Projects

First Author Papers: CRISP: Correlation-Refined Image Segmentation Process. Glucokinase activity controls subpopulations of lower case Greek beta-cells that alternately lead islet Ca2+ oscillations Personalizing the Pressure Reactivity Index for Neurocritical Care Decision Support β-cell intrinsic dynamics rather than gap junction structure dictates subpopulations in the islet functional network Commentary- Going With the Flow: Pericyte-Regulated Islet Blood Flow Influences Glucose Homeostasis Integration of Clinical, Biological, and Computational Perspectives to Support Cerebral Autoregulatory Informed Clinical Decision Making: Decomposing Cerebral Autoregulation using Mechanistic Timescales...

My research interests involve using computational methods from dynamical systems theory, complexity science, and machine learning to explain new physiological phenomena, advance biomedicine, and provide predictive capabilities that can change human health through better clinical decision-making. I am particularly interested in all things related to vasculature. Complexity theory involves the study of systems whose components interact non-linearly and at many different scales. Nearly all physiological systems can be conceptualized through a complex systems framework....

We have derived a novel model of cerebral hemodynamics that includes the action of mechanisms driving cerebral vascular tone regulation. We embedd this model into a data assimilation and neural ODE framework to estimate personalized hemodynamical models. Using these personalized models, we can forecast cerebral blood flow and estimate functionality of physiology underlying vascular regulation.

Neurocritical care patients may benefit from personalized treatment based on their cerebral autoregulatory function. The pressure reactivity index is an important, prevalent metric used to estimate the state of a patient’s cerebral autoregulation and guide clinical decision-making. However, the pressure reactivity index is highly sensitive to hyperparameter choices and intrapatient variability. In this manuscript, we develop a new personalized pressure reactivity index methodology (pPRx) that increases robustness and reduces the noise of the pressure reactivity index calculation....

Highly heterogeneous beta-cells within the islet are electrically coupled to synchronize their oscillations and secrete insulin in a pulsatile fashion. This pulsatility is disrupted in diabetes. Studying synchronization of calcium oscillations, previous work has suggested that highly synchronized cells have disproportionate influence over the islet and are targeted in diabetes. In this paper, we use network theory to disprove the common assumption that synchronization directly indicates structural connectivity and show that other factors must be taken into account when utilizing network theory to study network breakdown....

We are interested in analyzing cerebral autoregulation from a dyanmical systems perspective. Therefore, we are constructing a literature review of cerebral autoregulation metrics and physiologic mechanisms from a timescales perspective. See our preprint below. This review is being significantly reorganized. We appreciate any constructive feedback. Read our paper here! Adequate brain perfusion is required for proper brain function and life. Maintaining optimal brain perfusion to avoid secondary brain injury is one of the main concerns of neurocritical care....

Spatial patterns of immunity across a population are structured both by natural processes, such as evolutionary history and past epidemics, and by artificial processes, such as vaccination. The diversity of immune types in a population is known to influence pathogen evolution and epidemic dynamics: populations with many immune types are often more robust to epidemics, since a pathogen cannot widely circulate until it evolves the ability to evade many of the established immune types....

Blood flow regulation throughout the islet is an understudied yet highly important topic for blood hormone regulation. Blood flow regulation has been shown to be impaired at both the capillary and arteriole level. We use experimental results from both mouse and human islets to identify the thresholds for which capillary and arteriole regulation become more essential in defining islet blood flow. Read a pertinent commentary that I had the pleasure of authoring