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.

Kaiser is the bioinformatics lead of the CardioVar project. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from The University of Edinburgh in 2022, her passion in precision medicine and expertise in building end-to-end computational workflows led her to join the lab. She is particularly interested in designing scalable pipelines that leverages AI to detect novel variants and predict their pathogenicity with clinical relevance, specifically in inherited cardiomyopathies. When she’s not deep in her laptop coding, Kaiser is either camped out at a yoga studio, spoiling her (slightly chunky cat) Sameen, or off traveling somewhere!

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.

Katie is a Life Science Research Professional currently working on next-generation gene therapy vectors and base editors. She is passionate about precision medicine and how small changes at the substructural level can lead to novel therapies. In 2025, she graduated with her B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California Berkeley. Outside of the lab, Katie enjoys spending her time hiking, running, and going to the beach.

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!

Sasha Gladkikh is a biomedical informatics researcher with the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC), where she investigates multi-omics cardiac adaptations to endurance training. She earned her B.S. in Computational and Systems Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and plans to pursue an MD/PhD. Outside the lab, she enjoys playing tennis and golf and following Formula 1 racing.

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.

Crystal joined the Ashley lab as a Bioinformatics Engineer working on the MoTrPAC project. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles and master’s in Bioinformatics from San José State University. Her professional work spans computational biology, data science, and software development. In her free time, Crystal enjoys listening to music, watching shows, and playing the piano.

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 received her BS 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.

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.

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.