Meet Our Team

Peyman Benharash, MD

Peyman Benharash, MD

CASIT Executive Director, Department of Surgery
Areti Tillou, MD

Areti Tillou, MD

Professor, Department of Surgery, Vice Chair of Education

Director, UCLA CASIT Accredited Education Institute
Assistant Designated Institutional Official, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
[email protected]

Medical Education

Geriatric Trauma

Dr. Maie St. John, MD, PhD, FACS

Maie St. John, MD, PhD

Professor and Chair, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, UCLA

Research Interests
Dr. St. John's research encompasses several areas of translational investigation in head & neck cancer. Dr. St. John's laboratory is interested in understanding the mechanisms of tumor progression and metastasis in head and neck cancer. She and her colleagues are investigating COX-2-dependent gene and protein expression and determining how these modify tumor invasion, angiogenesis, immunity and apoptosis in head & neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

Dr. Wayne Brisbane

Wayne Brisbane, MD

Clinical Instructor, Department of Urology

@Wayne_Brisbane
[email protected]

Prostate cancer imaging
Micro-ultrasound
MRI

Gabriel Oland, MD

Gabriel Oland, MD

PGY-4 General Surgery Resident

@GabeOland
[email protected]

COVID-19 diagnostic testing

Noninvasive intracranial pressure monitoring

Social robotics

Zachary Weitzner, MD

Zachary Weitzner, MD

PGY-4 General Surgery Resident

@ZachWeitzner_MD
[email protected]

Enteric nervous signaling changes following bariatric surgery

Perioperative risk assessment in surgical patients with COVID-19
Correlation of radiographic and gross characteristics of appendicoliths
EMR-based assessment of extended postoperative length of stay

Ivy Huang, MD

Ivy Huang, MD

PGY-4 General Surgery Resident

@IvyHuangMD
[email protected]

Virtual mock oral examinations

Impact of virtual interviews on perception of residency applicants
Teaching residents quality improvement

Greg Carman, PhD

Greg Carman, PhD

Professor, Director of TANMS (Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems) & Lockheed Martin Chair of Engineeri

[email protected]

Understanding the response of ACTIVE/Smart materials for biomedical applications, e.g. covered stents, antennas for pacemakers
Multiferroic, magnetostrictive, piezoelectric, and shape memory alloys
Modeling structural response of multiphysics based systems

Robert Candler, PhD

Robert Candler, PhD

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

[email protected]

Medical sensors for robotic surgery
Miniature MRI coils for In vivo imaging
Medical devices

Anand Santhanam, PhD

Anand Santhanam, PhD

Associate Professor, UCLA Radiation Oncology

[email protected]

Dr. Santhanam's focus is on developing algorithms and techniques that cater to the requirements of medicine. In particular, he worked on the biomechanical modeling of lungs since 2002 for different applications ranging from computer animation, virtual reality, rehabilitation, tissue engineering to radiation oncology.

Rory Geoghegan

Rory Geoghegan, PhD

Project Scientist

Dr. Geoghegan is a project scientist in the departments of Urology and Surgery. He has a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering (University College Dublin, 2010), a master’s degree in biomedical engineering (Imperial College London, 2011) and a doctorate in bioengineering (University of California, Los Angeles, 2019).

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Songping Sun

Graduate Student Researcher

[email protected]

Haptic feedback in surgical robots

  • Pneumatic Haptic Feedback System for MIS
Jake Pensa

Jake Pensa, MS

Graduate Student Researcher

[email protected]

High resolution ultrasound imaging for prostate cancer
Focal therapy treatment planning for prostate cancer
Haptic feedback for robotic surgery

Adam A. Abiri, PhD

Adam A. Abiri, PhD

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery

[email protected]

Haptic feedback system for minimally invasive surgery
Computer-assisted robotic surgery
Wireless implantable medical devices

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Shyam Natarajan

Alan Priester, PhD

Alan Priester, PhD

Assistant Project Scientist, Department of Urology

[email protected]

Minimally invasive prostate cancer therapy

Prostate radiologic and pathologic correlation

Prostate cancer imaging and diagnosis

Yazeed Alhiyari, PhD

Yazeed Alhiyari, PhD

Project Scientist, Department of Head and Neck Surgery

[email protected]

Dynamic optical contrast imaging
Cancer margin detection
Translational medicine
Treatment de-escalation

Connie Luu

Connie Luu

Administrative Specialist

[email protected]
(310) 267-8262