Past Scholars

Project title: Early Structural and Functional Motor Trajectories in Preterm Infants

Colleen Peyton, DPT is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Science and in the Department of Pediatrics. She received her DPT from MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston and obtained her post-graduate specialty certification in Pediatric Physical Therapy. Dr. Peyton’s research project focuses on the development of spontaneous movement behaviors in infants born very preterm with and without brain injury. She is also interested in exploring how these early movement behaviors are related to myelination of motor pathways in brain. Her long-term research goal is to develop early and targeted treatments for infants with cerebral palsy.

Project title: Structural Brain Network Properties of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Across Dementias

Lisanne Jenkins, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in Feinberg School of Medicine. She received her PhD in 2013 from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests are in the domain of affective neuroscience, and she uses neuroimaging to identify biomarkers of psychiatric symptoms in neurological and psychiatric populations. Her current project involves creating structural connectomes of functional brain networks to identify properties associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms across behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. The results of her study will inform treatments for these symptoms which are highly distressing to patients and caregivers and extremely difficult to treat, to improve quality of life.

Project title: The Utilization of Monocyte Transcriptional Profiles to Classify Systemic Sclerosis Disease State

Hadijat Makinde, Ph.D. is a Research Assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. training from Rush University Graduate College in 2015 and completed her postdoctoral training at Northwestern University Department of Surgery. Dr. Makinde’s current research aims to addresses the impact of monocytes and macrophages in scleroderma, an autoimmune disorder that affects the skin and internal organs. Her long-term research goal is to utilize computational models to develop a precision medicine approach for the patients who suffer from the disease.

Project title: Characterization of the Skin Microbiome in Cutaneous T Cell Lymphoma

Alan Zhou, MD is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He received his MD from Duke University, completed his dermatology residency at University of Miami / Jackson Memorial Hospital, and a T32 post-doctoral fellowship in cutaneous oncology at Northwestern. Dr. Zhou specializes in cutaneous lymphoma and complex medical dermatology and his research project aims to characterize the microbiome of cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCL). His project focuses on understanding the microbial profiles of CTCL and its subtypes and how they shift with standard treatments such as narrowband UVB therapy. He is also investigating demographic, lifestyle, and environmental risk factors for CTCL and skin proteomic changes in the disease. These data will be examined in association with microbiome data. Ultimately, Dr. Zhou’s goal is to understand the role of the microbiome in CTCL progression or response to therapy and develop new ways to better diagnose and treat skin lymphomas.

Carol Haywood, PhD, OTR/L, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences with an affiliation in the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research. She completed her PhD in 2018 at the University of Southern California Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, and she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Integrated Fellowship in Health Services and Outcomes Research at Northwestern University until 2021. Dr. Haywood has expertise in qualitative research methods, and she is committed to advancing health equity and quality of life for people with disabilities through her work. Dr. Haywood’s current research aims to identify factors that affect ability and satisfaction with participation in health care for people with mobility impairments. The results will inform an item bank for development of a patient-reported measure of participation in health care for people with mobility impairments, which can be implemented in a variety of settings to examine access and quality of care.

Lajja Desai, MD, is an Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics (Division of Cardiology) and Invasive Pediatric Electrophysiologist at Lurie Children’s. She received her undergraduate degree in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and medical degree from the University of Iowa. She then completed her residency training in Pediatrics at Emory University/Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and completed her fellowships in Pediatric Cardiology and Electrophysiology at Northwestern University/Lurie Children’s. Her broad research goal is to merge the engineering and pediatric cardiac fields to create novel solutions that improve the quality of patient care. Her current research project focuses on developing a non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tool to evaluate oximetry and 4D flow in single ventricle heart disease. Long-term, she aims to leverage her clinical role as an interventional cardiologist to be at the forefront of developing and implementing pioneering diagnostic MRI tools that guide interventional approaches.

Amanda Becker, MD is an Assistant Professor and physician-scientist at Northwestern University in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Critical Care Medicine. She received her medical degree from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency training at the University of Wisconsin. She subsequently completed her fellowship in pediatric critical care medicine followed by a two-year research fellowship at Northwestern University. Broadly, Dr. Becker’s scientific pursuits focus on advancing understanding of age-related differences in innate immune responses to tissue injury and organ dysfunction during critical illness, with a specific interest in cardiac injury and recovery. She also seeks to identify novel therapeutic targets to improve tissue and organ recovery during critical illness. Her current research project investigates the neonatal mammalian myeloid response to hypoxia and the role of myeloid hypoxia inducible transcription factors in cardiac regeneration after cardiac injury. Her project also seeks to determine whether myeloid hypoxia-stimulated regenerative mechanisms exist in human neonates/infants and are lost with age. Dr. Becker’s research will help uncover age-related differences in immune mediated regenerative versus reparative responses to cardiac injury and may identify novel therapeutic targets to improve cardiac tissue recovery and myocardial function after injury.