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.

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. 

The Ye lab is focuses on understanding how genetic variants influence the transcriptional response of immune cells to their environment. The lab develops experimental and computational methods for the high-throughput single-cell measurement and analysis of gene expression across population cohorts, perturbational screens, and tissue regions. These approaches are being used to study primary human immune cells in both healthy donors and disease patients to dissect gene regulatory mechanisms that underlie host-pathogen interactions, the development of autoimmunity, and natural and acquired cancer immunity. 

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.  He also serves as Executive Director of the Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics, an enterprise role.  

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. He also trained as a gastrointestinal fellow at the Center for Basic Research in Digestive Diseases at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Faubion served as a major in the 133rd Airlift Wing in the United States Air Force. 

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.

Dr. Francesca Luca is a Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago, researching genetic and environmental factors contributing to human variation in molecular and complex phenotypes of biomedical interest. She completed her graduate studies in Population Genetics at the University of Calabria in Italy, collaborating with the Musee de l’Homme and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and later joined the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2012, she became a faculty member at Wayne State University until 2024.

Dr. Luca's research group uses high-throughput experimental approaches and computational analyses to identify DNA variants that regulate cellular responses to environmental stimuli. Over the past decade, her team has studied genetics, environmental and psychosocial factors, and their interactions in asthma and cardiovascular disease. She also established a human-microbiome cell culture system to study host regulatory changes in response to the gut microbiome, showing the predictability and modifiability of the microbiome's effect on human cells.

Dr. Luca is committed to training diverse students and postdocs and engaging in K-12 science education outreach. She has received national and international recognition, serving as the current chair of the NIH GCAT study section and receiving awards such as the Wayne State Career Development Chair Award. Her research is funded by NIH-NIGMS, the American Heart Association, NIH-NHLBI, NIH-NIEHS, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.