TEAM
MARIA ALICIA CARRILLO SEPULVEDA, Ph.D
Principal Investigator
Maria Alicia Carrillo Sepulveda specializes in vasculo-metabolic physiology. Sepulveda received her B.S in Nursing from the University State of Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil), and her Specialization in Cardiology from the Heart Institute School of Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil). After 4 years in clinical practice as a practitioner cardiologist nurse , Sepulveda transitioned to a scientific career and received her Ph.D. from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) where she investigated the mechanisms by which thyroid hormones regulates vascular function. Sepulveda obtained a total of 5 years post-doctoral training in hypertension from Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa (USA) and in vascular physiology from the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University (USA), where she developed an expertise in cardiovascular physiology and pharmacology.
Nicole ("Nikki") Maddie
Medical Student (3rd Year)
Nikki is a third-year medical student with a B.S degree from University of New Haven and M.S from New York Medical College. She was selected to join the very competitive 2022 Academic Medicine Scholar Program at NYITCOM and will dedicate the entire 2022 to research under Dr. Sepulveda's mentorship. Nikki is studying how obesity contributes to the development of arterial stiffness. Nikki has been awarded the 2020 American Heart Association (AHA) Hypertension New Investigator Travel Award to fund her attendance at the 2020 AHA Council in Hypertension. She also received the FASEB DREAM Award to fund her attendance at the 2020 American Physiological Society Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals Workshop.
Recently, she published an Editorial for the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33035442/
Risa Kiernan
Medical Student (3rd Year)
Risa is a third-year medical student with a B.S. from the University of Connecticut. She joined Dr. Sepulveda's lab in 2019 and has been working on projects focused on obesity-related hypertension and endothelial dysfunction. Risa's project focuses on studying GLP-1 signaling in obesity-related vascular dysfunction in females. She received a 2021 Scholarship in Cardiovascular Disease from the American Heart Association to support this project. She also received an 2021 Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship which supported her exchange research program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical School to expand her project and investigate renal mechanisms involved in hypertension. She worked under supervision of Dr. de Miguel, an expert in renal physiology.
Amanda Yuen
Medical Student (2rd Year)
Amanda is a second-year medical student with a BS from the University of Connecticut. She joined Dr. Sepulveda's lab in 2021. She has been working in a project focused on understanding sex-differences in obesity and hypertension.
Dhandevi ("Meghna") Persand
Medical Student (5rd Year)
Meghna is a fifth year medical student with a BA from New York University (NYU). She is a former 2020 NYITCOM academic scholar in Dr. Sepulveda's Lab. Meghna is interested in cardiometabolic physiology and is undertaking studies to determine the impact of loss weight in the vascular health of females. Meghna has been awarded the 2020 Edward Guiliano Fellowship to fund her attendance at the 2020 American Heart Association Council in Hypertension and the 2020 American Physiological Society (APS) Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals Workshop. Recently, she published an Editorial for the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33035442/