Staff

Rani has joined Ashley lab as a researcher and lab manager. She finished her MPhil in Analytical chemistry from Gwalior, India. She has done MS in Biochemistry from CUNY. She will be working on variant mapping of MYH7 gene in human and understanding its effect in cardiac disease. In her spare time Rani loves to travel, read, and cook.

Brianna is a Clinical Research Coordinator for the ELITE study. She graduated from Williams College in 2021, where she studied Biology and Mathematics and competed on the cross country and track teams. Beyond enjoying running herself, she is interested in understanding the genetics of endurance athletes.

Alexis is a dedicated Life Science Research Professional at Ashley Lab. Originally from France, he earned his bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and later completed his Master’s in Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies and Innovative Therapies. In July 2022, Alexis made the exciting move to the Bay Area.

With six years of experience in various roles, including Lab Technician, Bioprocess Engineer, and Project Training Team Member in leading biotech companies, Alexis brings a wealth of expertise to his current role at Stanford. In the lab, he is actively engaged in sequencing and analyzing samples from diverse projects and cohorts (such as Alzheimer’s disease or iPSc sample). Additionally, Alexis contributes to single-cell imaging projects and plays a role in overall lab management.

Beyond his professional pursuits, Alexis embraces an active lifestyle. He enjoys biking in Marin and bouldering with friends, exploring hiking trails with his wife, and capturing moments through his photography hobby.

Brooke is the Ashley Lab Administrative Associate and handles the Visiting Appointments in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. She graduated from San José State University with her Bachelor’s in Speech-Language Pathology, and is working towards attending Graduate school. In her free time, she likes to play with her puppy, Louey!

John is a veterinary scientist who is interested in the genetics of cardiomyopathy in non-human primates and long read sequencing technologies. John studied Biology as an undergraduate, and continued to veterinary school, where he began researching a family of chimpanzees with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. After graduating from veterinary school, John practiced as a mixed animal surgeon in Wales, treating many species including; horses, cows, sheep, dogs, and cats. While in practice, John always found himself thinking about how his previous non-human primate research could benefit from new sequencing technologies. This led him to apply to graduate school and John joined the Ashley lab in 2016 as a PhD student. During his PhD studies, John focused on two projects, 1. Identifying genetic determinants of cardiovascular disease in the great ape species (Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Orangutans), and 2. Developing an ultra-rapid nanopore whole genome diagnostic test for critically ill patients. John graduated in 2021, and remains working in the lab as a researcher.

Yong Huang is a research professional at Ashley Lab. She received her MD from Shandong University School of Medicine in China, where she spent many years as a researcher and lecturer in human parasitology. She was a visiting scholar at Jikei University School of Medicine in Japan, and has been at Stanford since 2001 working on human gene therapy and now cardiovascular diseases. She is also a core member in the UDN team deriving iPSC from patient samples. An enthusiastic yogi, she also enjoys healthy cooking and outdoor activities.

Hannah Ison is a genetic counselor at the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. She received her Master’s in Medical and Molecular Genetics from Indiana University, and returned home to California to begin her career as a genetic counselor. Her primary clinical interest include working with patients who have Familial Hypercholesterolemia in both the adult and pediatric setting. Additionally, she is assisting with the development of the Cardiogenomics program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital where she provides inpatient and outpatient genetic counseling to patients with congenital heart defects. Her research interests include determining barriers to identification and treatment of individuals with FH, as well understanding the genetic underpinnings of congenital heart disease. In her spare time she searches for all of the good eats in town and spends time with friends and family.

Anders works as a clinical research coordinator for the ELITE study in addition to managing the day to day operations of My Heart Counts. He has loved working on these projects because he gets to look the at health of the fittest in the world while trying to increase health on a wide scale for the most sedentary portion of the population. Outside or working in the Ashley Lab, you’ll find Anders training or racing on his bike, often for Team USA.

Mia is a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Molecular Transducers of Exercise in Heart Failure (MoTrX-HF) study and Program Manager for the Undiagnosed Disease Network and Bioinformatics Center of the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC). She joined the Ashley Lab in November 2023. She is especially interested in exploring biomolecular responses to exercise and the effects of physical activity on the cardiovascular system. Mia is majoring in Health Sciences at Northeastern University with a special interest in physical activity and nutrition. As a Boston native, Mia enjoys terrible iced coffee and the wonderfully mild winter of Palo Alto in her free time.

Tia is the on-call cardiovascular genetic counselor for the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. She is a native of Toronto, Canada and moved to the Bay Area to attend Stanford’s Masters in Human Genetics and Genetic Counseling. Tia is an active member of NSGC’s Student/New Member SIG and the Cardiovascular Genetics SIG. At Stanford she lectures in the genetic counseling program and supervises students’ clinical rotations. Her research interests include the development, implementation and evaluation of new genetic counseling service delivery models. Tia spends most of her free time in the dance studio, hiking, camping and wine tasting.

Mitchel Pariani is a genetic counselor at the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. He is a native of the East Bay and earned his BS in 2005 from UC Davis in Genetics and his MS in 2007 from CSU, Northridge in Genetic Counseling. He was a genetic counselor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles before returning home to the Bay Area in 2014. At Stanford he co-teaches the Cardiovascular Genetics course in the genetic counselling program and his research interests include hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, familial hypercholesterolemia and aortopathies. Outside of Stanford Mitchel spends time hiking, skiing, and can be found in the mountains driving, then repairing his classic Ford Mustang.

Archana is a computational biologist at the Bioinformatics Center of the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC). Her work primarily focuses on implementing some of the genomics pipelines at the BIC. She is originally from Tamil Nadu, India and received her MS in Bioinformatics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In the past she has worked in different research labs with goals from sequencing plants that support human health to finding possible leads/cures for genetic disorders (Autism and Epilepsy). In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her kid, traveling and hiking.

Mihir Samdarshi is a Bioinformatics Engineer primarily working on the MoTrPAC project. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology, with a minor in Computer Science, from Loyola Marymount University. Mihir joined the lab after a stint launching the Data Science/Engineering team at Beyond Meat. Mihir’s research interest is in developing novel visualizations and high-throughput computational methods in the “multi-omics” space of biomedical sciences. In particular, Mihir is interested in leveraging and popularizing technologies that have been well-established in the software industry, but that have not yet broken through to the computational biosciences, such as cloud computing and the Rust programming language. In his spare time Mihir likes to spend time outdoors, play video games (Factorio, Civilization, and Borderlands are his favorites), as well as tinker with hardware and electronics.

Alex is a Clinical Research Coordinator working under The ELITE Study and Cardiovascular Medicine. He is passionate about the many intersections of health and technology. Specifically, how precision health and wearable technology can transform our world to promote better health across all populations. In 2021, he graduated with his B.S. in Kinesiology from Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo. Outside of the lab, Alex enjoys spending his time running and surfing.

Hannah Wand is a genetic counselor at the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. She is originally from Pennsylvania and received her MS in genetic counseling from the Johns Hopkins/National Human Genome Research Institute program. She is Stanford’s ClinGen program coordinator and has a dual affiliation in the Bustamante lab. Her research primarily cost effective implementation of genomic medicine and utilization of genetic results, especially in changing health behaviors. Her primary clinical and research focus is Familial Hypercholesterolemia. In her free time, she enjoys travelling, dancing, and finding new hobbies to try.

Jay Yu is a developer working on developing a search engine application for the MOTRPAC project. Prior to joining the Ashley lab, he was a research developer in CSLI (part of Stanford HAI) developing AI based technologies to analyze and understand the data generated from students’ activities, which helped both the educators and students to teach and learn better. In his free time, he enjoys music, travel, and new things to learn.

Jimmy is a full stack software programmer with extensive experience in UI design and frontend development. He previously worked on the design and development of the software interfaces for curating clinically relevant genes and variants for the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) initiative. Prior to joining the ClinGen team at Stanford University in January 2016, he was a software developer at HighWire Press, a digital scholarly journal publishing platform that was founded by Stanford University Libraries and later became an independent company.