Faculty

Frank Willett is co-director of the Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory. Our group develops brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to restore movement and communication to people with neurological disorders. Recent contributions include handwriting and speech-based BCIs that set new records for communication speed and accuracy in people with paralysis. More broadly, we are interested in computational approaches to understanding brain function and recordings, with a focus on how the human brain represents movement and language.

I lead the Laboratory for Computation & Language in Minds & Brains (CLiMB Lab). We try to figure out how our brains let us go so efficiently from sensation (e.g., speech, reading) to meaning, and we do this using a combination of neuroimaging, computer modeling, and behavioral experiments. See the lab website for details.

Dr. Xiaojie Qiu is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Genetics, the BASE program, and the Department of Computer Science at Stanford. Xiaojie’s Ph.D. work at University of Washington with Dr. Cole Trapnell made critical contributions to the field of single-cell genomics, exemplified by the development of Monocle ⅔ (monocle 2 & monocle 3) for pseudotemporal trajectory analysis of scRNA-seq data. In his post-doc at Whitehead Institute and MIT with Dr.

Rongxin received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at UC San Diego, where he was mentored by Bing Ren (2015-2019). During this time, he developed high-throughput genomic technologies and computational tools to map the structure and activity of the mammalian genome at a large scale with single-cell resolution. He then applied these approaches to understand how cis-regulatory elements such as enhancers in the genome control gene expression and how this process can give rise to the distinct gene expression programs that underlie the cellular diversity in the mammalian brain.

I am a physician-scientist in the Division of Gastroenterology at Stanford University. My clinical and research interest has been in neurogastroenterology. Specifically, my research has been exploring the interplay between immune cells and the enteric nervous system, and evaluating how perturbations of this interaction as a result of aging disrupts gastrointestinal neuromuscular function. Ultimately, my hope is that insights from this research provide novel therapies for treating patients with motility disorders like constipation and irritable bowel syndrome.

Dr. Sellers is a pediatric physician-scientist and research and clinical development consultant. As a pediatric gastroenterologist and ion channel physiologist, Dr. Sellers' work in academia and pharma over the last 20 years has focused on improving the lives of individuals with complex and rare diseases through providing cutting-edge clinical care and advancing research and drug development. Dr. Sellers previously led a basic and translational research laboratory at Stanford, focused on epithelial ion transport and acid-base regulation using a variety of human and animal models.