External Advisory Board

Dr. James’ research interests focus on understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of lupus, Sjogren’s syndrome and related disorders, the evolution and pathogenic mechanisms of autoantibodies in systemic rheumatic disease, the interplay of genetic risk and environmental responses in systemic autoimmunity and unique drivers of disease severity in First Americans autoimmune rheumatic disease patients. Her work has made seminal contributions to understanding how autoimmune diseases start and the concept of humoral epitope spreading. She has published over 330 articles.  Dr. James currently serves as the principal investigator for several large, multi-investigator NIH-funded grants, such as the U54 Oklahoma Shared Clinical & Translational Resources (NIGMS), UM1 Autoimmunity Center of Excellence (NIAID; national Network Clinical Chair), UC2 Accelerating Medicines Partnership in Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases (FNIH/NIH) (National Network PI), S06 Native American Research Center of Health (NIGMS) and P30 Rheumatic Disease Research Cores Center (NIAMS). 

Dr. James has received several prestigious awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Dubois’ Lectureship from the ACR/RRF, the Evelyn Hess Award for outstanding lupus research, the Distinguished Basic/Translational Investigator from the American College of Rheumatology and the Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation. She was a member of NIAMS Council with the National Institutes of Health and served as the elected Secretary-Treasurer of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. She was recently elected to the Association of American Physicians. Dr. James also provided testimony supporting the NIH at the Noel Laureates’ Hearing for the US House Appropriations Subcommittee. Dr. James is a board-certified adult Rheumatologist, seeing patients at OMRF, OUHSC and the Cherokee Nation. Dr. James was recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine for her “pioneering work understanding early autoimmunity”, her extensive mentoring history and her commitment to improve health equity for Indigenous populations.

Naomi Wray is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Big Data Institute, University of Oxford. From 2011 to 2023 she held joint appointments at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and Queensland Brain Institute within the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She retains a Professorial Research Fellow appointment at IMB.

Her early training was in quantitative genetics in selected populations. Her research focuses on development and application of quantitative genetics and genomics methodologies across complex diseases, disorders and traits, but particularly psychiatric-related traits.

She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science. In 2020 she was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Award for Leadership in Basic Science and the 2021 International Society of Psychiatric Genetics Ming Tsuang Lifetime Achievement Award. She is a Clarivate Highly Cited researcher.

Dr. Alison Motsinger-Reif is the Branch Chief and a Senior Investigator in the Biostatistics and Computational Biology Branch at the NIEHS.  She received her M.S. in Applied Statistics and PhD in Human Genetics – both from Vanderbilt University in 2006 and 2007 respectively.  She was a faculty member at North Carolina State University from 2007-2018, where she built a research program to address important challenges in the “Big Data” space, and received a mid-career endowment.  

The primary goal of her research is the development of computational methods to detect genetic risk factors of complex traits in human populations.  As environmental health increasingly accepts a complex model of phenotypic development that involving many genetic and environment factors, her methods development is focused on strategies that incorporate this complexity.  The methods she develops include artificial intelligence methods such as genetic algorithms, and machine learning tools like neural networks, etc., Her methods and corresponding software tools support are designed to detect gene-gene and gene-environment interactions.  She has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications as a result of this work, in a broad range of journals that reflect the interdisciplinary nature of her work.

Dr. Jibril Hirbo is a research instructor at Department of Medicine Division of Genetic Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Hirbo’s research interest is in understanding genetics that underlie health disparities. He has an overarching hypothesis developed from his research in population genetics and in the genetics of common diseases with complex inheritance: that the genetic adaptation to high pathogen environments is a major contributing factor to the genetic component of health disparities between those of recent European and other non-European ancestries. He initially worked on the genetics of eye disease broadly but later developed a project focused on the genetic component to glaucoma, a disease with disproportionate prevalence and impact in populations of recent African ancestries. 

He is currently leading a collaborative effort with 29 biobanks from 15 countries spanning four different continents in genetic meta-analysis of glaucoma in the Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative (GBMI). He is also currently co-chair of ancestry sub-working group within the Methods group of the Polygenic RIsk MEthods in Diverse populations (PRIMED) Consortium whose members will develop and implement approaches to integrating genotype and phenotype data for the purpose of conducting and disseminating Consortium-wide PRS analyses. He is leading the effort to develop predictive genetic models for glaucoma within a PRIMED collaboration with the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network. 

Jimmie received his B.S. in Bioengineering and EECS at UC Berkeley and PhD in Bioinformatics and System Biology at UCSD. He completed his postdoctoral training in Aviv Regev’s lab and the Broad Institute Cell Circuits Program. At UCSF, he is an Associate Professor in the Division of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine. He is also a member of the Institute for Human Genetics, the Genomic Immunology Institute, and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and an investigator at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. 

Ye lab is focused on harnessing the power of single cell and computational biology to study and model how human immune cells sense and respond to their environment. Building on this work, the lab is initiating new efforts to translate insights into design specifications that can aid the development of personalized medicines and engineered immune circuits for future therapeutic strategies. 

Dr. William A. Faubion is a consultant in the Division of Gastroenterology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, also serving as the dean for research. He's been with Mayo Clinic since 1999 and is a professor of immunology, medicine, and pediatrics at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Dr. Faubion completed his education at Dartmouth College and the University of Texas Health Science Center Medical School, followed by extensive training and fellowships at Mayo Clinic.

His primary focus is on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in both pediatric and adult patients. Dr. Faubion's research centers on understanding how immune cells make pro-inflammatory decisions leading to chronic intestinal inflammation in IBD. He conducts clinical research to evaluate novel therapeutics and biomarkers for IBD, receiving funding from various organizations, including the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Faubion has received several awards, including the J. Arnold Bargen Award from Mayo Clinic, the Scholar Award from the Berry Family Foundation, and the REGAL Award in Continuing Education from the University of Kansas Medical Center. He's actively involved in education, mentoring students and research fellows, and holds faculty privileges at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Faubion is also a member of professional organizations like the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America and the American Gastroenterology Association, where he chairs the Research Policy Committee and serves on the Gastrointestinal Mucosal Pathobiology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health.