Our Team

Principal Investigator

  • Francesca Bagnato, MD, PhD

    Dr. Francesca Bagnato is a dual-board (European and American) neurology certified physician, currently on faculty at Vanderbilt Health. Dr. Bagnato sees patients with neuroimmunological diseases at the Neuroimmunology Clinic of VUMC as well as the Nashville VA HealthCare System. She joined Vanderbilt in October 2015 where she is now the Head of the Neuroimaging Program of the Neuroimmunology Division, Co-Director of Research-MSCoE-East for the VA, Vice-Chair of Faculty Affairs and Associate Vice-Chair of Research at Vanderbilt Health. Dr. Bagnato has authored more than 100 publication focused on MS.

     

Research Coordinators

  • Victoria Lim

    Victoria Lim holds a degree in from Vanderbilt University and is a clinical research coordinator in the lab. Victoria recruits and enrolls patients for the lab’s imaging studies and assists several clinical trials. Vicotria’s research focuses on the use of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to characterize MS lesion pathology of lesions with different appearance on QSM.

  • Jordon Winn

    Jordon has her MS in Cellular and Developmental biology from Indiana University. Jordon is lead coordinator for the clinical trial CAFÉ-MS.

Research Students

  • Rachel Chen

    Rachel is a second-year medical student at Vanderbilt University interested in Neurology. She is working with quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to assess axonal injury in multiple sclerosis (MS). Rachel is also passionate about narrative medicine and health policy.

  • Varsha Krishnamoorthy

    Varsha is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University studying Neuroscience and Medicine, Health and Society. Her research focuses on the use of ultra-high field MRI to study chronic inflammation in MS.

  • Tate Moody

    Tate is an undergraduate sophomore majoring in Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University. Tate’s current work focuses on quantifying and characterizing longitudinal changes of PRLs in people with MS.

  • Aayan Usman

    Aayan Usman is an undergraduate student majoring in Biology at Belmont University. Aayan works with ultra-high field MRI data to characterize PRLs using QSM with susceptibility source separation.

  • Jiacheng Wang

    Jiacheng Wang is a newly Ph.D. in computer science student at Vanderbilt University in Prof Oguz lab. He is passionate about exploring the potential application of machine learning/deep learning in physiological and pathological conditions. Jiacheng runs several projects aimed at developing automated segmentation of PRLs and white matter lesions on 3T and 7T MRI under limited human annotations scenarios.

Clinical-Research Team

  • Sage Hewitt, M.D.

    Dr. Hewitt graduated as neurologist from Vanderbilt Health and is now a National MS Society clinical fellow. Dr. Hewitt’s research focuses on the use of multi-b shell diffusion weighted imaging to assess tissue injury and related disability in multiple sclerosis.

Alumni

Neha Aggarwal, MD

Previous position: Medical student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Position in lab: Medical research student
Following position: Neurology resident at Northwestern University, Chicago

Salma Ashshareef, MS

Previous Position: Masters student in Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge program
Position in Lab: Research coordinator
Following Position: PhD student at the University of Texas at Dallas

Kelsey Barter, MD

Previous Position: Medical student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Position in Lab: Medical research student and awardee of the clinical mentorship of the National MS Society (summer of 2022).
Following Position: Child Neurology resident at Washington University, St. Louis

Rachael Cheeck, MS, MD

Previous Position: Medical student at Meharry Medical College, Nashville
Position in Lab: Medical research student and awardee of the clinical mentorship of the National MS Society (summer of 2020).
Following Position: Child Neurology resident at Baylor University, Houston

Amalie Chen, MD

Previous position: undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Position in the lab: research medical student (school of medicine Vanderbilt University School of Medicine) and awardee of the clinical mentorship of the National MS Society (summer of 2018).
Following position: Neurology resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

Margareta A Clarke, PhD

Previous position: PhD at the University of Nottingham, England. Awardee of the ECTRIMS-MAGNIMS research fellowship.
Position in the lab: National Multiple Sclerosis Society post-doctoral fellow (2019-2022).

Giulia Franco, M.D.

Previous position: Resident in neurology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Position in the lab: Visiting research fellow
Following position: Assistant professor in neurology, Staff physician Policlinico of Milan, Milan, Italy

Caroline Gheen, BS

Previous position: Undergraduate student at Belmont University, Nashville
Position in lab: Clinical research coordinator-I
Following position: Master of Health Informatics student at Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Bryan Hernandez, BS

Previous Position: Undergraduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso
Position in Lab: Undergraduate research student of the Medical Scientist Program, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville
Following Position: Post-baccalaureate student at Vanderbilt-Ingram Center, Nashville

Faraaz Kazimuddin, BS

Previous Position: Undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Position in Lab: Undergraduate research student
Following Position: Post-baccalaureate student at the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Md.

Rozita Khalili, MD

Previous position: Resident at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis
Position in lab: Clinical research fellow
Following position: Assistant Professor
University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis

Carynn Koch, MD

Previous position: Chief neurology resident at Vanderbilt Health
Position in lab: Clinical research fellow
Following position: Neuroimmunologist at Vanderbilt Health, Nashville

Ellie McCluey, B.S.

Previous position: Undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Position in lab: Undergraduate student researcher
Following position: Medical student at University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA

Adriana Morales, BS

Previous position: sophomore undergraduate student at Duke University.
Position in the lab: summer student (2021).
Following position: senior undergraduate student at Duke University.

Zachary Rohm, MD

Previous position: Neurologist St. Vincent’s Healthcare, Jacksonville, Fla.
Position in lab: Clinical research fellow
Following position: Assistant Professor of Neurology, Neurology
Residency Associate Program Director, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

Nikita Thomas, B.S.

Previous position: Undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Position in lab: Clinical research coordinator-I
Following position: Graduate student, Master’s degree in biostatistics and public health at Emory University, Atalanta, GA

Ahmad Toubasi, MD

Previous position: Medical Student at University of Jordan School of Medicine, Jordan
Position in lab: Post-doctoral research fellow
Following position: Neurology resident at Vanderbilt Health, Nashville

Taegan Vinarsky, BS

Previous position: Undergraduate student at University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Position in lab: Clinical research coordinator-II
Following position: Clinical Research Coordinator at TriStar

Keejin Yoon, BA

Previous position: undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University.
Position in the lab: undergraduate research student (2020-2021).  
Following position: Medical school student at medical student at University of Central Florida. Orlando, FL

Jessica Zhang, BS

Previous position: Undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Position in lab: Undergraduate student researcher
Following position: Medical student at Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences, Norfolk, VA