Meet Our Fellows

Simone Sasse, MD, MPhil, grew up in Los Angeles, then attended Princeton University where she studied Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a certificate in Global Health and Health Policy.   Afterwards she completed an MPhil in Parasitology at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She earned her MD through the combined Harvard/MIT (HST) program, obtaining a Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellowship to work in Malawi on HIV and women's health. She completed her residency training at New York University Langone Health, where she served as research and quality improvement chief resident. At Stanford she is a member of the Brooke Howitt lab, studying carcinosarcomas and their serous counterparts and looking at the IGF pathway's contribution to plasticity and malignant potential in carcinosarcomas. In her free time, she enjoys backcountry skiing and hiking.

Lindsey Finch, MD, JD grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from Yale University with a BA in History. She then earned a JD from Harvard Law School and worked as a corporate attorney for several years in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. She earned her MD from the University of Miami School of Medicine, where she was selected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society and won multiple awards for her leadership, volunteer work, and performance in obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr. Finch then completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami School of Medicine. There, she served as academic chief resident and received the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Outstanding Resident Award and awards for excellence in clinical and patient care. Following residency, she completed a 2-year ovarian cancer research fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Her work has been presented at national and international research meetings, and she has published in Gynecologic Oncology, International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, Gynecologic Oncology Reports, and others. At Stanford, she has joined the Brooke Howitt lab and is making use of the many resources at Stanford to expand her research and academic interests. In her free time she enjoys running and reading.

While originally from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Abdelrahman (Abdel) AlAshqar, MD was born and raised in Kuwait in a family that valued education, discipline, and academic excellence. He was awarded a full scholarship to attend Kuwait University Faculty of Medicine, where he graduated as Valedictorian with Distinction and Class Honors. Following graduation, he completed a year of clinical training with Kuwait's Ministry of Health before pursuing residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Yale University. Throughout medical school and residency, Dr. AlAshqar developed a passion for medical education and mentorship and taught hundreds of medical students and residents over the span of twelve years, while in clinical training himself. He earned numerous prestigious awards for his academic excellence, research, and teaching, including the awards by His Highness the Amir of Kuwait, Kuwait University President, and Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. AlAshqar has worked in clinical translational gynecologic research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine since 2018. His early research focused on cardiometabolic risk in benign gynecology and outcomes of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery before shifting to gynecologic cancer research at Yale while still extrapolating from his prior research interests. He primarily investigated the association between cardiovascular disease and gynecologic malignancies and his research on this topic earned the award for best Chief Resident Research Presentation at graduation. Dr. AlAshqar is well published with several of his papers accepted in Nature, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncology. Particularly interested in ovarian cancer research advancement, Dr. AlAshqar hopes to be part of the movement that revolutionizes the paradigm for ovarian cancer diagnosis and treatment.

In addition to his life as a fellow, Dr. AlAshqar has a particular affection for cats. He is also an avid wildlife enthusiast and dreams of visiting the humpback whales in British Columbia, the great migration across the Serengeti, and the wilderness of Alaska.