with a BS in bioengineering.
Jacob Pedler
Jacob started at the Nadeau laboratory in the Sean N. Parker Center as an incoming freshman at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He aims to pursue a career in psychiatry or a related field.
Shifaa Suhayl Alkotob
Worked as a Post-Doctoral Scholar. She is currently a Pediatrics Resident at Indiana University.
Cade Cannedy
Worked as an Undergraduate Student. She is currently working in Data Journalism and continuing to collaborate with us through the Bill Lane Center.
Akua Nyarko-Odoom
Worked as an Undergraduate Student. Currently in Medical School at the University of Virginia.
Tim Schurz
Worked as an Undergraduate Student. Currenlty at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.