Speaker: Heather Selby, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, General and Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “Predicting Complete Response To Chemoradiotherapy For The Safe Non-Operative Management Of Patients With Rectal Cancer Using An MRI Radiomic Model”
Bio: Heather Selby is a postdoctoral scholar at the S-SPIRE Center in the Stanford Department of Surgery. She is advised by Dr. Arden Morris, Dr. Todd Wagner, Dr. Sandy Napel, and Dr. Vipul Sheth. Her research focus is building MRI-based AI models to identify patients with locally advanced cancer patients who achieve a clinical complete response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy to spare them from surgery and its associated risks.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu
Speaker: Alexa Pohl, MD, PhD, PD Resident, General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “How Should We Measure Patient Transportation Insecurity?”
Bio: Social context creates disparities in cancer care across broad domains: in screening, time to start of treatment, timely receipt of appropriate neoadjuvant, surgical, and adjuvant therapies, and in receipt of surveillance for survivors. Pragmatic, patient-centered research on the root causes of disparities – and rigorous evaluation of policies and programs to address these causes – is needed to reduce preventable cancer mortality. My longstanding interest in health-related disparities and patient-centered research arose while completing my PhD on sex-differential autism risk at the University of Cambridge. I grew uncomfortable with the fact that my research relied on the time and commitment of participants but would never improve their lives directly. As a result, I developed a community-based participatory research study on the experiences of autistic mothers, which received pilot funding from the UK’s National Institute of Healthcare Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care East of England. For me, the natural next step was medical school, where I was surprised to find an intellectual home in surgery. The introspective and self-critiquing nature of the specialty resonated with my desire to ask pragmatic, outcome-focused questions as a researcher and my clinical desire to make a tangible improvement in patients’ lives. Ultimately, I aim to be a practicing surgeon with a productive research program on patient-centered outcomes and the effective and equitable delivery of high-quality oncologic surgical care.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu
Canceled due to mandatory winter closure.
Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a Work-In-Progress session (WIP) for faculty members and trainees to present their research and receive feedback on projects in every phase of development—from drafting specific aims pages, to parsing grant review committee comments, to abstracts/papers/methods in preparation.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu
Speaker and talk: TBD
Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a Work-In-Progress session (WIP) for faculty members and trainees to present their research and receive feedback on projects in every phase of development—from drafting specific aims pages, to parsing grant review committee comments, to abstracts/papers/methods in preparation.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu
Speaker: Albaraa Basfar, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, General and Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University.
Talk Title: “Underrepresented Minority Students’ Sense of Belonging in Medical School: How Does Mentorship Matter?”
Bio: Albaraa Basfar Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the S-SPIRE Center at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation from Ohio University in 2023. His research interests include program evaluation, research methodology, and education.
Dr. Basfar has a strong quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research background. He has experience in managing programs, conducting research, and analyzing data. He is also proficient in using SAS, R, SPSS, and Python.
Prior to joining the S-SPIRE Center, Dr. Basfar was a Research Analyst at Pensacola State College. In this role, he was responsible for compiling, arranging, and presenting data reports for several communities and college departments. He also created and analyzed surveys, Tableau visual dashboards, and conducted data research related to grants and accreditations.
Dr. Basfar is passionate about using research to improve education and positively impact students’ lives. He is excited to continue his research at S-SPIRE and contribute to the field of Pipeline Programs.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu
Speaker: Charlotte Mary Rajasingh, MD, General Surgery Resident, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “Psychiatric Disease is Associated with Perception of Rectal Prolapse Severity”
Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a Work-In-Progress session (WIP) for faculty members and trainees to present their research and receive feedback on projects in every phase of development—from drafting specific aims pages, to parsing grant review committee comments, to abstracts/papers/methods in preparation.
Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu