Laboratory Leadership
Richard Smith, MD
Director
Carla Nester, MD
Associate Director
Hearing Loss and Kidney Division Team Leads
Hela Azaiez, PhD
Assistant Professor (Hearing Loss - Research)
M. Adela Mansilla, PhD
Associate Research Scientist & CLIA Officer (Hearing Loss - Clinical)
Nicolò Ghiringhelli Borsa
Research Specialist (Kidney - Clinical)
Yuzhou Zhang, PhD
Senior Research Scientist (Kidney - Research & Clinical)
Administration Team
Cathy Feng
Administrative Services Coordinator
Amy Weaver
Administrative Services Coordinator
Jori Hendon
Operations Manager
Research Assistants and Research Associates
Ligiane Alves Machado de Paula
Research Associate (Kidney - Clinical)
Anna Carmen
Research Assistant (Kidney - Clinical)
Jack Copeland
Research Assistant (Hearing Loss - Clinical)
Stephanie Cook
Research Intern (Kidney - Research)
Chris Culek, MS
Research Assistant (Kidney - Research)
Rebecca Franklin
Clinical Healthcare Research Associate (Kidney - Research)
Renee Goodfellow
Research Associate (Kidney - Clinical)
Monica Hall, RN, BSN, CNN
Clinical Healthcare Research Associate (Kidney - Research)
Sydney Jellison
Research Assistant (Kidney - Research)
Kameron Kruger
Research Assistant (Kidney - Clinical)
Nic Meyer
Research Associate (Kidney - Clinical)
Angela Nelson
Research Associate (Kidney - Clinical)
Sarah Roberts
Research Assistant (Kidney - Clinical)
Dingwu Shao
Research Associate (Kidney - Clinical)
Amanda Taylor
General Laboratory Supervisor & Safety Officer (Kidney - Clinical)
Donghong (Maggie) Wang
Research Assistant (Hearing Loss - Clinical)
Seth Welsh, PhD
Associate Research Scientist (Kidney - Research)
Postdoctoral Research Scholars
Corentin Affortit, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar (Hearing Loss - Research)
Miles Klimara, MD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar (Hearing Loss - Research)
Héctor Merinero, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar (Kidney - Research)
Bioinformatics Team
Brian Hong
Bioinformatician (Hearing Loss - Research)
Daniel Walls
Senior Application Developer (Hearing Loss - Clinical and Research)
Diana Kolbe, PhD
Associate Research Scientist & Engineer (Hearing Loss - Clinical and Research)
Genetic Counseling Team
Amanda Odell, MS, LGC
Genetic Counselor (Hearing Loss - Clinical and Research)
Estella Roster
Genetic Counseling Assistant (Hearing Loss - Clinical and Research)
Graduate Students
Joseph Chin
Graduate Research Assistant (Hearing Loss - Research)
Maria Wong
Graduate Research Assistant (Hearing Loss - Research)
Amanda Slagle
Doctoral Candidate Researcher (Kidney - Research)
Undergraduate Students
Brady Comer
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Lauren Crawford
Student Office Worker - Natural History Study
Anisa Dominguez
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Cece Fierce
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Jill Hall
Student Office Worker - Natural History Study
Rishita Kulkarni
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Lexi Lieb
Student Office Worker
Emmy Liu
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Tina Liu
Student Office Worker- Natural History Study
Sami Martin
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Lora Mitchell
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Jessica Singh
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Athena Singharaj
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Payal Vedanayagam
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Aashna Patel
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Azaiez Laboratory
Hela Azaiez, PhD
Principal Investigator
Tyler Draayer
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
Kiersten Knobbe
Undergraduate Research Assistant