T32 Scholars

Current Scholars

Pictured below: T32 and R38 scholars along with PI and Director of Research Training, Section of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Dr. Vanessa Xanthakis (far right).

Saran Lotfollahzadeh, MD
Postdoctoral Associate NRSA
Research Mentor: Vipul C. Chitalia, MD, Ph.D.
Dr. Saran Lotfollahzadeh completed her integrated five-year general and vascular surgery residency program, followed by a clinical fellowship in Pediatric Surgery at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. She started her translational research work in vascular biology in the lab of Dr. Vipul Chitalia with the main focus of cardiovascular complications in patients with uremia. She was granted an American Heart Association Cardio-Oncology Fellowship to continue her work on cardiovascular complications in minoritized patient populations with cancer. She is currently pursuing a master’s in clinical research. Her current research focus includes cardiovascular complications at the intersection of cardio-metabolic risk factors in diverse patient populations. Other interests include cardiovascular access optimization in patients with uremia and cancer.

Aubrey Odom, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate NRSA
Research Mentor: Vijaya Kolachalama, W. Evan Johnson
Career Mentor: Emelia Benjamin
Dr. Aubrey Odom is a T32 postdoctoral fellow in cardiovascular epidemiology in the Section of Preventative Medicine & Epidemiology at Boston University. She earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in statistics. Her current research focuses on vascular dementia and the brain-heart axis.Dr. Odom has previously developed tools and methods for metagenomic analysis with an emphasis in microbiome applications. She has created several software packages, including the TBSignatureProfiler for analysis of RNA-seq data using gene signatures for tuberculosis disease states, MetaScope to conduct metatranscriptomic profiling of clinical samples, and LegATo for longitudinal microbiome data analysis.

Kuldeep Singh, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate NRSA
Research Mentor: Rajeev Malhotra
Dr. Kuldeep Singh earned his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, in 2015, where he specialized in cell and molecular biology. In 2016, he joined Prof. Kathleen Morgan’s lab as a postdoctoral associate, focusing on therapeutic targets for aging-induced aortic stiffness. Currently, Dr. Singh works as a research fellow in Rajeev Malhotra’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his research aims to unravel the molecular mechanisms of atherosclerosis, vascular calcification, and aortic stiffness, with the primary objective of identifying and validating new genetic targets for vascular calcification

Melinda Solomon, MD
Postdoctoral Associate NRSA
Research Mentor: Sushrut S. Waikar, MD, MPH
Career Mentor: Ashish Upadhyay, MD
Dr. Melinda Solomon completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and is currently pursuing a Nephrology Fellowship at Boston Medical Center. Her current research focus includes aldosterone association with chronic kidney disease progression. Other interests include aldosterone effect on the cardio-renal-metabolic systems.