Our Team

Andria Ford is a Professor of Neurology and Radiology with tenure at Washington University School of Medicine, with subspecialty training in vascular neurology and a Masters of Science in Clinical Investigation. Ford specializes in stroke in the young adult population, neurological complications of sickle cell disease, inherited small vessel diseases including RVCL-S and CADASIL, as well as sporadic cerebral small vessel disease and vascular dementia.

She cares for stroke patients in the emergency department, the inpatient stroke service at Barnes Jewish Hospital, the BJC-Washington University Telestroke program, and the Outpatient Stroke Center at Washington University School of Medicine. She is Director of the Stroke Section in the Department of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine.

Ford leads an NIH-funded research program with a goal to understand and find new treatments and prevention strategies for patients with inherited and sporadic cerebral small vessel diseases. She also directs the Stroke Patient Access Core (SPAC) overseeing participant enrollment into numerous clinical stroke trials conducted at Washington University School of Medicine.

Ford is originally from Oklahoma City, becoming passionate about neurology as a student at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Since medical school, she moved to St. Louis for her residency training in Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine. She enjoys spending time with her husband and three children.

Yasheng Chen is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He completed his BE degree in Biomedical Engineering at Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, followed by his MS degree in Biophysics at the Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, Beijing, China. Later, he earned his DSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Chen’s research focuses on medical image computation and large data inference, the development of MRI neural imaging techniques and the application of artificial intelligence analytics in the study of various cerebrovascular diseases. In his leisure time, he enjoys hiking, traveling and exploring diverse cuisines.

Originally from Tunisia, where he obtained a master’s degree in biology and health, Fellah joined the Center for Magnetic Resonance in Biology and Medicine in Marseille, France where he studied brain tumors in both adults and children using multimodal MRI. After obtaining his PhD in neuroscience, he moved to Memphis, TN for his post-doc at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to study the effects of disease and chemotherapy on brain structure and function in children. He then moved to St. Louis and joined the Ford lab in 2020 to continue his work in multimodal image processing and scientific analysis. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors, volleyball and traveling the world.

Yan Wang grew up in St. Louis and completed her undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis and her MD at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She returned home to St. Louis and completed her residency and sub-specialty training in stroke at Barnes Jewish Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis. She is interested in using neuroimaging and blood-based markers of thromboinflammation to study cerebrovascular health.

After completing his PhD in Neuroscience, Astafiev was involved in projects studying brain functions during the normal development as well as in various diseases (stroke, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease). Astafiev has good programming experience (Matlab, C shell, bash), good knowledge of different statistical methods as well as extensive experience with structural and functional (both task and resting state functional connectivity) MRI data analysis. Currently, he isinvolved in projects studying cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) and SCD, analyzing dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) data. In his spare time he enjoys fishing, traveling and visiting the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Maria Hagan was born and raised in St. Louis, MO and completed her undergraduate degree in psychology, human development and hospitality management at the University of Missouri- Columbia. SHe conducts research on strokes in rare genetic disorders by recruiting patients, facilitating research study visits, and compiling study data for analysis. In her spare time, she likes trying new restaurants throughout St. Louis and walking her two dogs in Creve Coeur Park.

Sydney Panagos grew up in St. Louis and attended Bucknell University where she completed her undergraduate degree as a student-athlete, playing D1 field hockey and majoring in neuroscience with a minor in Spanish. In the summer of 2023, she worked an internship with the Washington University School of Medicine neurology department as a Neurology Clinical Research Study Assistant, returning to the group post-graduation to continue her interest in neuroscience (especially pertaining to strokes, rare genetic diseases and neurological deficits). Sydney hopes to attend graduate school to further her passion in healthcare. In her free time, she loves to go for runs, play with her dog, and go to her favorite restaurant, Trattoria Marcella.

Vivian Chen is an undergraduate student studying computer science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Her interests include bioinformatics and algorithms. In her free time, she enjoys baking, playing ultimate frisbee and drinking coffee.

Kira Unger-Levinson is currently a Sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis hailing from Bloomington, Indiana. As a Cognitive Neuroscience major, she aims to explore the intersection of neuroscience and public health. She hopes to attend graduate school next to further hone her interests. In her free time, she loves spending time outdoors, cooking and exploring St. Louis.