17TH ANNUAL RESEARCH DAY
DETAILS: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2026 I 7:00 AM - 4:00 PM LI KA SHING CENTER - PAUL BERG HALL 291 CAMPUS DRIVE, STANFORD, CA 94305 ROOMS A-C
2026 OHNS RESEARCH DAY AGENDA Start time
End Time
Event/Function
7:00 AM
8:00 AM
Breakfast (New Faculty Peer Mentoring Event Breakout) led by Kara Meister, MD
8:00 AM
8:15 AM
Introduction: Tina Stankovic, MD, PhD
8:15 AM
8:25 AM
Dean Lloyd Minor, MD (Recorded Remarks)
8:30 AM
9:00 AM
Opening Lecture: Clint Allen, MD,“The Changing standard of care for OPSCC”
9:05 AM
9:48 AM
Cancer Biology, Moderators: Alyssa Civantos, MD and Chris Choi, MD John Sunwoo, MD, “Leveraging NK cells for cancer therapy” Chris Holsinger, MD, “Revealing the Unknown Primary: Diagnostic TORS uncovers the Biology of an Immune-Hot HPV + Oropharyngeal SCC” Andrey Finegersh, MD, PhD, “SWI/SNF-dependent enhancer networks underlie plasticity to microenvironmental stress in HNSCC” Nathan Reticker-Flynn, MD, PhD, “Dissecting immune responses in the tumor-draining lymph node”
9:50 AM
10:05 AM
Coffee Break/Poster Review
10:10 AM
10:53 AM
Inner Ear Biology, Moderators: Nesrine Benkafadar, PhD and Tracy Cheng, MD, MS Tina Stankovic, MD, PhD, “Precision Otology” Stefan Heller, PhD, “The Decision to Divide: Injury-Induced Proliferative Competence in the Chicken Basilar Papilla” Dáibhid Ó Maoiléidigh, PhD, "How changing hair-bundle properties causes hair-bundle dysfunction associated with hearing loss" Grace Kim, MD, "Immune mechanisms of cochlear injury in congenital cytomegalovirus"
11:00 AM
12:00 PM
Keynote Speaker: Clint Allen, MD, "Toward Medical Management of RRP with DNA Immunotherapy"
Start time
End Time
Event/Function
12:00 PM
1:00 PM
Lunch and Poster Review (Keynote Speaker lunch with trainees)
1:05 PM
1:48 PM
Public Heath & Environment, Moderators: Jake Lee, MD and Nneoma Wamkpah, MD Robert Jackler, MD, "Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Tobacco Advertising" Robson Capasso, MD, MBA, "Multinight, smartwatch‑based detection of moderate‑to‑severe and high‑risk obstructive sleep apnea" Nancy Jiang, MD, “Conversation as Measurement: Validating LLMs Across Ambient Clinical Transcripts and Online Patient Forums” Michelle Chen, MD, MHS, FACS, “Community-based participatory research in collaboration with patients with head and neck cancer”
1:50 PM
2:33 PM
Innovations in Surgical Technology and Tissue Engineering, Moderators: Steven Losorelli, MD and Maxwell Scher, MD Zara Patel, MD, “Electrical Recording and Stimulation of the Olfactory System - Why can’t we just use a cochlear implant” Fred Baik, MD, “Augmented reality-based surgical navigation in head and neck surgery” Michael Chang, MD, "Intelligent Vision Applications in Endoscopic Surgery" Jon-Paul Pepper, MD, “Nerve regeneration: how it fails and how we can track recovery in patients”
2:35 PM
2:50 PM
Coffee Break/Poster Review
2:55 PM
3:38 PM
The Ear and Beyond, Moderators: Ana Sola, MD and Nada Ali, MD Matt Fitzgerald, MD Iram Ahmad, MD, MME, “Microstructural Brain Changes in Pediatric Hearing Loss” Kristen Steenerson, MD, "Proof-of-Concept Wearable ENG for CommunityBased Nystagmus Detection" Mai Thy Truong, MD, “Bone anchored implants in patients with Microtia”
3:40
4:00 PM
Closing Remarks, Poster Winner Announcements
4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Refreshments, Socialize, and Poster Review
BASIC POSTER PRESENTATIONS Poster # Presenter
Poster Title
1
Austin Huang
Transcriptomic Analysis of Newly Regenerated Avian Auditory Hair Cells*
2
Lingjun Zhang
Induction of Outer Hair Cells by Co-Expression of Gfi1, Atoh1 and Pou4f3 in the Adult Mouse Cochlea
3
Yingkun Yang
Defining the Role of Lrp2 in Aminoglycoside-induced Cochlear Toxicity*
4
Akari Kimura
Impact of E-cigarette Exposure on Wound Healing After Surgical Vocal Fold Injury in Mice
5
Varun Goyal
Linking Morphology, Mechanics, & Adaptation in Mammalian Cochlear Hair Bundles
6
Emma Lo
Characterizing Efficacy of AAV-Tmprss3 Delivery in a Model of DFNB10 Hearing Loss
7
Fanrui Fu
Fusion of CT and DWI for Localization of Middle Ear Cholesteatoma
8
Jamis McGrath
Voltage-Dependent Inner Hair Cell Bundle Motions
9
Riccardo Marrocchio
INTRINSIC FLUCTUATIONS IN THE SENSORY HAIR BUNDLE LIMIT THE THRESHOLD OF HEARING
10
Tian Wang
Divergent Modes of Hair Cell Bundle Maturation in Developing and Mature Mouse Utricle
11
Amir Golchin
Engineering a Vascularized Tonsil Organoid-on-a-Chip for Immune Tissue Modeling
12
Cedric Yu
Comparative Characterization of Proximal and Distal Nerve Stumps in a Chronic Peripheral Nerve Transection Model
13
Rocio Velasco Poblaciones
White matter microstructure of language pathways from infancy to adolescence
14
Joseph Marcinik
Speeding Up a Mechanistic Model Describing the Sensory Cells of Hearing Using Machine Learning
CLINICAL POSTER PRESENTATIONS Poster # Presenter
Poster Title
1
Marcelina Puc
Dynamic Facial Movement Analysis: An Algorithmic eFACE Approach
2
Kanokrat Bunnag
Clinical Predictors of Genetic Diagnostic Yield in Pediatric Sensorineural Hearing Loss: A Retrospective Cohort
3
Nikita Bedi
Accuracy of MedGemma-4B and -27B for laryngeal lesion detection
4
Paul Krumpoeck
Clinical Validation of Endolymphatic Hydrops Magnetic Resonance Quantitative Image Analysis
5
Mitra Alikhani
Chronic Laryngeal Injury After Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation
6
Jwala Rejimon
Use of Hearing Aids Embedded With Inertial Sensors for Gait Analysis and Fall Risk Identification
We would also like to thank our Poster Judges: Seth Davis, MD, FACS, Tristan Tham, MD, Noel Ayoub, MD, MBA, Nneoma Wamkpah, MD, Grace Kim, MD, Michelle Chen, MD, MHS, FACSand Andrey Finegersh, MD, PhD *Not available for virtual viewing
Research Day Welcomes
Clint Allen, MD Senior Investigator Surgical Oncology Program, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute
Clint Allen, MD is a fellowship-trained Laryngologist and Senior Investigator in the National Cancer Institute within the Intramural Research Program. His laboratory research program focuses on the development of novel immunotherapy combinations for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. He utilizes syngeneic pre-clinical models to generate mechanistic pre-clinical data to serve as the rationale for early phase clinical trials performed at the NIH Clinical Center. His laboratory program is also responsible for an immune correlative study of head and neck cancer clinical tissues obtained from head and neck cancer clinical studies. Through these assessments he aims to understand predictors of response to immunotherapy and to develop new treatments that overcome mechanisms of resistance to effective treatment. He is also co-Principal Investigator of the T-cell Receptor Discovery Laboratory tasked with developing a library of therapeutic TCRs with diverse MHC restriction elements for otolaryngologic disorders such as head and neck cancer and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis.