New Research Faculty Introduction

HaoSheng Sun, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental, and Integrative Biology, obtained his Bachelor of Science Honors in Pharmacology in 2009 from the University of British Columbia. He then received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2014 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he studied how chronic exposure to adverse environmental stimuli such as stress or drugs of abuse led to long term transcriptional and chromatin changes that disrupt normal reward circuitry. Sun is researching neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disease vulnerability to inform new therapeutic targets.   

Stephen Clarkson, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology, received a BA degree in History from the University of South Carolina and his M.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, SC. He completed an internal medicine residency, chief residency year, cardiology fellowship, T32 post-doctoral fellowship, and MSPH at UAB before joining the Division of Cardiology. Clarkson is a general cardiologist with a focus on dissemination and implementation science and health disparities. 

Qing Zhao, Ph.D., instructor in the Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology, received her bachelor’s degree in Preventive Medicine from the School of Public Health, Shandong University in Jinan, China and achieved her Ph.D. in Microbiology at UAB. From 2010-2015, she was a Graduate Assistant in Dr. Chuck Elson’s lab and then joined his lab in 2015 as a post-doctoral fellow. Qing is interested in studying the host-microbiota interactions in the context of health and inflammatory diseases.

David LaFon, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, completed his initial medical training at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, Florida. Following this training, Dr. LaFon completed his internship, residency, and fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Following his fellowship, Dr. LaFon began work in the UAB Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, where he currently serves as an assistant professor of medicine. His current clinical and research interest is immunity in pneumococcal infections.  

Kayla Goliwas, Ph.D., instructor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, received her undergraduate degree in biology from Florida State University and was recruited to UAB’s Training Program in Lung Biology and Translational Medicine after completing her Ph.D. training in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Vanderbilt University. At UAB, she specializes in generating representative in vitro models of lung carcinoma that include components of the tumor microenvironment, namely immune cell subsets and fibroblasts within a volume of extracellular matrix, as currently no in vitro tumor models that are considered immune competent exist.  

Abhilash “KP” Kizhakke Puliyakote, Ph.D., instructor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006 from India and moved to the US for his graduate training. He received his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2007 and left academia to join ETEK Inc. as a Systems Analyst. In 2009, he joined the University of Iowa as a Ph.D. student and was awarded a departmental fellowship by the department of Biomedical Engineering. Most recently, Puliyakote completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at University of California, San Diego. His primary research interests are on the application of imaging techniques to detect early pathological changes from environmental and occupational exposures.  

Zach Irwin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, completed his thesis at the University of Michigan, which involved brain-machine interfaces in both non-human primates and human subjects. His post-doctoral research fellow work investigated the use of a novel peripheral nerve interface in human subjects for the purpose of controlling upper-limb prosthetic devices. Irwin then completed post-doctoral fellowship work at UAB, investigating the use of deep brain stimulation therapy in patients with motor disorders like Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. 

Marshall T. Holland, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, received his medical degree from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Ill.. He performed his residency in neurosurgery at the University of Iowa and completed fellowships in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery at the University of Florida and at Oregon Health and Science University. Holland’s clinical interests span all aspects of functional neurosurgery including deep brain stimulation, neuromodulation/surgical treatment of pain, epilepsy, and peripheral nerve.

Han-Fei Ding, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, received his medical degree from Anhui Medical College in Hefei, China, and his Ph.D. in Basic Biomedical Sciences from the University of South Alabama. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and joined the faculty at the University of Toledo College of Medicine in 2001. Hewas previously a professor in the departments of Pathology and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical College of Georgia and a Professor in the Graduate School at Augusta University. Ding’s research focuses on defining the molecular basis of cancer cell metabolic reprogramming, with a goal of identifying key metabolic pathways required for supporting cancer growth and progression, which could be targeted therapeutically.

Yulong Fu, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Genomic Diagnostics and Bioinformatics, received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China. He went on to complete his postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. In 2015, Fu joined the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. to develop functional assays to reclassify the variants of uncertain significance that were generated from clinical genomic sequencing. In 2018, he began his two-year American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics fellowship training with the National Human Genome Research Institute, in the specialty of Laboratory Genetics and Genomics. Upon completion, Fu joined a clinical laboratory director training program in the Children’s National Medical Center Department of Pathology.

Shu G. Chen, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Neuropathology, earned his Ph.D. in Biochemical Pharmacology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1993. Chen went on to become a Senior Research Associate at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, for his post-graduate training before accepting a position as an instructor and later as assistant professor in Case Western’s Department of Pathology, in 1996.Most recently, he served at a professor at the Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Pathology. Chen’s current research focuses on biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Anna Hoppmann, M.D., instructor in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, earned her medical degree from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. Hoppmann completed her pediatric residency and pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at UAB. She additionally completed a Master of Public Health at the Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Her clinical interests/major research include health disparities among children with cancer, including the role those social determinants of health play in creating health disparities. 

Pius S. Fasinu, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, completed his Master of Science in Biopharmaceutics from the University of The Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa in 2013. His Ph.D. focused on pharmacokinetic herb-drug interactions. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Mississippi. His core research areas include pharmacokinetic studies of drug molecules, modification to drug formulations to enhance oral absorption and systemic bioavailability, characterization of the metabolic pathways of new drug candidates, and pharmacokinetic drug interactions. 

Natalie R. Gassman, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, received a BA in chemistry from Michigan State University. She was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles in chemistry in 2008. She held post-doctorate positions at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In 2015, she started her own lab at the University of South Alabama as an Assistant Professor and was recruited to the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Heersink School of Medicine as an Associate Professor in 2021. Her current work focuses on measuring the influence that environmental exposures have on DNA repair and characterizing how DNA repair proteins are altered or modified in the context of cancer. 

Nan Cher Yeo, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biology at the University of the Ozarks in 2010. In 2015, she was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. For her postdoctoral studies, she worked at the Harvard Medical School to study genome repair and engineering. Her current work capitalizes on the CRISPR tools developed during her postdoc and on innovative genomic approaches to investigate the genetic basis of human diseases, including cancer and rare diseases.