Stronger Together:

For the past two decades, Stanford Bio-X has been committed to building a diverse and inclusive community. Bio-X programs have supported faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students, and staff of diverse backgrounds. We strive to create a truly diverse community in which individuals of every gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation; socioeconomic status and geographic backgrounds; life, school, and career experiences; physical abilities; and political, religious, and personal beliefs can contribute and flourish equally. We strongly believe that diversity is essential to excellence in research, in science, technology, engineering, and medicine. We work to maximize innovation and creativity by empowering our Bio-X community and drawing from the widest range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We understand that diversity must be accompanied by equity, inclusion, and sense of belonging for all members of our community.  We are committed to learning and to supporting our community in our progress around the issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Together we can make a positive difference.
 


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Photo of a Stanford Bio-X poster session taking place.

Stanford Bio-X Communities:

 

Resources:


Stanford Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program Participants

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2018 Stanford Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program group photo.

The Stanford Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program (Bio-X USRP) began in 2006 and has provided over 700 undergraduate students with the opportunity to conduct hands-on and virtual research, build awareness of interdisciplinary areas, and network with Bio-X faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and each other. This formative experience influences their subsequent work at Stanford and beyond.

“The Bio-X program was a great way for me to start my research career [and] laid the foundation for my future research in oncology.” 
—2011 USRP Participant Julie Koenig

Our very first Stanford Bio-X USRP Participant, Allison Waters, said that the program changed her life and defined her career.

2018 Stanford Bio-X USRP Participant and 2019 Student Cohort Lead Anaïs Tsai adds: This program has provided me not only with just fundamental experiences in the lab, but also with a community that has supported my curiosity spanning across the fields of physics, developmental biology, oncology, and biomedical research.

Below are just a few success stories from Stanford Bio-X USRP alumni. Don't miss our 2022 Stanford Bio-X USRP brochure!
 

Large collage of photos of undergraduate alumni, with text listing the year they participated in the undregraduate program and the universities, companies, etc. at which they are currently successfully working.

 

Photo of 75 undergraduates standing together at Clark in matching shirts.

2013 Stanford Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program group photo.

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Stanford Bio-X PhD Fellows

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2019 Stanford Bio-X Fellows group photo.

The Stanford Bio-X Graduate Fellowship Program provides current Stanford graduate students whose research interests are interdisciplinary in nature with three years of funding support. Because Stanford Bio-X Fellows work on the cutting edge at the intersection of disciplines, their potential to generate transformative discoveries for the benefit of human health is profound.

To date, the Stanford Bio-X Fellowship program has provided 318 graduate students representing 30 different departments with awards to pursue interdisciplinary research and to collaborate with multiple mentors, enhancing their potential to generate profound transformative discoveries. Graduates of the program have transitioned to successful careers in the industry sector, co-founded start-up companies, and hold professorships at Stanford and its peer institutions.

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Dr. Lucy O'Brien and Paola Moreno-Roman.

 

2014 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Paola Moreno-Roman (pictured with her primary advisor, Dr. Lucy O'Brien) is now the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Foldscope Instruments, Inc., where she works on bringing powerful low-cost tools to communities around the world. You can hear more about her Stanford Bio-X Fellowship research in this video!

 

Headshot photo of a Latino graduate student.

Herbert Silva.

 

 

2013 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Herbert Silva now works at Johnson Space Center NASA in the Structural Engineering, Loads and Dynamics Branch. He is also the Communications Chair for the Human Systems Integration (HSI) employee resource group. Herbert has also conducted community service as part of five projects in five separate coutnries, using his engineering skills to provide communities with the basic resources to improve the quality of life and promoting community self-leadership.

 

 

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Dr. Allison Okamura and Darrel Deo.

 

2016 Mona M. Burgess Fellow, Stanford Bio-X SIGF Darrel Deo (pictured with his primary advisor, Dr. Allison Okamura) is now a postdoctoral scholar for BrainGate in the Neural Prosthetics Translation Laboratory (NPTL) directed by Dr. Krishna Shenoy and Dr. Jaimie Henderson at Stanford University. Hear more about Darrel's work in the video!

 

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Dr. Paul Bollyky and Payton Marshall.

 

 

2017 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Payton Marshall (pictured with his primary advisor, Dr. Paul Bollyky) works at the interface of immunology and chemistry to engineer cells for immune tolerance. Learn more in the video!

 

Headshot photo of an Asian graduate student.

Bo Zhang.


 

2013 Mona M. Burgess Fellow, Stanford Bio-X SIGF Bo Zhang is the VP of chemistry and cofounder of Apostle, Inc. Apostle is a biotechnology company in Sunnyvale, California, which has been accepted by the Stanford StartX accelerator. Bo is also an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology of China.

 

 

Dr. Adam de la Zerda.

 

2008 Stanford Bio-X Skippy Frank Fellow Adam de la Zerda is now an Associate Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford. Adam developed an imaging technique that provides a thousand-fold improvement in spatial resolution over conventional molecular imaging systems and has revolutionized scanning of the retina and other tissues. The de la Zerda Lab has filed 3 patents so far, and have received countless grants and awards. Hear more from Adam in this video!

 

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Johanna O'Day and Dr. Scott Delp.

 

2017 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Johanna O'Day (pictured with her primary advisor, Dr. Scott Delp) works on understanding freezing of gait in Parkinson's Disease patients. Johanna is passionate about transformative interdisciplinary research and making an impact. Hear more about her work in the video!

 

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Viviana Gradinaru.

 

 

2008 Colella Family Fellow, Stanford Bio-X SIGF Viviana Gradinaru is now a professor of neuroscience and biological engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She is also an investigator at Heritage Medical Research Institute, and the director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.

 

Headshot photo of a white female faculty member.

Gabriela Fragiadakis.



 

2013 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Gabriela Fragiadakis is now an assistant professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, and the Director of the Data Science CoLab and leads the UCSF Data Library project.

 

 

 

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Abdulmalik Obaid and Dr. Nick Melosh.


2018 Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Fellow, Stanford Bio-X SIGF Abdulmalik Obaid is now working at a stealth startup developing microelectronic devices in the Bay Area. With Dr. Nick Melosh, his Stanford Bio-X Fellowship research sought to bring together materials science and microfabrication techniques with electrophysiology to create the highest lateral density neuroprosthetic ever made, to study the mechanistic and therapeutic effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s disease. Abdul and Dr. Melosh share more in this video!

 

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Dr. Alison Marsden and Melody Dong.


 

2017 Stanford Bio-X Honorary Fellow Melody Dong (pictured with her primary advisor, Dr. Alison Marsden) uses fluid dynamics simulations to study how blood flow is affected by congenital heart defects, to work towards new treatments for children with pulmonary hypertension. Learn more in the video!

 


 

For more information on our current Fellows and a full list of our alumni, check out our 2022 Stanford Bio-X Fellowship brochure!
 

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2014 Stanford Bio-X Fellows group photo.

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Stanford Bio-X Faculty

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Photo of a Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grant Program Symposium poster session taking place.

Nearly 1,000 Stanford faculty members, and their entire labs and research groups, are affiliated with Stanford Bio-X. Stanford Bio-X empowers interdisciplinary faculty research through the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grants Program, and offers numerous other opportunities to Stanford faculty who join the Bio-X community. The Clark Center is the hub for Stanford Bio-X and also supports the laboratories of 50+ Stanford Bio-X affiliated faculty members.

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Dr. Ada Poon and Dr. H.-S. Philip Wong.

 

 

Drs. H.-S. Philip Wong (Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering) and Ada Poon (Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering) developed nanoscopic antennas with support from a Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant.

 

 

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Dr. Nidhi Bhutani and Dr. Ovijit Chaudhuri.

 

 

Drs. Nidhi Bhutani, Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Ovijit Chaudhuri, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, collaborated with support from a Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant to develop new interdisciplinary treatments for osteoathritis. Check out the video!

 

 

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Left to right: Graduate student Yuxin Liu,
Dr. Zhenan Bao, Dr. Bianxiao Cui, and Bio-X
Bowes Fellow Allister McGuire.

 

Drs. Zhenan Bao, the K. K. Lee Professor in the School of Engineering and Bianxiao Cui, the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of Chemistry, with Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow Allister McGuire and graduate student Yuxin Liu collaborated with support from a Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant. The team developed a soft, thin, flexible electrode to study heart cells.

 

 

 Black male faculty member, Black female faculty member, and white male faculty member.

Left to right: Drs. William Tarpeh, Laura Dassama, and
James Swartz.

 


A Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant supports a collaboration between Drs. William Tarpeh, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Laura Dassama, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and James Swartz, the James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Bioengineering. They aim to have global impact by reimagining the nitrogen cycle, which has been drastically altered by industrial fertilizer production and inadequate wastewater treatment.

 

 

 

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Dr. Polly Fordyce and Dr. Martha Cyert.

 

A Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant helped Drs. Polly Fordyce, Assistant Professor of Genetics and Bioengineering and Co-Director of the Stanford Microfluidics Foundry, and Martha Cyert, the Dr. Nancy Chang Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology, to launch a new interdisciplinary research technique called MRBLE-pep that allows researchers to measure hundreds of protein-protein interactions in the time and with the materials typically required to measure one. Check out the video to learn more!

 

 

Still photo of white male faculty member and two South Asian male faculty members standing together in the Clark Center Courtyard.

Left to right: Dr. Jaimie Henderson, Dr.
Krishna Shenoy, and Dr. Paul Nuyujukian.

 

A Stanford Bio-X Seed Grant has supported Drs. Paul Nuyujukian, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and of Neurosurgery, Jaimie Henderson, the John and Jene Blume - Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor and Professor of Neurosurgery, and Krishna Shenoy, the Hong Seh and Vivian W. M. Lim Professor in the School of Engineering to make strides towards predicting seizures using intracortical brain-machine interfaces.

 

 

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Dr. Tirin Moore.

 


Stanford Bio-X affiliated faculty member Tirin Moore, whose lab resides at the Clark Center, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences in 2021. Dr. Moore also received the 2021 NAS Pradel Research Award.

 

 

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Dr. Fan Yang.

 


Dr. Fan Yang works at the interface of materials science, biology, engineering, and medicine. Dr. Yang has received support from Stanford Bio-X in the form of Seed Grants, PhD Fellows, and undergraduate summer research program participants, and shares her thoughts on the power of the Stanford Bio-X community as a catalyst. Check out the video!

 

 

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Dr. Kristy Red-Horse.

 


Stanford Bio-X affiliated faculty member Kristy Red-Horse, whose lab resides at the Clark Center, studies how coronary vessels of the heart develop during embryogenesis and how they regenerate following cardiac injury. Dr. Red-Horse's goal is to discover novel developmental mechanisms while contributing knowledge towards the advancement of clinical treatments for cardiovascular disease.

 

 

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Dr. Peter Santa Maria.

 


Dr. Peter Santa Maria, a Stanford surgeon-scientist in otolaryngology and the associate director of SPARK's therapeutic translational program, shares his thoughts on how the Stanford Bio-X community has helped to unite researchers and clinicians. Check out the video!

 

 

 

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Photo of a Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grant Program Symposium poster session taking place.

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Stanford Resources:

 

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Photo of 2019 Stanford Bio-X Undergraduate
Summer Research Program participant
Marlon Washington.

  • Stanford Biosciences Diversity Programs
    • Stanford ADVANCE Summer Institute - ADVANCE is an eight-week summer transition program designed to give incoming graduate students early exposure to research in their Biosciences Home Program over the summer. Participants attend workshops that acclimate them to Stanford University and develop academic, professional, and leadership skills.
    • Student Outreach to Alumni Resources (SOAR) Mentor Program - The mission of the SOAR Mentor Program is to foster mentorship opportunities across the Stanford Biosciences community. This comprehensive mentoring program exposes students and postdocs to a breadth of career options and pathways, promoting greater community and collaboration with faculty and alumni.
    • Solidarity, Leadership, Inclusion, Diversity (SoLID) Mentorship Program - The SoLID Mentorship Program connects graduate students with faculty who can provide additional mentorship to guide and support students on issues that may be largely outside of their research, such as mental health and wellness, academic activism, microaggressions, impostor syndrome, among others.
Photo of a male graduate student wearing a turban and working with laboratory equipment, holding up a sample.

Photo of 2018 Stanford Bio-X Bowes Fellow
Gunsagar Gulati.

Photo of South Asian graduate student working next to a microscope, wearing proper PPE and smiling at the camera.

Photo of 2019 Stanford Interdisciplinary
Graduate Fellow (Anonymous Donor) and
Stanford Bio-X SIGF Pranav Vyas.

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Photo of 2016 Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie
Fellow and Stanford Bio-X SIGF Elaine Ng.

 

External Resources:

 

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