Members

People at Lerman Lab

Our multidisciplinary team brings together engineering, medicine, neuroscience, molecular biology, and artificial intelligence. We collaborate across disciplines to connect fundamental neuroimmune science with technology development and human research.

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Imanuel Lerman, MD, MS

Principal Investigator

Dr. Lerman is a professor in Anesthesiology and Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. His research investigates neural sensing and neuromodulation in inflammation, pain, learning, and mental health.

He earned his MD and MS in Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University, completed neurology residency training at Yale and a pain medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, and trained in research through the VA Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health.

UC San Diego research profile →

Alokita Karmokar, BS

Alokita’s research interests include generative AI, unsupervised learning, and multimodal machine learning. Her work contributes to multimodal signal processing. Outside research, she enjoys music, travel, and exploring new cuisines.

Abhishikta Panja, BS

Abhishikta develops models for cardiovascular disease detection and optimizes deep learning systems for efficient deployment on specialized hardware. She also explores generative AI. Outside research, she enjoys reading and discovering new food.

Shreyansh Joshi, BS

Shreyansh works on AI models and data pipelines for research in infection and mental health. His interests include generative AI, deep learning, and scalable distributed systems for healthcare applications.

Venu Ajay Chaudhari, BS

Venu’s interests include machine learning, healthcare analytics, computer vision, and predictive modeling. Her lab work focuses on neural networks for identifying irregularities in ECG signals. She enjoys exploring new technologies, reading, and hiking.

Sopyda Yin BS

Sopyda’s work includes cardiac signal processing and support for the lab’s human research studies, including vagus nerve stimulation, sleep, and inflammatory challenge research.

Amber Li MD (candidate)

Amber’s research interests connect psychiatry, neurology, and pain management. Her lab projects include ultrasound-powered approaches for trigeminal neuralgia and reviews of vagus nerve stimulation. Outside research, she enjoys hiking, swimming, art, music, and exploring San Diego.

Alex Liang MD (candidate)

Alex earned his BS in Biology at UC San Diego. His research includes the mechanisms and therapeutic applications of vagus nerve stimulation. His interests also include anesthesiology, teaching, and mentorship. Outside research, he enjoys skiing, grilling, and community outreach.

Jennifer Camacho-de-la-rosa BS (candidate)

Jennifer contributes to research data management, participant screening, and clinical visits in the lab’s human studies. Her interests include human biology, psychology, and a future career in medicine. Outside research, she enjoys fitness, making jewelry, and exploring coffee shops.

Isaac Castillo BS (Pre-MD)

Isaac’s interests include biochemistry and medicine. He supports research data management, participant screening, and clinical visits in the lab’s human studies.

Emily Yurkevich BS (Pre-MD)

Emily’s interests include human biology, medicine, and languages. She supports research data management and clinical study activities. Outside research, she enjoys baking and learning foreign languages.

Alumni

Troy Bu, PhD

Director, Design Engineering

Troy earned his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. His research focuses on machine learning, data science, and the characterization of electrical and biomagnetic signatures in health and disease.

Johnson Yang, BS

Johnson’s interests span machine learning, computer vision, and medical image processing. His lab work focuses on algorithms for ECG rhythm classification and analysis, with the goal of building scalable AI tools for medicine.

Rosalynn Conic MD PhD MPH

Rosalynn trained in medicine at the University of Belgrade and earned a PhD in Clinical Translational Science at Case Western Reserve University. She completed preventive medicine training and an MPH at UC San Diego. Her research interests include electronic health records and health outcomes.

Elizabeth Baum MS (candidate)

Elizabeth completed her master's degree in electrical engineering with a focus on medical devices and systems. Her research interests are in bioelectronic circuits specifically for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Within the Lerman Lab, Elizabeth works on ultrasound projects with the goal of characterizing cavitation and tissue displacement in HIFU procedures.

Christina Cui MD MS (2019-2022)

Christina completed a master’s degree in clinical research and investigated the frequency-specific neural and physiological effects of spinal cord stimulation during her time in the lab.

Jacob Caylor MD (2021)

After completing medical school at the University of Washington in Seattle, Jacob completed his residency in Anesthesiology at UC San Diego, where he was chief resident, and followed on with an Interventional Pain Medicine Fellowship at UC San Diego. Jacob has a special research interest in sex-specific responses to spinal cord stimulation. Looking forward, he has an interest in teaching, population, gender specific targeted spinal cord stimulation and targeted intrathecal drug delivery for cancer pain patients.

Current: Private Practice Interventional Pain Physician

Aaron Zeng BS (2020)

Aaron contributed to neural recording experiments and developed signal processing pipelines, including the UCSD recursive least-squares algorithm.

Yan Gong MS 2019 (2017-2019)

Yan implemented a real-time beamforming process from raw data and reconstructed B-mode images focused on a peripheral nerve detector that was trained using convolutional neural networks. She successfully extracted the location of the nerve from the beamformed data, validating the idea of real-time FUS guidance.

Current: Washington University in St. Louis, PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering

Lu Xu, MS · 2017–2019

Lu developed and characterized focused ultrasound systems used in clinical research and studied neural responses with evoked potentials and magnetoencephalography.

Current: Washington University in St. Louis, PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering

Bryan Davis MD MS 2017 (2015-2017)

Bryan examined the physiological changes that occur pre-to-post non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS). Pre-to-Post VNS he showed increased parasympathetic tone and enhanced mood in response to successive heat pain challenges. These findings are consistent with known afferent projections of the vagus nerve and warrant further study.

Current: Pain Fellow Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Edward Zhong, MS · 2015–2017

Edward designed and implemented systems for characterizing autonomic responses during experimental pain studies involving noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation and spinal cord stimulation.

Current: Lockheed Martin

Nam Nguyen, MS · 2014–2015

Nam developed an anticipation-based thermal pain paradigm and ECG waveform detection methods for the lab’s neuroimaging research.

Collaborators:

Rahul Singh PhD: Focused Ultrasound, Ultrasound Imaging, Manufacturing, Design, Commercialization and Regulatory Expert. Farus LLC (Singh Lab (Farus LLC, InflammaSense)
Todd Coleman PhD: Neuronal Signal Processing, Fusion Phsyiological Signal Processing. Gut Brain Interaction. (Coleman Lab)
Ramesh Rao: Signal Processing. (Ramesh Rao Qi)
Mingxiong Huang PhD: Radiology Imaging Laboratory (MEG) (Huang Radiology Imaging Laboratory)
Amir Borna PhD: Sandia National Laboratories, Optically Pumped Magnetometers (OPM), (Amir Sandia Lab)
Peter Schwindt PhD: Sandia National Laboratories, Optically Pumped Magnetometers (OPM), (Schwindt Lab Sandia)
Alan Simmons PhD: Psychiatry and Functional Neuroimaging (fMRI) Stress and Neuroimaging Laboratory (Simmons Lab)
Donald Kimball: Digital Signal Processing Radio Frequency Engineer. (Don Kimball Qi)
Victoria Risbrough PhD: Fear Extinction Learning, Slow Wave and REM Sleep Laboratory. (Risbrough Lab)
Dewleen Bake MD: Posttraumatic Stress Inflammatory Biomarker Laboratory. (Baker CESAMH Lab)
Richard Hauger MD PhD: Biomarker Core Evaluation of cytokines and stress hormones. (Hauger Lab and Core)

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