SPOKANE, Wash. – The Washington State University College of Medical Sciences is adding five new faculty members this summer and fall, adding to its cancer and sleep research cores and to the medical education teaching group.
Assistant professors Bin Shan and Weimin Li are already on campus. Both have offices and are in the process of assembling their research laboratories.
Assistant professor Jingru Sun will begin work July 1. Professor Marcos Frank will join WSU Spokane on September 1 and assistant professor Lucia Peixoto will be on campus next spring.
Here are brief descriptions of the new faculty members:
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Weimin Li Bin Shan, MD, PhD, comes from Tulane University. His research focuses in the area of lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. His lab uses cellular and molecular approaches to learn more about how these pathological processes start and spread.
- Weimin Li, MD, PhD, joins WSU from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. He studies cancer biology and the cellular signaling processes that lead to the start of tumors.
- Jingru Sun, PhD, comes to Medical Sciences from Duke University, where she is completing her postdoctoral training. Her research interests are the interaction between the nervous system and the innate immune system.
- Marcos Frank, PhD, will move to Spokane from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the basic question of why animals sleep. One interest is in examining the role of sleep in the development of central visual pathways.
- Lucia Peixoto, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who uses genomics and computational biology to study learning and memory with applications in areas such as autism.
“We are happy to have these talented scientists joining our faculty,” said Ken Roberts, acting dean of the College of Medical Sciences. “Each will enrich the academic environment in our college and bring unique opportunities for students who are training here.”
In addition to the five researchers just mentioned, the college recently added nine other faculty members when it added the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences.
Medical Sciences now employs more than 25 full-time faculty, a similar number of part-time faculty and several dozen clinical physician preceptors from the Spokane area who participate in teaching.
Contacts:
Ken Roberts, acting dean, WSU College of Medical Sciences, 509-358-7516, kenroberts@wsu.edu
Doug Nadvornick, Medical Sciences communications, 509-358-7540, doug.nadvornick@wsu.edu