Team

Michelle Odden, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Stanford School of Medicine. Her research aims to improve our understanding of the optimal preventive strategies for chronic disease in older adults, particularly those who have been underrepresented in research including the very old, frail, and racial/ethnic minorities. Her work has focused on prevention of cardiovascular and kidney outcomes, as well as preservation of physical and cognitive function in older adults. She is also strongly interested in epidemiological and statistical methods to reduce biases in observational studies. Dr. Odden came to Stanford from Oregon State University, where she helped build the new College of Public Health and Human Sciences. She completed her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley (2009), a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco in Primary Care Research (2011). [CV available here]

When she is not chasing around her toddler, Michelle enjoys hiking, yoga, and experimenting in the kitchen.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Xiaojuan Liu, MS obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Preventive Medicine and a BS in Financial Mathematics in 2016, and graduated with a Master’s degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics in 2019 from Shandong University, China. She completed her Global Learning program at Duke Kunshan University and internships at Provincial Health Commission, Provincial CDC and local hospitals before coming to Stanford. Her research interest includes cardiovascular epidemiology, with a focus on risk assessment, disease prevention and prediction based on large longitudinal cohort studies, and casual inference, especially adopting cutting edge approaches to simulate randomization and generate causality from observational study. She also has passion in applying novel biostatistics models to dealing with nonstandard study designs, integrating heterogeneous data and promoting precision medicine. Alongside research and work, Xiaojuan enjoys singing, movies, exercising and traveling.

Annabel X. Tan, MPH, is an PhD student at the Odden Lab. Her research interests are in cardiovascular disease and aging. In the Odden Lab, she is interested in learning more about advanced epidemiological methods and supports Dr. Odden’s research and lab activities. Prior to Stanford, she worked at the Yale Global Health Leadership Initiative as a program manager and research coordinator. She earned her MPH from Yale School of Public Health and completed her undergraduate studies in bioengineering at Imperial College London. Outside of work, Annabel enjoys small pleasures like writing creatively, cooking, listening to heavy metal, climbing, and indulging in pop culture commentary.

STAFF

Laura Graham, PhD is a health services researcher with a wide variety of experience in data management and analysis, including large multi-center health services and outcomes research studies, provider survey studies, and laboratory-oriented research. Her research interest include surgical outcomes research, informatics, and implementation science to translate evidence into practice. The bulk of her research experience is centered around the use and analysis of large administrative datasets collected by the Veterans Health Administration. She has been involved in a multitude of Health Services Research & Development funded and unfunded studies using these administrative data to assess surgical outcomes.

Yongmei Li, PhD is a statistician with experience in data management and analyses using administrative datasets from the Veterans Health Administration. In the Odden Lab, she is focused on analyzing data about a variety of outcomes among residents of the Community Living Centers. She is interested in optimal analytical methods based on principles of epidemiology and econometrics. She obtained her PhD in Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

Hoda Abdel Magid, PhD, MHS is a postdoctoral research fellow working with Dr. Lorene Nelson and Dr. Michelle Odden in the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health and the Center for Population Health Sciences. She is also a fellow in the Big Data-Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP) at the Palo Alto VA. Her graduate career research promoted the understanding of new and emerging tobacco products use among adolescents and young adults. She received her Masters of Health Science in Environmental Epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2015 and her Doctorate in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 with a focus in Social Epidemiology. Dr. Abdel Magid’s current research builds upon her previous training to further understand chronic disease risk behaviors and leverages spatial epidemiology to examine health disparities among socially-marginalized communities.

Alexis Reeves, PhD, MPH is a postdoctoral scholar working with Dr. Michelle Odden in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health. She is also a fellow with the Propel post-doctoral scholar program at the Stanford School of Medicine. Her research is broadly focused on the causes and consequences of racial disparities in accelerated aging. She is particularly interested in the interplay of structural and interpersonal racism, and the psychobiological mechanisms in which they produce early health declines in minoritized populations. Her work to date has focused on the health of Black women as they enter into life-stages, such as the midlife menopausal transition, where cardio-metabolic risk is high. Alexis also has a strong interest in causal inference, and applies causal inference theory and methods to these areas of research to mitigate and quantify bias. Alexis holds a BS in Biological Sciences from University of California Irvine, an MPH in Epidemiology/Biostatistics from University of California Berkeley and a Doctorate in Epidemiologic Science from the University of Michigan. Outside of research, Alexis enjoys learning about other cultures and history by traveling. She also enjoys eating, cooking, and sharing food (and cocktails!) from around the world with friends and family.

Kendra D. Sims, PhD, MPH is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. She received her PhD from Oregon State University’s College of Health and Human Sciences. By pairing a causal inference framework with advanced biostatistical methods, her research operationalizes the population health impact of structural and personally mediated stressors. Ultimately, she wants to optimize interventions that prevent cardiovascular disease among marginalized older adults. She previously studied at Boston University School of Public Health and coordinated disability transportation under contract with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority.

ALUMNI

Name	Program, Graduation	Current Position
Manuel Blum	MS, 2019	Internist, Bern, Switzerland
Astrid D. Häberle San Martín	MS, 2019	Dental Resident, Santiago, Chile

Name	Program, Graduation	Current Position
Chenkai Wu	PhD, 2017	Assistant Professor, Duke Kunshan University, China
Lindsay Miller	PhD, 2019	Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California San Diego, CA
Abdul Amadu	Epidemiology, MPH, 2012
Brendan Darsie	Epidemiology, MPH, 2013
Fatimah Alramadhan	International Health, MPH, 2014
Divya Thekkethala	Epidemiology, MPH, 2015
Christina Charlesworth	Epidemiology, MPH, 2015