People

Saman Andalib

PGY-1, Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine Department of Orthopaedic Surgery

Saman is a PGY-1 orthopaedic surgery resident at UC Irvine. He has a strong interest in the intersection of musculoskeletal health and innovative AI-driven patient education. With experience in teaching, entrepreneurship, and medical innovation, Saman is committed to improving access to orthopaedic care for patients from diverse backgrounds. His goal is to make complex orthopaedic information accessible, bridging gaps in knowledge and promoting health equity.

Bryce Picton

PGY-1, Neurological Surgery

Henry Ford Department of Neurological Surgery

Bryce is a PGY-1 neurosurgery resident at Henry Ford. His research interests are leveraging machine learning and large language models to democratize healthcare access and delivery. Through natural language processing techniques, Bryce aims to enhance health literacy, empowering patients to make informed decisions about their care. His goal is to develop personalized and effective healthcare solutions that benefit all communities.

Aidin Spina

PGY-1, Ophthalmology

UC San Diego Shiley Eye Institute

Aidin is a PGY-1 ophthalmology resident at UC San Diego. With a background in teaching, his research interest is focused on using large language models to increase patient education, specifically targeting those with limited health literacy from diverse backgrounds to improve health equity. He believes that integrating advanced technology into patient education can not only enhance understanding but also significantly impact patient outcomes.

Dr. Ariana Nelson

Anesthesiology / Pain Medicine

UC Irvine

Dr. Ariana M. Nelson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care at UC Irvine, board certified in anesthesiology and interventional pain medicine. She trained at the University of Michigan and Northwestern, and her clinical practice focuses on radiofrequency ablation and neuromodulation for chronic pain. Her research through the COMPREHEND Lab spans objective pain biomarkers, AI-driven health literacy tools, and aerospace medicine in collaboration with NASA.

Dr. John Scolaro

Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine

Dr. John A. Scolaro is an Associate Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC Irvine and a fellowship-trained orthopaedic traumatologist focused on pelvic, acetabular, periprosthetic, and complex periarticular fractures. He trained at the University of Pennsylvania for residency and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for trauma fellowship. His research centers on patient-focused clinical outcomes and biomechanical fracture fixation work through the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory at VA Long Beach.

Dr. Jonah Hebert-Davies

Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine

Dr. Jonah Hebert-Davies is an Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC Irvine, specializing in orthopaedic trauma and shoulder and elbow surgery. He trained at the University of Montreal for residency, with a trauma fellowship at Harborview Medical Center and a shoulder and elbow fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. His research focuses on shoulder and elbow fractures and arthroplasty outcomes, and he serves as elbow section editor for the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma.

Dr. Hao-Hua Wu

Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine

Dr. Hao-Hua Wu is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Orthopaedic Surgery at UC Irvine, specializing in cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine surgery including motion-sparing disc replacement and robotic spine procedures. He completed his residency at UCSF and the Harvard Combined Spine Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research focuses on patient-reported outcome measures in spine surgery and global orthopaedic health initiatives in Malawi and Tanzania.

Dr. Sohaib Hashmi

Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine

Dr. Sohaib Z. Hashmi is an Assistant Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery and Neurological Surgery at UC Irvine and a board-certified spine surgeon treating degenerative disease, scoliosis, spinal stenosis, spine trauma, and complex revision and reconstructive cases. He trained at Northwestern for residency, the University of Maryland for spine fellowship, and Cedars-Sinai for trauma fellowship. His research focuses on orthobiologics and patient-reported outcomes, and he serves as Director of Spine Trauma at UCI Health.

Dr. Don Park

Orthopaedic Surgery

UC Irvine

Dr. Don Y. Park is a Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC Irvine, specializing in endoscopic, minimally invasive, and outpatient spine surgery. He completed his residency and spine fellowship at Stanford and joined UCI from UCLA. His clinical and research focus is biportal endoscopic spine surgery, endoscopic lumbar fusion, and motion preservation, and he serves as founding Director of the Advanced Endoscopic and Outpatient Spine Program at the UCI Health Comprehensive Spine Center.

Dr. Michael Oh

Neurosurgery

UC Irvine

Dr. Michael Y. Oh is a board-certified neurosurgeon at UC Irvine specializing in complex spine surgery and stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, including deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease, spinal cord stimulation, and spine tumors. He trained at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and completed a functional neurosurgery fellowship at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on surgical robotics, AI for surgical outcomes, and AR/VR models for patient education, and he serves as Vice Chair of Education in Neurological Surgery and Director of the Comprehensive Spine Center.

Dr. Austin Fox

Ophthalmology

UC Irvine

Dr. Austin R. Fox is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UC Irvine and the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, specializing in glaucoma and cataract surgery including minimally invasive glaucoma procedures. He completed his ophthalmology residency and glaucoma fellowship at the University of Iowa. His research focuses on glaucoma screening, health literacy and medication compliance, and quality improvement.

Madison Brunette

Medical Student (MS3)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Anagha Thiagarajan

Medical Student (MS3)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Adrienne Cheng

Medical Student (MS2)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Amy Huang

Medical Student (MS2)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Brandon Liu

Medical Student (MS2)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Ali Tazhibi

Medical Student (MS2)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

George Habib

Medical Student (MS2)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Andrew Solimon

Medical Student (MS1)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Akhil Chandekar

Medical Student (MS1)

UC Irvine School of Medicine

Arshia Ilaty

PhD Student

UC Irvine

Arshia Ilaty is a Ph.D. student in Computer/Computational Science at UC Irvine, specializing in privacy-preserving machine learning and synthetic data generation for healthcare applications. With a strong foundation in both academic research and industry experience, Arshia has developed innovative solutions across healthcare analytics, blockchain technology, and autonomous systems at organizations including Tesla, World Mobile, and Turtle Beach. His research integrates generative AI, deep learning, and domain-specific biosignal processing to address critical challenges in personalized medicine, clinical trial retention, mental health monitoring, and early disease detection across diverse conditions including stress, pain, breast cancer, and metabolic disorders. Beyond research, Arshia is an active entrepreneur who secured funding from ZIP Launchpad for an AI-powered pet health monitoring system, demonstrating his ability to translate technical expertise into real-world impact. He serves as a reviewer for top-tier conferences, including NeurIPS, Chase, and IEEE CogMI, and actively contributes to open-source projects in machine learning. Driven by a passion for solving complex technical challenges, Arshia combines rigorous scientific thinking with practical engineering to advance the intersection of AI and healthcare.

Ryan Andalib

Undergraduate

UC Irvine