Meet Tejas
Tejas Athni is an MD-PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School. Originally from Macon, Georgia, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 2022 with an M.S. in Epidemiology and Clinical Research, B.A. in Political Science, and B.S. in Biology, with honors and distinction.
Currently, Tejas is a student researcher in the Mordecai Lab (Stanford), where he investigates mosquito-borne diseases using ecological modeling methods, and the Benjamin-Chung Lab (Stanford), where he investigates the impact of climate change on health using computational epidemiology techniques.
Tejas has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as Ecology Letters and Developmental Cell. He is a recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship, the Coca-Cola Scholarship, the Neuroscience Research Prize from the American Academy of Neurology, and the American Statistical Association Award from the International Science & Engineering Fair. He has presented his research at public speaking venues such as TEDxPeachtree.
Previously, Tejas was a member of the Rohatgi Lab (Stanford), where he helped to elucidate a new biochemical mechanism regulating heart development, and the Joshee Lab (Fort Valley), where he investigated a plant leaf extract’s ability to inhibit glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) brain cancer, helped to identify the reproductive barriers of two medicinal plants threatened under climate change, and co-instructed research outreach programs sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Research
Not all mosquitoes are created equal: incriminating mosquitoes as vectors of arboviruses
Preprint at medRxiv, 2022
Kain MP, Skinner EB, Athni TS, Ramirez AL, Mordecai EA, Van den Hurk AF
A Review of the Ring Trial Design for Evaluating Ring Interventions for Infectious Diseases
Accepted at Epidemiologic Reviews, 2022
Butzin-Dozier Z, Athni TS, Benjamin-Chung J
Global Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases
Accepted at Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2021
Nova N, Athni TS, Childs ML, Mandle L, Mordecai EA
The influence of vector-borne disease on human history: socio-ecological mechanisms
Ecology Letters, 2021
Athni TS, Shocket MS, Couper LI, Nova N, Caldwell IR, Caldwell JM, Childress JN, Childs ML, De Leo GA, Kirk DG, MacDonald AJ, Olivarius K, Pickel DG, Roberts SO, Winokur OC, Young HS, Cheng J, Grant EA, Kurzner PM, Kyaw S, Lin BJ, Lopez RC, Massihpour DS, Olsen EC, Roache M, Ruiz A, Schultz EA, Shafat M, Spencer RL, Bharti N, Mordecai EA
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13675
A Membrane-Tethered Ubiquitination Pathway Regulates Hedgehog Signaling and Heart Development
Developmental Cell, 2020
Kong JH, Young CB, Pusapati GV, Patel CB, Ho S, Krishnan A, Lin JH, Devine W, de Bellaing AM, Athni TS, Aravind L, Gunn TM, Lo CW, Rohatgi R
DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.08.012
Climate change and disease ecology
Forthcoming in The Ecology of Infectious Diseases: Methods on Evolution, Biodiversity, and Environmental Interactions, 2022
Kirk DG*, Skinner EB*, Shocket MS, Couper LI, Nova N, Athni TS, Pourtois JD, Farner JE, Childs ML, Nyathi S, Mordecai EA
The Evolution of Modern Medicine: Garden to Pill Box
Medicinal Plants: From Farm to Pharmacy, 2019
Athni TS, Athni SS
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-31269-5_1
Reproductive Biology of a Threatened Medicinal Herb Scutellaria ocmulgee Small from Georgia
In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal, 2018
Vaidya BN, Athni T, Shreepathi V, Joshee N
DOI: 10.1007/s11626-018-0251-9
Inhibiting the Proliferation of Patient-Derived Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Cells and U-87 MG Cell Line Using Leaf Extract of Bacopa monnieri
Neurotherapeutics, 2017
Athni T, Vaidya BN, Joshee N, Parajuli P
DOI: 10.1007/s13311-017-0543-x