DAVID S. HONG, M.D.
Dr. Hong earned his BA in history at Yale University and his MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his clinical training in adult, child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he also served as a chief fellow. Dr. Hong serves on the editorial board for the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and has received recognition for his research through several awards and fellowships, including support from R01 and K23 grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, Children’s Health Research Institute, AACAP, APIRE/Lilly Psychiatric Research Fellowship from the American Psychiatric Association, among others. Dr. Hong is also the Associate Director of Clinical Neuroscience in the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research (CIBSR), a large multidisciplinary research center focused on providing explanatory models for complex relationships between the brain, genes, cognition and behavior. In this capacity, Dr. Hong also is co-director of the Executive Function Clinic and the Neuroendocrine and Sex Chromosome Aneuploidy Clinic at Stanford, leading an interdisciplinary treatment team focused on the evaluation of cognitive and behavioral functions across the lifespan and spanning diagnostic categories, including ADHD and learning disorders. Much of Dr. Hong’s clinical and research initiatives focus on translating mechanistic aspects of cognition, behavior and biological variables such as sex, genetics and hormonal factors, to better understand clinical outcomes in children and adolescents.
MAUREEN GIL, B.S.
Maureen Gil is the Clinical Research Coordinator at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research for the PANDA Study. She earned her B.S. in Psychology with an emphasis in Biology from University of California, Davis. After graduating, she focused her time working on longitudinal research studies such as the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) Study. She has also been involved in sleep and physiologically based studies with adults. Previous research experience includes neurology clinical trial research with traumatic brain injuries, as well as adolescent sleep studies with the use of electroencephalograms to explore NREM/REM in daytime sleepiness. Her current interests lie at the intersection of clinical research, cognition and neuropsychology. She is excited to work on the PANDA Study investigating the sex hormones effects on puberty and neurodevelopment in adolescence!
ILIANA KARIPIDIS, PH.D., M.SC.
Iliana holds a MSc in Psychology and received her PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. During her studies, she was involved in longitudinal studies that applied non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, such as MRI, in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is now a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford School of Medicine and much of her work is focused on investigating neurobiological mechanisms that underlie learning disabilities in sex chromosome aneuploidies. She is interested in learning disabilities, brain development, puberty, social cognition, sex differences, and gender identity.
Lab Alumni
SHARON BADE SHRESTHA, B.A.
Sharon started at CIBSR in the winter of 2010, first as an undergraduate researcher, then a neuroimaging research assistant and data analyst. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Stanford University where she studied Psychology and Human Biology. Throughout her time at CIBSR, she has contributed to adolescent brain development studies exploring social attachment, cooperation, creativity, sex chromosome aneuploidies, and now gender identity. Professionally, Sharon is passionate about intuitive database interfacing, reproducible pipeline development and organization, along with digestible data representation and visualization. Holistically, she is driven by environmental sustainability, inclusion and accessibility, and social justice through the lens of intersectionality.
CHRISTIAN RODRIGO UGAZ VALENCIA, B.A.
Christian attended Saint Peter’s University where he studied Biochemistry and Latinx Studies. His Honors Thesis and much of his undergraduate work focused on the well being of undocumented immigrants. After graduating in 2016, he worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator in the Department of Population Health and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is now a first-year medical student at Stanford School of Medicine and is involved with the PANDA Study and neuro-oncology research. He is interested in Psychiatry, Neurology, queer health, and immune based therapies for brain cancer.
Rachel Weiler, M.S., M.SC.
Rachel Weiler is a native of Oakland, CA. She earned her BA in history at Brown University, her MSc in political communications at the London School of Economics, and her MS in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Program. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Program. She has trained as a psychotherapy provider at the Sexual and Gender Identity Clinic of the Gronowski Center; the Stanford School of Medicine’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) outpatient program; and the Palo Alto VA’s Spinal Cord Injury and Disease outpatient clinic. Her clinical interests include LGBTQ mental health, emotion regulation, and health psychology. Her research interests include real-world effectiveness of evidence-based treatments; suicide prevention; and mental health provider burnout. Prior to beginning her doctoral program, she worked as a pollster and campaign manager in Bay Area electoral politics. She also enjoys rock climbing, cooking, and audiobooks.
SAMANTHA SIMS, B.A.
Samantha earned her BA in Psychology and Sociology at Boston University in 2016. Since graduating she has worked as a research assistant in Australia at both Curtin University and the University of Western Australia studying adolescent resilience and healthy aging. She is now a student at the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium and hopes to continue pursuing her interests in mental health treatment for adolescents and marginalized communities.
REBECCA GOODMAN, B.A.
Rebecca Goodman is currently a third-year graduate student in the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium program. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied psychology and American history. She engaged in research there focusing on social psychology and the study of human emotion. Before entering graduate school, she spent a year assisting with research at Stanford University focused on biomarkers and neuroimaging to determine appropriate treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. In graduate school, Rebecca’s training experiences have been focused on neuropsychological assessment and therapeutic intervention for children and adolescents. She is excited to now be a part of the PANDA study team!
Robyn RADECKI
Bobby Radecki is a third-year undergraduate student at Stanford University studying Human Biology. Bobby’s extracurricular interests pertain to queer and trans rights, education, and empowerment; similarly, her academic interests lie at the intersection of queer and trans health and development, particularly in pediatric populations. She hopes to contribute to greater understanding and awareness of queer and trans health, particularly how hormone therapy affects the body and brain in the long-term and how other innovations in medicine - stem cell, transplant, and genetic advances - can improve future treatments. She loves being involved with the PANDA study as it directly fulfills her passions! As a trans person herself, she hopes to go to medical school and make changes from the inside out. Outside of school, Bobby likes hiking, vegan cooking, building Legos, and watching anime.