Our core team within the Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging at UCSF is composed of experienced neuroimaging researchers and clinical research support staff, as well as student trainees. Please visit their pages to learn more about their research and clinical backgrounds.
Melanie Morrison, PhD (she/her)
Principal Investigator
[email protected]
Dr. Morrison is an Assistant Professor in the Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Department and a core member of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint PhD Program in Bioengineering. She received her PhD in Medical Biophysics in 2016 from the University of Toronto. She oversees all research activities and provides mentorship to lab members.
Sarah Wang, PhD (she/her)
Clinical Research Manager
[email protected]
Dr. Wang is the Director of Operations and Clinical Research for UCSF’s Movement Disorder and Neuromodulation Center. She received her PhD in Neuroscience and Psychology from Dartmouth College. She manages study recruitment and scheduling for the lab.
Skyler Deutsch, BS (she/her)
Staff Research Associate 2
Skyler Deutsch is a recent National Science Foundation REPS fellow and marine biology graduate from San Francisco State University who joined the lab in 2023 as a Staff Research Associate. She develops and manages our imaging database, performs data analyses, and leads patient research visits.
Devin Schoen, MS (she/her)
Graduate Student Researcher
Devin Schoen is a graduate student in the Bioengineering joint Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley and UCSF who joined the lab in 2023. She earned her BS in Physics in 2020 from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and her MS in Medical Physics in 2022 from Oregon Health and Science University. She is working to build models that predict DBS outcomes for Parkinson's Disease using multi-modal imaging markers.
David Mikhael, BS (he/him)
Graduate Student Researcher
David Mikhael graduated with a BSc from Minerva University in 2023 after studying Data Science and Cognitive Neuroscience. He was also a Ci2 Program summer intern in 2023. David uses Machine Learning to analyze fMRI data for two simultaneous projects: predicting DBS effectiveness in Parkinson's and understanding therapeutic DBS mechanisms in OCD.
Lee Reid, PhD (he/him)
Professional Researcher
Dr. Lee Reid splits his time between the Departments of Psychiatry and Radiology. His background includes multimodal MRI, physiology, and software engineering. Lee focuses on building MR processing tools to improve the safety and efficacy of deep brain stimulation.
Juhi Mehta, BS (she/her)
Clinical Research Coordinator
[email protected]
Juhi is a Clinical Research Coordinator at UCSF who earned her BS in bioengineering in 2023 from UCLA. She coordinates study recruitment, organizes patient research visits, and conducts data analyses.
Philip Shih, BA (he/him)
Medical and Graduate Student Researcher
Philip Shih is a medical student at UCSF who joined the lab in 2023 through the Visit-a-Mentor Program and UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program. He was selected for the 2023 Summer Explore Fellowship and is currently investigating the efficacy of diffusion MRI biomarkers for predicting patient outcomes following deep brain stimulation therapy.
Lucia West, BS (she/her)
Medical Student Researcher
Lucia West is a medical student at UCSF who joined the lab in 2021 through the Visit-a-Mentor Program. She was selected for the RIDR Program and has continued investigating whether diffusion MRI images can effectively predict Parkinson’s disease symptom response to deep brain stimulation. In a recent interview, she was asked about her experience in the RIDR program – read about it!
Radhika Bhalerao, BS (she/her)
Research Data Science Specialist
Radhika Bhalerao is a research data science specialist at UCSF who earned her BS in bioengineering and data science from UC Berkeley in 2021. She works with both the Rauschecker lab and Morrison lab, specifically within our group developing temporal fMRI biomarkers of Parkinson's disease motor symptoms.
Pei Ting (Annie) Liu, BA (she/her)
Research Administrative Officer
Annie Liu is a research administrative officer at UCSF who earned her BA in psychology from UC Los Angeles in 2021. She provides administrative support for the lab and other groups within the radiology department.
Phyllis Kwok (she/her)
Summer Research Intern
Phyllis Kwok is a summer intern through the BioESP program. She is a rising sophomore at UC Berkeley who studies bioengineering. She will be working on the DBS electrode localization project, which analyzes the regions of stimulation in dystonia patients.
Rawan Khalifa (she/her)
Summer Research Intern
Rawan is an undergraduate student at Minerva University majoring in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and minoring in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology. As a Ci2 summer intern, she is working on utilizing machine learning to analyze the correlation between electrode locations for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and clinical outcomes of Parkinson’s disease patients.
Sadie Walter, BS (she/her)
Medical Student Researcher
Sadie is a fourth-year medical student at Pacific Northwest University in Yakima Washington. She was introduced to our lab in 2021 as a RIDR medical student summer intern and returned as a student intern in April 2024. She is currently working on investigating the integration of fMRI in the application of DBS for refractory OCD. Sadie also works as a behavioral health associate at an inpatient psychiatric unit and her favorite thing to do when she’s not working is spend time with her pets - a dog named Dixie and a snake named Ace.
Cherise Wong (she/her)
Summer Research Intern
Cherise Wong is an undergraduate student at the California Institute of Technology studying Computer Science and Neurobiology, interning through Caltech’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. She will be working on a project involving extracting data from MRI scans to analyze image quality for target brain structures of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease.
Kyle Gardner, MS, MA (he/him)
Medical Student Researcher
Kyle Gardner is a rising second-year medical student at Midwestern University in Glendale Arizona who joined the lab in 2024 through the RIDR Program. He will be working on deep learning-based prediction of lead trajectory effects on DBS outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease.
