People | Pain Neuromodulation Lab

Prasad Shirvalkar, MD, PhD

Assoc Professor in Residence

Assistant Professor Department of Anesthesiology (Pain Management) Department of Neurology UCSF School of Medicine

Dr. Prasad Shirvalkar is the Principal Investigator of UCSF Clinical Trials for refractory chronic pain (NCT03029884 and NCT04144972) and a neurologist and interventional pain medicine specialist at the UCSF Pain Management Center at Mount Zion.

Edward Chang, MD

Professor

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Dr. Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon who treats patients with epilepsy, brain tumors, and cranial nerve nerve compression syndromes such as trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm. He is Chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF.

Dr Chang specializes in advanced brain mapping methods to preserve crucial areas for speech and motor functions in the brain. He also has extensive experience with implantable devices that stimulate specific nerves to relieve seizure, movement, pain and other disorders.

Ashlyn Schmitgen

Clinical Research Coordinator

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Ashlyn Schmitgen is a Clinical Research Coordinator working with the DBS chronic pain team. Ashlyn graduated from UC San Diego with a B.S. in Public Health and minor in General Biology. Her clinical background includes work as an EMT, Medical Assistant, Emergency Department Medical Scribe, Inpatient Critical Care Intern, and UCSF Health Hospital Assistant.

Kristin Sellers, PhD

Assistant Adjunct Professor

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Kristin Sellers is an Associate Professional Researcher in the Chang Lab. She completed her Ph.D. in Neurobiology at UNC-Chapel Hill and a post-doc in the Chang Lab from 2016 to 2020 working on the DARPA-funded SUBNETS project. Her work focuses on using neural activity to inform DBS implant location and closed-loop stimulation in clinical-trials patients and novel neurotechnologies, including new probe and device designs for use in humans. She also contributes to a community effort to adopt standardized data formats to enable easy data sharing and archiving.

Chad Sitgraves

Clinical Research Coordinator

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Chad Sitgraves is a Clinical Research Coordinator in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Neurology at UCSF. He graduated from Stanford University with BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Medical Device Design, and completed additional projects and coursework in the areas of software development and machine learning. He has previously held roles as a Design Engineer and Clinical Research Scientist at GE Healthcare where he worked to translate novel innovations into commercial CT, MRI, X-ray, and life support products.