Who We Are

Denise Ramirez, Ph.D.

Director & PI | Whole Brain Microscopy (WBMF) & Neuro-Models Facility (NMF)

Dr. Ramirez studied brain cholesterol metabolism and its effects on learning and memory in the laboratory of Dr. David Russell, Ph.D., for her Ph.D. thesis. She then went on to study the role of novel SNARE proteins in spontaneous neurotransmission during postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Ege Kavalali, Ph.D. Dr. Ramirez was the founding Core Manager since 2014 and now serves as the Director of the UTSW Whole Brain Microscopy Facility (WBMF) in the Department of Neurology. She leverages her 20 years of hands-on optical imaging experience to facilitate the use of unique high-throughput volumetric imaging technologies and identify novel anatomical information to promote both basic and translational neuroscience.

Ariana Nawaby, M.S.

Compulational Scientist | WBMF

Ms. Nawaby heads our image analysis operations, both for whole-brain and whole-slide images. She has created and deployed customized workflows for automated registration and analysis of whole mouse brain images, utilizing both the BioHPC cluster and local computational resources. She is available to develop custom workflows for specific projects as needed.

Loretta (Lori) Donaldson, M.S.

Research Assistant I | WBMF

Ms. Donaldson assists in implementing and developing our computational image analysis workflows. She has expertise in whole brain registration, image segmentation, and 3D visualization tools.

Aleksandr (Aleks) Umanzor, B.S.

Research Technician II | WBMF

Mr. Umanzor primarily performs all aspects of serial two-photon tomography on our TissueCyte microscopes, including sample prep, image acquisition, image processing, and data management. He is also an expert in whole-slide scanning on the Hamamatsu NanoZoomer and lightsheet imaging on the LifeCanvas SmartSPIM.

Lily Li, M.D.

Research Scientist | WBMF

Dr. Li supports the traditional histology arm of the core. She has extensive expertise in frozen sectioning, histological staining, and immunostaining of traditional sections, as well as tissue clearing and whole-brain immunostaining.

Erik Plautz, Ph.D.

Research Scientist | NMF

Dr. Plautz conducts all surgical, behavioral, and electrophysiological experimentation in the core. He has decades of experience in modeling and assessing neurological injury in animals. He is available to perform any of the experimental options available in the core on a full-service basis or to train interested users to perform procedures independently.