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Undergraduates, Graduates, and Post Docs

Darcy Ronan Morris

Darcy is the president of NORD student chapter, and a freshman majoring in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She hopes to the contribute to the development of drugs for rare diseases in the future. Advocacy and education are important to her because knowledge fosters hope. In her free time she likes to cook, read, and run.

Riya Miglani

Riya is a rising sophomore at Purdue studying biological engineering. She has done a lot of advocacy work such as hosting a podcast and writing a book to bring awareness to food allergies as an invisible disease. She is a huge advocate and At the Purdue Student Chapter, she serves as the Treasure.

Shima Salahshoor

Shima is a registered nurse and a PhD student in nursing at Purdue University. With a background in patient care, she has worked closely with individuals affected by rare diseases, gaining firsthand experience in the challenges they and their families face. Shima is passionate about raising awareness of rare diseases and is committed to advocating for patients and their support systems. By joining the Purdue Chapter of NORD Students for Rare Diseases, she hopes to contribute to meaningful change and support those impacted by these conditions.

Dr. Solita Wilson

Solita is from Youngstown State University with a Bachelor of Science. She worked as a teacher for a charter school for 3 years and then went for a master’s degree in 2016. During her master's, she worked on chemical reduction of carbon dioxide using N-heterocyclic carbene catalysts. She joined the Purdue Department of Chemistry in 2018 and has done multiple projects including structure elucidation of tungsten and iron substituted polyoxovanadates, ion mobility study of mixed ligand polyoxovanadates, and structure characterization of iron indium clusters with magnetic properties. Solita has participated in numerous Purdue organizations including the Purdue Graduate Student Government, the Salsa Dance Club, and the National Organization for the Professional Development of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers.

Mahdiyeh Shahi

Mahdiyeh has a Master of Science in Analytical Chemistry from Sharif University of Technology. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. She uses desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) mass spectrometry for the synthesis and analysis of materials. She is a member at the Purdue Student Chapter.

Allison Miller

Allison is a first year as a genetics student in the John Martinson Honors College at Purdue University. She plans to attend medical school after graduating. She is very passionate about informing others about invisible and rare diseases.

Andy Nguyen

Andy recently graduated from Boston University as a Biology major. He will be starting his Master's of Public Health program at Boston University this summer, with goals of attending medical school after the completion of the Master's program. He was previously involved in the development of different innovative medical education strategies, including the creation of an infographic on stroke and arteriovenous malformations as a rare cause of stroke for Emergency Medical Technicians at Boston University. He is a member at the Purdue Student Chapter.

Emma Marie Morales

Emma is a freshman in First Year Engineering, with aspirations to major in Biomedical Engineering. As a pre-med student, she plans to attend medical school and specialize in oncology. Her passions lie in reducing healthcare disparities, patient advocacy, and raising awareness for rare disorders, such as lymphedema and rare allergies. She openly shares her personal experiences living with a rare allergy to cold temperatures, especially given the unique challenges of Midwest winters. In her free time, she enjoys playing the guitar, flute, and pickleball. Additionally, she is currently working on her EMT license to better serve her community.

Oyebola Kafayat

Oyebola is currently studying for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) exam and preparing her application for medical school. After Graduation in 2023, she took some time off to care for a sick family member and to study for the ARRT registry exam. She took the registry exam and passed it in September 2024. While studying, she has been working full-time as a residential counselor at group homes, helping patients with Physical and intellectual disabilities, and even though she is a licensed technologist now, she would love to keep helping people, learning, and growing professionally as a Medical Doctor.

Shubhang Eruventi

Shubhang is a sophomore Industrial Engineering student passionate about raising awareness of rare neurodevelopmental disorders. After his own diagnosis, he recognized the challenges individuals face in identifying their condition, obtaining an accurate diagnosis, and accessing proper care. Now, he is dedicated to increasing awareness and improving healthcare navigation so others can receive the support they need more easily.

Abigail R. Levandowski

Abigail is a sophomore in Biomedical Health Sciences, pre-med with a Minor in Chemistry in the Department of Health Sciences. Abigail is the President of the American Medical Women’s Association – Purdue Chapter. Abigail has always had passion for medicine, STEM, and leaning about medical history and advancements. Abigail believes rare diseases are an under researched field and need more awareness brought to them. Abigail does a lot of work with individuals with disabilities, and many of them have had rare diseases. They have influenced her life, and Abigail has seen how big of an impact their conditions have on their lives. Abigail wants to join NORD to increase advocacy and education in support of those who have rare diseases.

Saiprasad Rao Buragapu

Sai Buragapu and is sophomore in pharmaceutical science. His interest in rare disease was piqued when his grandmother was diagnosed with one. He serves as the rare disease awareness coordinator.

Evan Patrick Gutierrez

Madhura Kawar

Madhura Kawar is an undergrad (sophomore) in biomedical engineering from Indianapolis. She likes reading, playing video games, dogs, and hiking, and a fun fact about herself is that she knows way too much about vocal synthesizers. She would like to join the Purdue NORD student chapter because after she was diagnosed with Wilson’s disease, she was faced with how little resources and awareness there was for uncommon medical issues, and she wants to contribute to providing resources and raising awareness.

Valuable Members

Faculty and Staff

D. Wade Clapp, M.D.

Chairman, Department of Pediatrics
Richard L. Schreiner Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics
Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology,
and Medical and Molecular Genetics
Indiana University School of Medicine
Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research
Physician-in-Chief, Riley Hospital for Children

Dr. Clapp is the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Physician-in-Chief at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health. Dr. Clapp is a Distinguished Professor, the Richard L. Schreiner Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The department of pediatrics at IU School of Medicine has over 400 pediatric subspecialty and research faculty and more than 250 pediatric residents and fellows in 6 categorical and integrated residency programs and 21 fellowship programs. Riley Hospital for Children has 459 beds and a newly completed mother-baby tower that serves as the delivery service at the IU Health academic health center. Riley Hospital is the only comprehensive children’s hospital in Indiana and has multiple specialized programs that focus on individual genetic and developmental conditions. Over, the past 12 years the department has dramatically expanded clinical services to outlying IU Health hospitals, other local and regional hospitals and 19 communities across Indiana. The Department is also routinely ranked in the top 6-8 departments of pediatrics in the United States in NIH funding, which is the largest source of funding for innovation for children’s research. Riley Hospital for Children is ranked in 11/11 categories in US News and World Report including 3 in the top 10 and 7 in the top 25.

Dr. Clapp is a physician/scientist who retains an active research focus in Rasopathies and particularly in neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). He and his colleagues have utilized preclinical genetic models to identify the first 3 targeted therapies in humans for peripheral nerve sheath tumors in neurofibromatosis type 1 and a 4th drug for NF2 tumors is in clinical trials. One drug is now FDA approved. He is the founding director of the IU MSTP (that includes Purdue BME) and has been active in building pipeline programs at all levels of training. He leads the only pediatric focused Scientific Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in the United States that is sponsored by the NCI. He also leads the Rare Disease Advisory Council appointed by Governor Holcomb that focuses on opportunities to inform legislators on opportunities to better support children and families with rare disease conditions.

Richard H. (Rick) Chapman, PhD
Chief Science Officer

Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI)

Dr. Chapman is Chief Science Officer for the Center for Innovation & Value Research (formerly the Innovation and Value Initiative), a nonprofit research organization whose mission is to advance the science, practice, and use of value assessment in healthcare to make it more meaningful to those who receive, provide, and pay for care. Dr. Chapman was Director of Health Economics at the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) prior to coming to the Center, where he led development of economic evaluations that accompanied reviews of clinical evidence, assessing the potential costs, cost-effectiveness, and budgetary impact of a wide range of diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic and other clinical interventions.

Before ICER, Dr. Chapman held positions as Vice President of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Avalere Health and Principal in the Health Economics and Outcomes Research practice at IMS Health, where he was US regional lead for IMS’s Retrospective Database Analysis Center of Excellence.

Dr. Chapman holds a PhD in health policy with a concentration in decision sciences from Harvard University. He also holds an MS in health policy and management from the Harvard School of Public Health, where he investigated the association between quality of care and health-care financing mechanisms.

Christopher A. Rice, Ph.D.,

Assistant Professor,

College of Veterinary Medicine,

Department of Comparative Pathobiology,

Purdue University,

Veterinary Pathology (VPTH)

Dr. Rice is an Assistant Professor at Purdue University. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of the West of Scotland in 2014 under the mentorship of Dr. Fiona Henriquez-Mui. His graduate studies were elucidating biochemical drug targets in Acanthamoeba species. He went on to do a Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of South Florida and then the University of Georgia under the mentorship or Dr. Dennis Kyle where he developed high-throughput screening methods to discover and prioritize hit drugs into leads. The Rice Research Group are focused on the discovery and development of anti-amoebic compounds and developing more rapid, sensitive, and specific diagnostics for diseases caused by pathogenic free-living amoebae .

Dr. Janet Hope Sherman (MD, MA)

Board-certified diagnostic radiologist

Fellowship trained in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Dr. Sherman is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist, fellowship trained in magnetic resonance imaging. Her experience includes diagnostic radiology, education, MRI, MRA, MRV sequence development and optimization, quality improvement, radiology administration, prior roles as Chief of Technical Development and MR Angiography and Corporate Medical Director of The MRI Centers of New England. She has created curriculum and instructed at Boston University School of Medicine since 2014. Research interests include MRI, MRA and MRV at a range of field strengths as well as applications for globally accessible diagnostic imaging, of vascular disease , stroke and rare diseases.

Past Valuable Members

Dr. Niloufar Ghahari

(Ph. D student)

Seyedeh Nooshan Mirmohammadali

(Ph.D. student)

Jafar Tavakoli

(Ph.D. student)

Seyedeh Fatemeh Dadashipour (Ph.D. student)

Jiea Jickson (Undergraduate)

Behnaz Akbari (Former President)

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