About Us
The Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic is a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and engineers whose mission is to seamlessly integrate patient care, clinical investigation and fundamental technology research with applications in dermatology, oncology, hematology and other specialties.
The VDTRC has several openings to join the our team. Interested candidates, please see the Open Positions page for more information.
Director
Eric Tkaczyk, MD, PhD
Director, Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic
Associate Professor of Dermatology, Vanderbilt Univeristy Medical Center
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt
Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Tartu, Estonia
Faculty
Inga Saknite, PhD
Adjoint Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Dermatology Translational Research Clinic
Senior Researcher at the University of Latvia
Postdoctoral Fellow
Andrew McNeil, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Role on Team:
Medical image computing
Deep learning for medical image segmentation and biomarker discovery
Research Assistants
Madeline Marks, B.S.
Clinical Research Coordinator
- Protocol development and implementation
Tyra Silaphet, B.S.
Research Assistant
- Mpox data management and image analysis
Rachel Weiss, B.S.
Research Assistant
Medical Students and Residents
Sage Iwamoto
Medical Student
- Noninvasive cutaneous imaging with reflectance confocal microscopy and line-field confocal optical coherence tomography
Katie O'Connell, MD
Dermatology Resident
- Biomechanical properties of skin, rheum-derm and oncoderm mechanical device application
Dhruv Patel
Medical Student
- Identification of adherent and rolling leukocytes in reflectance confocal microscopy
Hayden Smith
Medical Student
- Dynamic indentation of skin analysis, biomechanical properties of skin
Michael Pogharian
Postbac Research Volunteer
- Deidentification of sensitive patient photos
Graduate Student
Bohan Jiang, B.S.
Research Assistant
- Medical image processing and analysis with deep learning
Undergraduate Student
Juan Alvarez
Undergraduate Student
Role on Team:
De-identification of medical photographs
Alumni
Name |
Role at VDTRC |
Next Position |
| Sahil Patel | Undergraduate Student, Neuroscience and Philosophy Biomechanical properties of the skin (2020 - 2024) |
|
| Shramana Ghosh, PhD | Postdoctoral Research Fellow Mechanical device design Characterization of viscoelastic and biomechanical parameters of biomaterials (2020 - 2024) |
Senior Research Scientist Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
| Siddharth Shah | Undergraduate Student, Computer Science Ultrasound image segmentation, core scripts (2021 - 2023) |
|
| Shinwho Kwun | Undergraduate Student Spectral imaging, patient home photography, protocol development and implementation (2020 - 2023) |
|
| Austin Cronin, BS | Research Assistant/Engineer (2019 - 2022) | Biomedical Engineering PhD Student Purdue University |
| Adam Hetzler, MD, PhD | Medical Student (2021 - 2022) | Dermatology Residency Geisinger |
| Walker House | Medical Student (2021 - 2022) | Medical Student University of Louisville |
| Alina Zufall, MD | Patient home photography, selfies (2021 - 2022) | Dermatology Residency New York Medical College |
| Xiaoqi Liu, PhD | Post Doctoral Research Fellow (2019 - 2021) | Seminary at Los Angeles |
| Laura X Baker (née Wang), MD | Medical Student (2018-2021) | Dermatology Residency UCSF |
| Zijun Zhao, MD | Medical Student (2019-2021) | Medicine Residency Santa Clara Medical |
| Randall Patrinely, MD | Medical Student (2019-2021) | Dermatology Residency Vanderbilt University |
| Kelsey Parks, MD | Medical Student (2019-2020) | Dermatology Residency Vanderbilt University |
| Yvette Ssempijja, MD | Medical Student (2019-2020) | Dermatology Residency University of Washington |
| Zain Khera, BA | Student Worker (2019-2020) Research Analyst I (2020) |
Medical Student New York University |
| Tahsin Reasat, MS | Graduate Student (2017 - 2019) | Computer Science PhD Student Vanderbilt University |
| Jianing Wang, PhD | Graduate Student (2017 - 2019) | Senior Research Scientist Siemens Healthineers |
| Fuyao (Joanna) Chen, BS | Research Assistant/Engineer (2017-2019) | MD/PhD Student Yale University |
| Laura Dellalana, MD | Medical Student (2017-2018) | Dermatology Residency Vanderbilt University |
| Jocelyn Gandelman, MD | Medical Student (2017-2019) | Dermatology Residency UCSF |
| Kathy Zhang | Undergraduate Student (2018-2019) | Undergraduate Student Vanderbilt University |
| Alexis Hood, BS | Medical Student (2018-2019) | Medical Student Meharry Medical College |
| Mihkel Põldemaa, MSc | Masters Degree Candidate in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology (2016-2018) |
Cybernetica AS |