Lab Members
Vera Novak, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine, Director SAFE Laboratory, Specialty: Neurophysiology Dr. Novak's interests include mechanisms of cerebrovascular regulation, imaging and biotechnologies for prevention and treatment of age-related disorders.
Kun Hu, Ph.D.
Statistical physics. Dr.Kun Hu, Harvard Medical School – Dr. Hu is an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He works with Dr. Vera Novak in the Division of Gerontology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and with Dr. Steven Shea in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. His research has been focused on effects of aging and pathological conditions (such as stroke, hypertension and diabetes) on cardiovascular and motor control systems. He is also interested in circadian and sleep/wake regulation, and their integrated neurophysiological interactions with other physiological functions including cardiac control, cerebral autoregulation and motor activity control.
Peng Zhao, Ph.D.
Dr.Peng Zhao, Harvard Medical School – Dr. Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School. She works with Dr. Vera Novak in the Division of Gerontology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Her research has been focused on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) processing and analysis, esp. applied to evaluate the effects of aging and pathological conditions, such as stroke, hypertension, diabetes, etc. She is also interested in the medical image segmentation, registration, and visualization algorithms and medical software/system implementations.
Brad Manor, Ph.D. 
He is currently employed as a post-doctoral fellow within the Department of Gerontology at BIDMC. He obtained a master’s degree in kinesiology from The University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio in 2004. He recently graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a Ph.D. in kinesiology and aspecialization in biomechanics. His research interests include the control of gait and posture in movement disorders such as peripheral neuropathy, as well as the design of interventions aimed at improving balance and alleviating fall risk in these populations.
Heli Valkeinen, Ph.D., P.T.
Nickole Jones, B.S.
Narae Lee, Ed.M.
David Alsop, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Radiology, the Director of MR Research, BIDMC. Dr. Alsop is interested in perfusion and functional MR imaging.
Ihab Hajjar, M.D., MS
He is an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing physician at Hebrew SeniorLife and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr Hajjar is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. He is also a trained epidemiologist and has an additional certificate in clinical hypertension. Dr. Hajjar’s primary interest is the relationship between blood pressure and aging. His publications identified that hypertensive individuals are more likely to become disabled and that treatment with antihypertensives leads to slower decline in cognitive function. At the SAFE lab, he is studying the effect of blood pressure as well as circadian rhythm in blood pressure on brain structure and function, including cognitive and cerebrovascular reactivity. He is coordinating and interpreting the 24h Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring. He is also working on developing physical activity interventions and studies their effects on blood pressure and brain structure and function.
Lewis Lipsitz, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, the Chief of Division of Gerontology at the BIDMC.
Medha Munshi, M.D.
Assistant Professor in Medicine, the Director Joslin Geriatric Diabetes Clinic Director Outpatient Geriatric Programs, BIDMC.
Peter Novak, M.D., Ph.D.
He is an Assistant Professor in Neurology at the Dept. of Neurology, University of Massachusetts and the Director of the Autonomic Laboratory. Dr. Novak is board certified in Neurology and Psychiatry and trained in autonomic nervous system and movement disorders subspecialties. His primary interests are clinical autonomic nervous system, Parkinson's disease and Multiple system atrophy.
Magdy Selim, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Neurology, the Co-director of Stroke Center and Co-director of Neurovascular fellowship, BIDMC. Dr. Selim is interested in mechanisms of ischemic stroke.
Amir M. Abduljalil, Ph.D.
Physics, Currently a research scientist at The Ohio State University. Dr. Abduljalil is interested in the development and applications of of high field magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.
Simone Bortolami, Ph.D.
Professor, Draper laboratory
Jerry Cavallerano, O.D., Ph.D.
Chief Center for Ocular Telehealth, Joslin Diabetes Clinic
Louis Caplan, M.D.
Professor of Neurology Stroke Division, BIDMC
Ary I Goldberger, M.D.
Associate Chief, Division of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Biotechnology, Director, Margret and H.A. Rey Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, BIDMC
Pierre Gremaud, Ph.D.
Professor in Mathematics, North Carolina State University
Thomas Heldt, Ph.D.
The Laboratory of Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Richard Jones, Sc.D.
Associate Director health and Policy Research, Hebrew Senior life Center
Mette Olufsen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Mathematics, North Carolina State University
Chung-Kang Peng, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Medicine, Co-Director, Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Medicine, BIDMC
Paula Roberson, Ph.D.
Chair, Biostatistics, Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Hien Tran, Ph.D.
Vice Chair, Dept. of Mathematics, North Carolina State University
George Verghese, Ph.D.
Professor the Laboratory of Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zafonte, Ross D.O.
Chair department of Physical medicine and rehabilitation, vice president for medical Affairs, Spaulding rehabilitation center
Thomas Heldt, Ph.D.
Thomas Heldt is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include mathematical modeling of physiological systems, model reduction, and model identification, particularly as these methodologies pertain to patient monitoring and spaceflight applications. Most recently, he has begun collaborating with physicians at Boston's Children's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to understand how central and cerebrovascular hemodynamics affect the development of neurological impairments in prematurely-born infants and the elderly.
International
Markhu Kankaanpää, M.D. Ph.D.
Dr Markku Kankaanpää MD, PhD (born 1966) received his Licenciate of Medicine (MD) and Doctor of Medical Sciences (DMS) from University of Kuopio, Finland in 2000. He specialized in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in University of Kuopio in 2006. Currently he is working as post doc researcher and senior clinical consultant in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland. His special interests in research are lumbar disorders, especially active rehabilitation, motor control, muscle physiology, and myoelectric alterations related to low back and neck pain. More recently his research has focused on the myoelectric alterations related to Parkinson's disease. Address: Dr Markku Kankaanpää, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kuopio University Hospital, P.O.Box 1777, 70211 Kuopio, Finland. E-mail: markku.kankaanpaa@kuh.fi
Merja Perhonen, M.D.
Director CorusFit, Jyvaskyla Finland
Christina Haubrich, M.D.
Doz., Dept of Neurology University of Aaachen, Germany
Norden Huang, Ph.D.
Director, Research Center for Adaptive data Analysis, National Central University, Taiwan
Marek Czosnyka, Ph.D.
Reader in Brain Physics, Academic neurosurgery University of Cambridge, U.K.
Research Group on Heart-Brain Connections (RGHCS)
Departments of Mathematics at the NC State Univ. (Dr. Olufsen, Dr. Tran), Roskilde Univ., Denmark (Dr. Ottesen), Graz Univ., Austria (Dr. Kappel, Dr. Batzel), and the SAFE laboratory at the BIDMC (http://www.uni-graz.at/biomath/Collaboration_group/)
Links
Physionet: http://www.physionet.org/
DynaDx: http://www.dynadx.com/
RGHBCS: http://www.uni-graz.at/biomath/Collaboration_group/collaborators.html
