Top Researchers
Top Researchers in Medicine at Brigham Young University for 2025
Brigham Young University’s 2025 Medicine research profile spans clinical, public health, and translational work across a sampled set of 328 works. The scholars highlighted below reflect a broad mix of interests, from epidemiology and obstetrics to cardiology, biomechanics, and adolescent health.
Together, their recent publications show how research at BYU is connecting patient care, population patterns, and lab-based inquiry. Explore the featured researchers below to see how these themes are taking shape across the year.
Featured Researchers
Adrianna Watson
Adrianna Watson’s recent work centers on research and theory in health professions education, with attention to mass casualty simulation, nurse-led research ethics, and student responder experiences.
Activity this year: 12 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Lived experience of student responders with leadership in a mass casualty simulation (Mar 2025)
- Addressing Potential Researcher Distress in Nurse‐Led Research: Ethical Considerations and Practical Strategies (Feb 2025)
- Nursing and Emergency Medical Technician Students' Perspectives on Mass Casualty Simulation Training: A Phenomenological Study (Apr 2025)
Juan A. Arroyo
Juan A. Arroyo’s publications focus on obstetrics and gynecology, especially placental dysfunction, pregnancy exposure risks, and metabolic regulation.
Activity this year: 12 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Differential Regulation of PKM2, AMPK, and mTOR in Response to Insulin and Dietary Management (Mar 2025)
- Impact of Secondhand Smoke and E-Cigarette Exposure on Placental Apoptotic and Growth-Regulatory Proteins in Mouse Pregnancy (Mar 2025)
- Transcriptomic Insights into Gas6-Induced Placental Dysfunction: Gene Targets for Preeclampsia Therapy (Feb 2025)
Erin D. Bigler
Erin D. Bigler has been writing on epidemiology and neurology, including mild traumatic brain injury, youth sports exposure, and injury outcomes in adolescents.
Activity this year: 14 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- What traditional neuropsychological assessment got wrong about mild traumatic brain injury. IV: clinical applications and future directions (Apr 2025)
- Boys Versus Girls Youth Sports Participation Risk for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Behavioral, Physical Health, and Neurocognitive Outcomes (May 2025)
- Differential effects of sport type on brain versus orthopedic injury and sports benefits in the adolescent brain cognitive development study (Sep 2025)
Paul R. Reynolds
Paul R. Reynolds is working across clinical biochemistry and pregnancy-related medicine, with recent studies on insulin signaling, smoke exposure, and placental dysfunction.
Activity this year: 13 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Differential Regulation of PKM2, AMPK, and mTOR in Response to Insulin and Dietary Management (Mar 2025)
- Impact of Secondhand Smoke and E-Cigarette Exposure on Placental Apoptotic and Growth-Regulatory Proteins in Mouse Pregnancy (Mar 2025)
- Transcriptomic Insights into Gas6-Induced Placental Dysfunction: Gene Targets for Preeclampsia Therapy (Feb 2025)
Evan L. Thacker
Evan L. Thacker’s recent medicine research links cardiology, epidemiology, and metabolism through studies of stroke trajectories, vascular risk, and heart disease statistics.
Activity this year: 9 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Kara Duraccio
Kara Duraccio’s work brings together cognitive psychology and public health, focusing on adolescent executive function, sleep restriction, and personalized sleep interventions.
Activity this year: 10 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- 0221 Quantity, Quality, or Perception: Factors Contributing to Adolescent Executive Function (May 2025)
- Experimentally induced sleep restriction relates to less healthy eating behaviors in some adolescents: effects of age, sex, race, weight class, and socioeconomic status (Jan 2025)
- 0248 Game-Changing Sleep: A Brief and Personalized Intervention Approach for Athletic Performance (May 2025)
Brett E Pickett
Brett E Pickett is publishing on epidemiology, genetics, and infectious diseases, with a strong recent emphasis on preeclampsia mechanisms and vaping in pregnancy.
Activity this year: 10 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Transcriptomic Insights into Gas6-Induced Placental Dysfunction: Gene Targets for Preeclampsia Therapy (Feb 2025)
- Reversing Preeclampsia Pathology: AXL Inhibition Restores Mitochondrial Function and ECM Balance (Aug 2025)
- Vaping in Pregnancy: Unraveling Molecular Drivers of Preeclampsia and Fetal Growth Restriction (Oct 2025)
Anton E. Bowden
Anton E. Bowden’s recent publications span spine care and biomedical engineering, including interbody cages, trial design for spine treatments, and wearable sensors for back pain.
Activity this year: 10 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Expandable interbody cages for lumbar spinal fusion: a systematic review (Feb 2025)
- The design and rationale of the Biomarkers for Evaluating Spine Treatments trial: a sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (Apr 2025)
- Wearable sensor technologies for individuals with back pain: a scoping review (Sep 2025)
What Brigham Young University's Medicine Community Is Working On
The most common subfields point to a community actively working at the intersection of epidemiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and clinical biochemistry. That mix suggests a strong emphasis on understanding disease patterns, pregnancy and placental health, and the biological mechanisms that shape clinical outcomes. Alongside those core areas, researchers are also engaging with neurology, cardiology, public health, and engineering-informed approaches to care, showing a broad but connected medical research landscape at Brigham Young University.- Epidemiology - seen across 3 of the featured researchers
- Obstetrics and Gynecology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- Clinical Biochemistry - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- Research and Theory - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
- Radiological and Ultrasound Technology - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
From maternal health and cardiovascular risk to sleep, injury, and clinical measurement, this snapshot shows a campus community working across several connected areas of medicine. If you want to keep track of researchers, organize citations, or prepare manuscripts more efficiently, Resub can help streamline the research workflow behind the scenes.