Lab Members

Nipun Manral earned his master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He specializes in machine-learning, deep-learning and data-mining technologies and is currently working on the applications of deep learning for plaque segmentation using CTA images. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Nipun worked as a systems engineer in the information technology industry. He also volunteers with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, where he has won several prestigious awards such as the IEEE Young Professionals Achievement Award and the IEEE Hall of Fame Award for his contributions to technical and professional development of young professionals.

Caroline Park, BS, graduated from UCLA with a degree in biology. During her time at UCLA, she was a research associate at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center facilitating clinical trial enrollment of emergency medicine patients. She completed further emergency medicine research examining the correlation between netrin-1 signaling and characteristics of myocardial infarction in patients, the performance of the investigational Alinity I STAT High Sensitive Troponin-1 assay, and the analysis of two arms of treatment for sepsis. Since May 2021, Caroline has worked in the Dey Lab researching cardiac computed tomography angiography.

Tara Zuhair Kassem, MD, is a physician in cardiology residency training at the University Hospital Erlangen. With clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology, she focuses on cardiac CT, quantitative imaging and AI-driven approaches to improve risk prediction and patient care in the Dey lab. She is dedicated to bridging clinical medicine and imaging to advance precision cardiology. Kassem studied medicine in Germany and Switzerland, graduating from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2022. Beyond her work, she is driven by curiosity in art, languages and literature. In her free time, she enjoys attending exhibitions and painting.