Members

Taha Gholipour

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I am a neurologist subspecialized to treat epilepsy. I conduct patient-oriented translational research that involves neuroimaging and electrophysiology. My goal is to identify brain networks and develop biomarkers to better understand the initiation, propagation, and termination of seizures in focal epilepsy, and to improve the outcomes of surgical treatments in epilepsy. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the George Washington University, and a member of the GW Epilepsy Center as well as Children's National Hospital Epilepsy Program in Washington, DC.

I graduated from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, and did my clinical training in neurology and epilepsy in Boston, MA. My research training started in Tehran, and continued at Montreal Neurological Institute, and Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Boston. I received the Clinical and Translational Science Institute KL2 Career Development Award with Dr. William D Gaillard (Children’s National Hospital) and Dr. Mohamad Z Koubeissi (GWU) to implement machine learning in the localization of seizure foci in focal epilepsy using functional connectivity MRI. Email: tgholipour_at_gwu.edu



Link to my Pubmed publications:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tgholipour

Link to my Google scholar profile: scholar.google.com

Raghav Saravanan  

I am a recent graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and minor in Chemistry. Previously, I have worked on augmented reality tools for surgery, studied cybersecurity flaws in healthcare devices, and developed medical devices for use during DBS surgery. I am currently working with Dr. Gholipour to expand my knowledge on functional MRIs and other neuroimaging to localize functional networks in the brain. 

Priyanka Illapani  

I received my masters in Biomedical Engineer from Ohio state University (2015). After graduation I went on to work in implementing advanced MRI techniques to study neural biomarkers that would assist in early diagnosis in neonatal population. I currently work at POLER lab as a Research Data Analyst to implement diffusion technique and study language pathways in epilepsy patients.

Nadim Jaafar, MD

I am a medical doctor and a post-doc researcher focusing on multimodal clinical imaging registration, source localization of scalp and intracranial EEG data, and correlation with management of drug-resistant epilepsy. I use the Curry software for my research.

Manu Krishnamurthy

Now at Deloitte US. Manu graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a background in Computer Science and Psychology, She was working as a clinical research coordinator with the POLER lab at Children's National, focusing on localizing functional networks in the brain from resting state fMRI using Independent Component Analysis in healthy and epilepsy populations. 

Mohanad AlGaeed, MD

Now at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. My research focuses on clinical and electrophysiological characteristics of patients undergoing long-term video-EEG monitoring. I am also interested in quality improvement and treatment outcome analysis.

Isobel MacKenzie, MD

Now at Washington University in St. Louis, MO neurology program. During medical school at George Washington University investigated patient outcomes from endovascular treatment of acute ischemic stroke using a machine learning approach. 

Ahmad Abu Qdais, MD

Now at at Medical University of South Carolina. Ahmad is a medical doctor and was a research fellow at The George Washington University Hospital, collaborating with Gholipour lab for a research project on patient outcomes post mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke; to identify the strongest predictors of successful reperfusion and good functional outcome, such as demographics and radiographic features. 

Dina Ghandour, MD

Now at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN

I joined the GWU Epilepsy Center to conduct research for my thesis for my Master’s in Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College London. For my research, I use high-resolution anatomical imaging to investigate the role of the claustrum and the piriform cortex in focal epilepsy.

Swetara (Sweta) Joshi

Research Assistant

Now at Penn StateCollege of Medicine, Hershey, PA

I graduated from McGill University with a BA in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience, and have worked as research assistant at epilepsy labs at The Montreal Neurological Institute and GWU. My research interests are the analysis of functional MRI and intracranial EEG recordings in epilepsy. I work closely with other researchers in the lab and provide research training, compliance, and regulatory support to everyone else in the epilepsy group.

Miranda Milner

Research Assistant

Former research assistant/lab manager at the Gholipour lab. I graduated from George Washington University with a BS in Cognitive Neuroscience and a minor in biology. Previously, I worked at neuroscience laboratories with a focus on multimodal data collection, where I did research at the intersection of engineering and neuroscience. I’m looking forward to applying what I learned in my undergraduate studies to epilepsy research with this team. Email: mirandamilner@gwu.edu

Idelle Vaynberg

I am a medical student at GW, and I plan on pursuing neurology residency after medical school. My research focuses on meaningful quantification of PET images in epilepsy. To pursue this, I have received the American Academy of Neurology Medical Student Research Scholarship and the W. T. Gill Summer Fellowship with Dr. Gholipour as my research mentor. Email: ivaynberg_at_gwmail.gwu.edu

Shaotong (Shawn) Zhu, MSc

Master’s student at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering working with Dr. Murray Loew. My research interests are the use of Machine learning and Deep Learning in interpretation of clinical data. My current project uses various machine learning methods to analyze of positron emission tomography (PET) data from patients with epilepsy. Email: shawnzhu_at_gwmail.gwu.edu.

Natalie Edwards

Undergraduate studying biomedical engineering and am planning on pursuing an M.D-Ph.D. in the future. My research focuses on the integration of multimodal imaging data in epilepsy to develop meaningful markers for epilepsy surgery. Email: natalieedwards_at_gwmail.gwu.edu