Personnel

Arjun Anand
Undergraduate Research Assistant
- Email: arjun.anand@wustl.edu
Arjun is an undergraduate student at Washington University in St Louis studying for a bachelor's in Neuroscience with plans to attend medical school. He was born in Toronto, Canada, to Indian parents and decided he wished to pursue his education after high school in the United States. Arjun is currently working on data management tools for SNIPR while also creating pipelines and code to analyze longitudinal lab and vitals data from the EHR on stroke patients. His interests include Curling, which he has played competitively since 9th grade, and volunteering abroad in third world countries!
Education:
- High School – Crestwood Preparatory College, Toronto, ON
- Undergraduate – Washington University in St. Louis (2021-present), major in Biochemistry

Porche Braun, BSN
Neurocritical Care Research Nurse
- Email: braunp@wustl.edu
Porche Braun is an experienced intensive care nurse who joined the neuro-ICU research group as lead research coordinator, overseeing prospective clinical trials and other clinical research projects.
Education:
- Undergraduate — Bachelor of Arts in Biology, Drury University
- Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Maryville University

Yasheng Chen, DSc
Associate Professor of Neurology
- Email: yasheng.chen@wustl.edu
Yasheng Chen studied in China before obtaining his doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis. He was a research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, before returning to Washington University and becoming a major collaborator with our lab. His research focuses on multimodal image and big data analyses and biomedical computing techniques.
Education:
- BS Biomedical Engineering: Tianjin Univ., Tianjin, P.R. China
- MS Biophysics: Inst. Of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, P.R. China
- MS Electrical Engineering: Washington University in St. Louis, MO
- DSc Biomedical Engineering: Washington University in St. Louis, MO

Julien Cifarelli, BS
Neuro Imaging Research Technician II
Julien Cifarelli recently completed his undergraduate degree obtaining a BS in Biological Sciences at Webster University St. Louis. During his undergraduate studies he participated in bladder cancer research and genetics studies. While seeking medical school enrollment, he maintained his interest in medical research by becoming a Neuro Imaging Technician in the Stroke Imaging Lab. Julien currently manages image transfer, analysis, and data organization in SNIPR.

Keshav Jayaraman, BSc
Medical Student
- Email: keshav.jayaraman@wustl.edu
Jayaraman is a medical student at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and engages in clinical, bench and health policy research as it relates to cerebrovascular disease. He is particularly interested in neuroimaging technology and biomarkers for subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), stroke and vascular malformations of the brain. He joined the Dhar Lab shortly before medical school and is involved with the research and development of machine learning-centered approaches for automating the assessment of CT biomarkers of SAH. Jayaraman is interested in pursuing a career in endovascular neurosurgery and will be spending a dedicated research year investigating neurovascular imaging biomarkers.
Education:
- Undergraduate – Washington University in St. Louis, B.A in Biology
- Medical School - Washington University School of Medicine, MD Candidate

Atul Kumar, MBBS, DRE
Senior Neuroimaging Engineer
- Email: atulkumar@wustl.edu
After completing his medical education, Atul Kumar pursued a research career in medical technology. He has several years of research experience in applying computer vision, image processing, machine learning, and computational geometry to solve medical image problems. He is currently working on developing algorithms for identifying various biomarkers in brain images of stroke patients.
Education:
- MBBS - Patna Medical College, Patna, India
- MMST - Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
- DRE - Cleveland State University, Cleveland , Ohio

Zohair Siddiqui, BSc
Medical Student
Siddiqui is a medical student at St. Louis University School of Medicine with a research interest in clinical informatics. As an undergraduate at St. Louis University, he has worked on precision medicine software, along with the development of a blood chimerism calculation tool for the monitoring of post-HSCT leukemia patients (“Rchimerism”). His work at the Dhar lab focuses on automated extraction of large vessel occlusions (LVOs) from medical record text reports of stroke patients using natural language processing. He is also involved with the application of radiomics software to better understand hemorrhagic transformation. Siddiqui is a St. Louis native, and in his free time he enjoys spending time with family and friends, trying out new restaurants, and spending time outdoors.
Education:
- Undergraduate – BS Computer Science, St. Louis University
- Medical School – St. Louis University School of Medicine (class of 2023)

Autumn Xu
Undergraduate student
Autumn is majoring in Computer Science and Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. She is more than excited to explore technical solutions in clinical setting. Her project is working to make new data types to hold scan information and streamline the mass analysis process for such imaging data.

Jane Yuan, BSc, MD
Medical Student
- Email: yueyuan@wustl.edu
Jane Yuan is an incoming neurosurgery PGY-1 resident at Washington University (WUSM) who has spent the last few years in the Zipfel and Dhar lab’s researching various translational and clinical aspects of subarachnoid hemorrhage. This has included spearheading a project to develop and validate a novel automated assessment of cerebral edema and early brain injury as well as currently completing a project developing automated tools to measure hemorrhage volume.
Education:
- MSCI – Washington University School of Medicine
- Medical School - Washington University School of Medicine