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Bioimaging Sciences Faculty

  • Director MRI Research

    Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Professor of Neurosurgery; Co-Director MRI Research Center, Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Radiology
    • Neuroimaging
    • Neurosurgery
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Diagnostic Imaging
    • Anatomy
    Dr. Constable received his PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Toronto. He came to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow and has been here since. In addition to being the director of MRI in the Yale Magnetic Resonance Research Center, he runs two parallel labs. One lab is a neuroscience lab focused on mapping the functional organization of the brain through functional MRI measurements and understanding the relationship between this functional organization and behavior. Such developments are leading to new approaches to functionally phenotype individuals with applications in subtyping in brain disorders and disease. Dr. Constable's other lab is focused on the development of novel MRI devices with projects around low field MRI's that can be placed in doctor's offices, with the potential to make MRI much more accessible than it is in it's current form.
  • Director, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Group, Bioimaging Sciences

    Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering; Technical Director, Magnetic Resonance Research Center (mrrc.yale.edu); Program Director, Core Center for Quantitative Neuroscience with Magnetic Resonance (qnmr.yale.edu)

    Research Interests
    • Neurosciences
    • Neoplasms by Histologic Type
    • Radiology
    • Molecular Probes
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Biomedical Engineering
    Dr. Hyder is Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, where he is a founding faculty member. He is Head of MRS Group of the MRRC and Director of QNMR Research Program. He studied physical chemistry at Wabash College (BA 1990) and biophysical chemistry at Yale University (PhD 1995). Dr. Hyder studies brain energy metabolism. His lab develops magnetic resonance (MR) based imaging methods to study brain physiology and chemistry, revealing how neuronal-glial cells fuel their function and (re)growth. He posits that mapping metabolic dysfunction (e.g., energetics for cellular function vs. cellular proliferation) can indicate early biomarkers of brain disorders and diseases. To map brain’s physiology and chemistry with MR-based imaging and spectroscopic advances and targeted delivery and monitoring of treatments, his laboratory conducts multidisciplinary functional and molecular imaging of neurodegeneration and neuro-oncology, requiring expertise in physics to chemistry to engineering to cancer biology to neuroscience. His contributions include development of high-resolution fMRI in preclinical models, calibrated fMRI for quantitative imaging of neuronal activity, and molecular imaging methods for pH and temperature mapping and other physiological parameters that are relevant in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Hyder has written and edited books on functional brain imaging and holds several patents on molecular imaging of cancer. His research work has produced over 240 papers with as many invited presentations, amassing over 20K citations. He has had continuous NIH support for 25 years, spanning across interests from 7 different NIH institutes. He has renewed grants from different funding agencies and has received several early career awards from. He sits on editorial boards of several scientific journals, and he reviews for many scientific journals spanning several disciplines. He serves on advisory panels of several funding agencies. Dr. Hyder holds many honors, including the Melvin H. Knisely Award from the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue, the Niels Lassen Award from the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, and the Lundbeck Foundation Visiting Professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He has fellowships in American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Academy of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research, and Sigma Xi the Scientific Research Honor Society. Recently, he was appointed Head of Trumbull College at Yale University and received a General Assembly Official Citation from the State of Connecticut.
  • Director, Positron Emission Tomography Group, Bioimaging Sciences

    Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Chi Liu received his Ph.D. in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University with emphasis on quantitative SPECT/CT imaging. Following his graduate work, he was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington, specializing in oncological PET/CT studies with emphasis on compensation algorithms for respiratory motion. In 2010, he joined Yale University as a faculty member. He is board certified in Nuclear Medicine physics and instrumentation by the American Board of Science in Nuclear Medicine. His current research focuses on quantitative cardiac and oncological PET/CT and SPECT/CT imaging, including deep learning algorithms, reconstruction algorithms, data correction, dynamic imaging, and translational imaging. The translational and clinical applications of these projects include early detection of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity, multimodality imaging of heart failure, and eliminating respiratory motion variability for assessing response to therapy. Many of the imaging technologies developed in his lab has been or is being implemented in clinical PET and SPECT scanners. In 2012, he was awarded with the Bruce Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award from the IEEE Nuclear Medical and Imaging Sciences Council for “contributions to the imaging physics of SPECT/CT and PET/CT, with emphasis in quantitative imaging and motion correction”. He was the President of Physics, Instrumentation, and Data Sciences Council (PIDSC) of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) between 2022-2023, is currently the Immediate Past President of PIDSC.
  • Director, Image Processing and Analysis, Bioimaging Sciences

    Professor of Biomedical Informatics & Data Science, and Radiology & Biomedical Imaging; Director: Image Processing and Analysis, Bioimaging Sciences, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Radiology
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Brain
    • Imaging, Three-Dimensional
    • Software
    I have twenty five plus years of experience in medical image analysis, machine learning, and software development. I have been involved in a variety of imaging projects ranging from cardiac image analysis, image-guided epilepsy neurosurgery, image-guided prostate biopsy, development of methods for real-time fMRI, vascular image analysis and general neuroimaging analysis. We have used both model-based approaches (biomechanical and physiological models) and more data-driven statistical/machine learning approaches. These projects spanned most of the imaging modalities (MRI, CT, Ultrasound, PET, SPECT, Optical), body parts (brain, head, heart, vasculature, prostate, abdomen, hindlimbs) and a variety of species. In addition to algorithm research, I have been heavily involved in the development of medical image analysis software. My software work (which is directly linked to the image analysis research) has focused on the creation of tools for image analysis both at Yale and as a consultant for industry. My early work (1990s) used C++/Motif/OpenInventor on Silicon Graphics workstations. Later I used C++/Tcl/VTK as part of the creation of the original Yale BioImage Suite software package. More recently, I have focused on the creation of web-based tools using a combination of JS and C++ (via WebAssembly) to create server-less tools that can be run in a browser. Some of the C++ algorithms are also made available for use in Python and MATLAB scripts. In addition to actual software development, I teach a class on Medical Software at Yale which formed the basis for our recently released textbook “Introduction to Medical Software: Foundations for Digital Health, Devices and Diagnostics” that was just published by Cambridge University Press (Summer 2022) and a Coursera online class titled “Introduction to Medical Software” that was released in October of 2021 and which currently has more than 26000 enrolled students from all over the world. I also direct the Yale Certificate Program in Medical Software and Medical AI. Finally, I am a member of a number of technical standards committees at the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) on software and artificial intelligence.
  • Director Yale MR Research Center

    Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering; Co-Director MRI Research Center, Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Dr. Rothman is director of the Magnetic Resonance Research Center (MRRC) at the Yale School of Medicine. The MRRC presently supports the NIH- funded work of more than 70 Principal Investigators, as well as 13 program project grants and center grants. Dr. Rothman has an international reputation as a leader in the development of novel MR methods for the study of brain, liver, and muscle metabolism and function. Among the many MR 'firsts' of his team of bioimaging scientists have been the development of MR methods for imaging glutamate and GABA neurotransmission, brain energy metabolism, and liver and muscle glycogen and glucose metabolism and metabolic control. He is presently supported by two R01 grants, and has served as the primary mentor of six postdoctoral fellows and two students. His postdoctoral fellows have all gone on to faculty positions at major research institutions in the US and abroad. He is a named mentor on five K awards at different levels and is an informal mentor to many other junior and mid-level faculty members in the use of MR technology in their research.
  • Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Endocrinology
    • Liver
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1
    • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
    • Adipose Tissue
    • Brain
    • Stress, Physiological
    • Whole Body Imaging
    • Neuroendocrinology
    • Obesity
    • Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography
    • Pancreas
    Jason earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at The City College of New York, City University of New York in 2015. His dissertation focused on the validation and improvement of quantitative PET of atherosclerotic plaque metabolic activity using novel simultaneous PET/MR systems. Jason is currently using PET imaging to investigate mechanisms of disease and receptor/enzyme pharmacology in metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. Current projects include using PET to image dopamine in the pancreas both in type 1 and type 2 diabetes; whole-body distribution of the cortisol activating enzyme (11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1); and method development (image reconstruction, attenuation and scatter correction) for whole-body kinetic modeling of novel PET radioligands in clinical and preclinical studies.
  • Associate Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and of Pharmacology

    Research Interests
    • Positron-Emission Tomography
    • Pharmacokinetics
    • Pharmacology
    • Biomarkers
    • Chemistry, Pharmaceutical
    • Alzheimer Disease
    • Drug Development
    • Drug Discovery
    • Neurodegenerative Diseases
    Dr. Jason Cai is an Associate Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and of Pharmacology, with expertise in Medicinal Chemistry and Radiopharmaceutical Sciences. After studying at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Dr. Cai joined Carolyn Anderson’s lab at the University of Pittsburgh as a postdoctoral associate, focusing on radiopharmaceutical development and preclinical PET imaging in oncology. In 2015, he joint Yale PET Center to expand his research portfolio to brain PET imaging. His research group is currently focusing on the development and translation of novel PET imaging probes for drug PK/PD study and the investigation of CNS disorders and Oncology. He is the recipient of the NIH Career Development Award (K01) in 2017, SNMMI Berson-Yalow Award in 2018, and Archer Foundation Research Scholar Award in 2019.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering; Director of Graduate Studies, Biomedical Engineering

    Research Interests
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Nuclear Medicine
    • Physiology
    • Positron-Emission Tomography
    • Radiology
    Richard E. Carson received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1983 in Biomathematics. From that time on, he has focused his research on the development and application of mathematical techniques for the study of human beings and non-human primates with Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a noninvasive imaging technology that uses radiopharmaceuticals to trace in vivo physiology and pharmacology. From 1983 until 2005, Dr. Carson was an integral part of the PET program at the National Institutes of Health, rising to the rank of Senior Scientist. In 2005, Dr. Carson joined the faculty of Yale University as Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Diagnostic Radiology. He was Director of the Yale PET Center from 2007 to 2022, a state-of-the-art facility focused on quantitative PET techniques using novel radiopharmaceuticals. Dr. Carson is also Director of Graduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Carson’s research interests are concentrated in the following areas: 1) Ultra-high resolution brain PET systems and algorithms for image reconstruction with PET, 2) Development of mathematical models for novel radiopharmaceuticals to produce images of physiological parameters, 3) Use of receptor-binding ligands to measure drug occupancy and dynamic changes in neurotransmitters by analysis of PET tracer signals, and 4) applications of PET tracers in clinical populations and preclinical models of disease. Dr. Carson has published over 400 papers in peer-reviewed journals, given over 200 invited lectures and is a member of the editorial board of two of the leading journals in the field of brain PET, the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. Dr. Carson was awarded the Kuhl-Lassen award from the Brain Imaging Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 2007. He became a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2008 and was awarded the Sheffield Distinguished Teaching Award from the Yale School of Engineering. In 2009, he was named the winner of the Ed Hoffman Memorial Award from the Computer and Instrumentation Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. In 2010, Dr. Carson was named as a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. In 2016, Dr. Carson was given the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research. In 2017, Dr. Carson received the Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award from the IEEE. In 2018, Dr. Carson gave the Henry N. Wagner Jr. Lectureship at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging annual meeting in Philadelphia. In 2019, Dr. Carson was named as a Fellow of the IEEE. In 2023, Dr. Carson received the Yale University Graduate Mentor Award. In 2024, Dr. Carson received the Image of the Year award at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging annual meeting and the 2024 IEEE Marie Skłodowska-Curie Award sponsored by the IEEE Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society.
  • Associate Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Associate Professor , Digestive Diseases; Associate Professor , Biomedical Engineering; Principal Investigator, Yale Interventional Oncology Laboratory , Radiology & Biomedical Imaging; Director, Center for Minimally Invasive Therapies, Radiology & Biomedical Imaging; Associate Director, Clinical and Translational Core, Liver Center

    Research Interests
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Carcinoid Tumor
    • Carcinoma, Hepatocellular
    • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
    • Liver
    • Liver Cirrhosis
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Metabolism
    • Neoplasm Staging
    • Chemotherapy, Cancer, Regional Perfusion
    • Ablation Techniques
    • Molecular Imaging
    Dr. Chapiro is an Associate Professor in Radiology, Digestive Diseases (Hepatology) and in Biomedical Engineering, Principal Investigator of the Yale Interventional Oncology Research Lab and Director of the Center for Minimally Invasive Therapies. After graduating from the University of Leipzig and upon completion of his research thesis at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen with summa cum laude, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow in interventional oncology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and then as radiology resident at the Department of Radiology, Charité University Hospital in Berlin. He joined the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging in 2016 as a research scientist and interventional radiology resident from Berlin, Germany. Dr. Chapiro’s research focuses on developing new quantitative imaging biomarkers for the diagnosis, characterization, and therapeutic management of liver cancer. His translational research portfolio includes the development of novel embolic agents as well as the application of artificial intelligence solutions for the management of liver cancer. His basic research interest mainly focuses on developing new tools to characterize the tumor microenvironment and the immune system in the setting of loco-regional, image-guided therapies of liver cancer. Creating innovative and clinically applicable imaging solutions for liver cancer with advanced molecular imaging, image post-processing and machine learning approaches and translating them to clinical practice has been his central mission for the past decade. He authored and co-authored >150 original research articles, reviews and book chapters and gave more than 100 talks and invited lectures within the last seven years. His research has also resulted in several patents, 510(k)-approved medical products and significant grant support from federal, foundational and industry sources. He is an active research mentor to more than 50 undergraduate, medical and graduate students as well as peers both at Yale and other national and international institutions. Being an active contributor, journal-, abstract- and grant reviewer in several professional societies (RSNA, SIR and SIO), he is also committed to education and the mission of disseminating research data and scientific knowledge. Dr. Chapiro consults the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hepatology and Radiology (RSNA), is a member of the American College of Radiology Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) Steering Committee, he additionally chairs the Grant Committee of the Society of Interventional Oncology and is the Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Planning Committee for the Subspecialty of Interventional Radiology at the Annual Radiological Society of North America meeting 2021-2023. He is the co-initiator of the "Rising Star" Student Exchange Program in collaboration with the Charité University Hospital in Berlin and directs the Center for Minimally Invasive Therapies. Dr. Chapiro is the Associate Director of the Clinical and Translational Core of the Yale Liver Center.
  • Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering

    Research Interests
    • Brain Neoplasms
    • Liver Neoplasms
    • Molecular Imaging
    I am interested in development of molecular imaging methods to reveal physiological and chemical alterations underlying disease in preclinical models and exploit them in clinical applications. In my lab I use advanced Magnetic Resonance (MR) techniques, from multi-nuclear MR Spectroscopy (1H, 13C, 31P, 19F, 23Na) to multi-modal MR Imaging (Biosensor Imaging of Redundant Deviation in Shifts - BIRDS, Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer, calibrated fMRI, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Arterial Spin Labeling, etc.), to conduct in vivo biomedical imaging research on both pre-clinical and clinical scanners. My research interest is development of new MR imaging biomarkers for cancer, to better understand the resistance mechanisms and design new therapies. For this, I developed an ultrafast MR Spectroscopic Imaging technique called Biosensor Imaging of Redundant Deviation in Shifts (or BIRDS) for mapping the acidic microenvironment of cancer.
  • Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Department Chair, Biomedical Engineering

    Research Interests
    • Diagnostic Imaging
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Radiology
    • Temporal Lobe
    James Duncan, the Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has focused his research and teaching in the areas of biomedical image processing and analysis.Duncan, who holds joint appointments in diagnostic radiology and electrical engineering, is the associate chair and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering as well as the vice-chair for bioimaging sciences research in diagnostic radiology. He is particularly interested in the use of model-based mathematical strategies for the analysis of biomedical images. He helped pioneer the use of geometrical models for segmenting deformable (typically anatomical) objects of approximately known shape and for tracking certain forms of non-rigid object motion, and later soft tissue deformation, most notably that of the heart.Duncan and his research team performed seminal work starting in 1987 on the use of parameterized global shape models to incorporate a notion of known prior object shape into the segmentation process using a Bayesian reasoning strategy, helping lead the way towards the use of strategies for automatically finding certain known anatomical structure from any of a variety of medical (e.g. computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound) and biological (e.g. confocal microscopy) images. The strategies he developed have resulted in major advances in bioimaging. He and his research collaborators have applied these strategies to locate the cortical gray matter layer and a variety of co-localized subcortical gray matter structures in the brain as well as to locate the structure near the prostate gland. More recently, Duncan’s team has begun to show that these same techniques will be useful for estimating gray matter-constrained activations from functional MRI data and could help guide the recovery of quantitative biochemical information from MR spectroscopy.Beginning in the late 1980s, Duncan also pioneered using shape features on the inner and outer surfaces of the heart wall as material tags for tracking left ventricular motion. This technique was successfully applied to other non-rigid tracking problems in cell biology and became the basis for a variety of efforts internationally. Duncan and his research team used this strategy for more sophisticated analysis in echocardiography. The team’s approach is now recognized in the medical-image-analysis community as among the first to incorporate true physical models into image analysis strategies and has helped develop a more general area of physical/biomechanical model-based re covery of both structural and functional information from biomedical images. Duncan’s laboratory has also developed initial forms of these techniques to estimate brain shift during epilepsy neurosurgery and guide fractionated prostate radiotherapy, among other uses. His work has resulted in three U.S. patents.Duncan is the principal investigator of major research funded by the National Institutes of Health. Before coming to Yale in 1983, he worked for Hughes Aircraft Company. He holds a B.S.E.E. from Lafayette College, an M.S. from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.Duncan is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is president of the International Society for Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention and is a member of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the I.E.E.E. Computer Society, among other professional organizations.
  • Research Scientist in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Kira Grogg earned her Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of Wisconsin in 2011, where she conducted research at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. She then began a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (MGH/HMS), where she investigated imaging patients using positron emission tomography (PET) immediately after proton therapy treatments. Her research aimed to verify the location of the proton radiation dose and was supported by an NCI K07 award. In 2015, Grogg became an Instructor at MGH/HMS and in 2019 completed a certificate program in Medical Physics and Instrumentation at HMS. She worked as a clinical medical physicist and researcher, obtaining ABSNM certification in Nuclear Medicine Physics in 2021. In 2024, Grogg joined the Yale PET Center as a Research Scientist.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director of real-time fMRI

    Research Interests
    • Neurofeedback
    • Neurosciences
    • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Psychiatry and Psychology
    • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
    • Video Games
    After completing an undergraduate degree in Computing Science at the University of Alberta, Dr. Hampson did her graduate work in Boston University's Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, a department focused on computational neural network models of brain systems. She came to Yale as a postdoc to pursue her interests in human functional neuroimaging. During her postdoc, Dr. Hampson conducted some of the earliest studies of resting-state functional connectivity, validating the technique and relating resting-state functional connectivity measures to behavioral variables. Later, she turned her focus to using real-time fMRI neurofeedback for training people to control their brain activity patterns. She is interested in novel functional neuroimaging techniques and psychiatric applications of these techniques.
  • Associate Professor Adjunct; Associate Director of Imaging, Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

    Research Interests
    • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
    • Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
    • Alcohol-Related Disorders
    • Neuroimaging
    • Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment
    Ansel obtained his Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2014. His research program features core areas of translational characterization of novel PET radiotracers, developing new imaging paradigms to improve quantification of brain neurobiology, and human neuroimaging research studying mechanisms underlying diverse psychiatric conditions. Research efforts are complemented by didactic activities lecturing at Yale and individual mentoring of trainees. Current projects include characterizing novel PET radiotracers of immune-related targets in the brain; developing novel imaging paradigms to study acute alcohol effects on neuroimmune and glutamate systems; assessment of dopamine release from smoked cannabis; method development for analyzing multimodal imaging data from fMRI-PET or PET-PET datasets; and implementing Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to identify different sources of PET radiotracer uptake.
  • Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science

    Research Interests
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
    • Information Science
    • Neural Networks, Computer
    • Deep Learning
    Xiaofeng joined Yale on 03/2024 as an Assistant Professor in traditional tenure track, and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (forward related email to: liuxiaof@broadinstitute.org). He is also actively serving as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS) and Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), Area Chair of MICCAI and ISBI, and NIH reviewer panels (Computational, Modeling, and Biodata Management – MCST (14), (16), etc). Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor (2023-2024), Instructor (2021-2023), and Post/Pre-Doctorial Fellow (2019-2021) at MGH/BIDMC of Harvard Medical School. His research interests are centered around the convergence of trustworthy AI/deep learning, medical imaging, and data science to advance the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment monitoring of various diseases.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Psychiatry; Director Metabolic Modeling and Director Psychiatric MRS, Magnetic Resonance Research Center; Director, Neuroimaging Sciences Training Program, Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and Psychiatry; Chair, Magnetic Resonance Research Center Protocol Review Committee, Radiology & Biomedical Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Alcoholic Intoxication
    • Alcoholism
    • Amino Acids
    • Carbohydrates
    • Central Nervous System Diseases
    • Fatty Acids
    • Mathematical Computing
    • Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
    • Mood Disorders
    • Alcohol-Induced Disorders, Nervous System
    • Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
    • Physiological Effects of Drugs
    • Neuroimaging
    Dr. Graeme F. Mason develops experimental models and methods for studies of brain metabolism using 1H and 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Mass Spectrometry in conjunction with 13C isotopic labeling in vivo, in cell preparations, and other systems. His work began during his graduate studies at Yale where he used a rat model for the experimental determination of brain glucose transport kinetics, energetics, and neurotransmitter metabolism. Dr. Mason received further training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he guided the group's 13C-labeling studies of the human brain in vivo in the 4.1T whole-body MR system. Dr. Mason studies metabolism and neurotransmission in the brain in vivo, including effects of psychiatric, neurological, and metabolic conditions. Dr. Mason examines healthy subjects and patients to investigate relationships among GABA, glutamate, and glutamine concentrations and their rates of synthesis and release in the brain, in particular with regard to effects of acute and chronic use of alcohol. He also studies detailed kinetic modeling of isotopomer and isotopologues using data from high-resolution NMR and mass spectrometry.
  • Associate Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director, NeuroPET Imaging Program, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Medical Director, Yale Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center

    Research Interests
    • Autistic Disorder
    • Mental Disorders
    • Parkinson Disease
    • Social Class
    • Meditation
    • Essential Tremor
    • Molecular Imaging
    • Frontotemporal Dementia
    • Neuropsychiatry
    • Neuroimaging
    • Addiction Medicine
    I am a board certified psychiatrist and neuropsychiatrist with research work that has been translational in nature and focused on elucidating the underlying pathology of brain conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, substance abuse and neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., Parkinson's disease) with an aim to find effective clinical treatments guided by molecular neuroimaging. Studies have included using in vivo PET imaging to investigate the role of neuroreceptors such as dopamine D3, serotonin 1B and 6, MGlur5 and kappa opioid systems, neuroinflammation, and most recently, synaptic density (SV2A) in clinical and nonclinical populations. Ongoing interests include imaging neuropsychiatric and addictive disorders and the demographic, social and environmental factors influencing our brain.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering

    Research Interests
    • Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography
    • Sensory Receptor Cells
    Morris specializes in using kinetic modeling and image processing to extract physiological information from dynamic PET images. His current projects include: Modeling and texture analysis to image Non-small cell lung cancer with tyrosine kinase inhibitor tracers Novel kinetic modeling to image dyskinesias in Parkinson's Continued Optimization of Dopamine Movies to study Addiction and Behavior Applying principles in functional connectivity and machine learning to analyze dopamine movies Imaging new targets in Depression, AlcoholismUsing multimodal PET to understand the opioid system in alcoholism.Creating new parametric images to speed drug discovery Morris and his group continue to refine mathematical and statistical aspects of their techniques for making "dopamine movies" of the brain. With their dopamine movies, Morris and colleague Kelly Cosgrove and their team discovered sex differences in brains of smokers smoking cigarettes (J Neurosci Dec 10, 2014).
  • Senior Research Scientist in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Associate Director of PET Center, Yale PET Center; Deputy Director of PET Center Chemistry Section; Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Control, Yale PET Center

    Nabeel Nabulsi obtained his BA degree from UTA in 1980 in Chemistry (pre-Medicine), MS degree from TTU in Organic Chemistry in 1984, and PhD from LSU in Organic/Bioorganic Chemistry in 1991. Afterwards, Dr Nabulsi spent several years back in his ancestry homeland Jordan, during which time worked as director of Organic Chemistry labs in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Jordan for Women, and subsequently as senior scientist at Hikma pharmaceuticals raw chemicals division, all the while engaging in comparative theological research and free-lance writing. After returning to the States, Dr Nabulsi spent 2 years as a research fellow chemist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in the Department of Infectious Diseases Infection Control and Employee Health, where he worked in Dr I Raad's lab on developing methods for coating/impregnating indwelling medical devices with antiseptics to prevent nosocomial infections. Subsequently, Dr Nabulsi was awarded a 3-year training fellowship in PET radiochemistry in Dr M Kilbourn's Lab at the University of Michigan. Dr Nabulsi was recruited by Dr Y-S Ding to join the Yale PET Center in 2006.
  • Research Scientist in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Substance-Related Disorders
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Dementia
    • Nuclear Medicine
    • Pharmacokinetics
    • Radiopharmaceuticals
    • Receptors, Opioid, kappa
    • Positron-Emission Tomography
    • Kinetics
  • Assistant Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and of Urology

    Dr. John Onofrey conducts basic research to develop and apply novel software solutions to solve clinical problems by combining data science, machine learning and biomedical imaging. A member of the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Urology, and Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Onofrey is the principal investigator of major research funded by the National Institutes of Health. Currently, his interdisciplinary work addresses challenges in prostate cancer diagnosis, liver cancer staging, and positron emission tomography (PET) image analysis. Dr. Onofrey’s research focuses on the development of novel image analysis algorithms using machine learning, including deep learning methods, and he has a particular interest in image classification, image segmentation, and image registration. He has applied his background in computer science to a wide variety of medical image analysis research projects. His doctoral research focused on leveraging large amounts of clinical data to build effective statistical models of both brain shape and brain deformation for image-guided neurosurgery. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Onofrey applied machine learning towards interventional image-guided biopsy of prostate cancer. He has also applied state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, including deep learning, to automatically segment anatomical structures from clinical images. Not only did these projects leverage large amounts of data to train complex machine learning software algorithms, but they also required detailed software engineering practices to rigorously test and validate these algorithms. As an educator, Dr. Onofrey co-created and co-teaches the interdisciplinary “Data and Clinical Decision-Making” class in the School of Engineering, which teaches undergraduate and graduate students, and clinical fellows how data science and machine learning are being applied to real-world clinical problems. Before coming to Yale in 2007, Dr. Onofrey worked as a professional software engineer for the U.S. Army Research Lab (ARL) and Lockheed Martin. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director of Cardiac MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Research Interests
    • Atrial Fibrillation
    • Diagnostic Imaging
    • Gadolinium
    • Liver
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Radiology
    • Imaging, Three-Dimensional
    Dana C. Peters is Professor in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at Yale and responsible for body and cardiac MR at the Magnetic Resonance Research Center, with a secondary appointment in Biomedical Engineering. Early training and discoveries: She received her undergraduate degree in Physics at the Johns Hopkins University, her PhD in Physics at University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she first demonstrated the utility of undersampled radial imaging. Her postdoc was at NIH, NHLBI, working in the laboratory of cardiac energetics. Following this, she was Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, working at the BIDMC Cardiac MR Center. Her expertise is in cardiovascular MR, obtained during the last decade,  working with cardiologists to improve detection of heart disease. This work has led to new frontiers in the application of MRI to electrophysiology, by demonstrating that scar can be visualized in the left atrium, due to RF ablation, or due to structural remodeling pre-ablation.Recent focus: Continuing in these directions, the cardiac MR group develops new MRI tools for evaluating cardiac function, strain, flow, pressure, and tissue characterizations, with research to investigate the arrhythmic substrate in the left atrium in patients with atrial fibrillation, or who are likely to develop atrial fibrillation.  One focus of research is on diastolic dysfunction (i.e. high pressures in the heart)  that both correlates atrial fibrosis and remodeling on one hand, and possibly results in atrial arrhythmia. Based on this, a new direction is to evaluate and characterize heart chamber pressures based on functional metrics, including strain, MRI-derived E/e', and flow metrics. Her group has also worked to develop new MRI methods to characterize liver cancer, and is currently working on new methods for deuterium metabolic imaging, also applied to cancer imaging. Mentoring:  Peters is also committed to training a new generation of biomedical imaging scientists. She believes in providing an environment with excellent MRI resources, knowledge about state-of-the-art methods, and important questions in collaboration with clinicians and scientists, to generate creative new solutions in medical imaging.
  • Research Scientist in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director, Small Animal MRI Core, Magnetic Resonance Research Center

    My expertise in combining neurophysiology with fMRI brings a novel combination of tools and a unique perspective to understand brain function during physiology and pathology. My current research is focused on understanding of the biophysics of brain functioning and facilitating the translation of basic science research to various clinical applications (e.g., healthy aging, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, early life stress, schizophrenia, stroke, mild traumatic brain injury, Spinal cord injury).
  • Associate Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    Dustin Scheinost, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Biomedical Engineering, Statistics & Data Science, and at the Yale Child Study Center. The Multi-modal Imaging, Neuroinformatics, & Data Science (MINDS) Lab’s research is three-fold. First, using state-of-the-art research for connectomics, we aim to develop novel statistical and machine learning methods for functional connectivity to meet challenges arising with the “big” neuroscience data. Second, the MINDS lab helps lead development of BioImage Suite Web (BISWeb; https://bioimagesuiteweb.github.io/webapp/), integrated image analysis webapp. Third, we are at the cutting edge of early life neuroimaging, focusing on the development of the brain’s functional organization in fetuses, neonates, and infants. We are a founding member of Fetal, Infant, Toddler Neuroimaging Group (FIT’NG). This research has been supported by NIMH, NIAA, NIDA, and NHLBI.
  • Professor of Medicine (Cardiology); Chairman, Radioactive Drug Research Committee (RDRC), Internal Med/Cardiology; Director, Animal Research Laboratories, Internal Med/Cardiology; Chairman, Yale Radioactive Safety Committee (RSC), Internal Med/Cardiology; Chairman, Yale Radioactive Investigation Drug Committee (RIDC), Internal Med/Cardiology; Director, Yale Translational Research Imaging Center (Y-TRIC), Internal Med/Cardiology; Director, Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging, Internal Med/Cardiology; Board of Directors, Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) -Nuclear/PET, Internal Med/Cardiology, Yale School of Medicine

    Research Interests
    • Cardiovascular System
    • Cardiology
    • Echocardiography
    • Positron-Emission Tomography
    • Myocardial Perfusion Imaging
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Translational Research, Biomedical
    • Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
    Albert J. Sinusas, M.D., FACC, FAHA, FASNC is Professor of Medicine (Section of Cardiovascular Medicine) and Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University School of Medicine, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, and Director of the Yale Translational Research Imaging Center (Y-TRIC), and Director of Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging at Yale New Haven Hospital. He received a BS degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MD degree at University of Vermont, College of Medicine, and completed training in internal medicine at the University of Oklahoma, and training in cardiology and nuclear cardiology at the University of Virginia. He joined the faculty at Yale University School of Medicine in 1990 where he has remained. Dr. Sinusas has served as a standing member of the Clinical and Integrated Cardiovascular Sciences (CICS), and standing member and chair of Medical Imaging (MEDI), and Clinical Translational Imaging Sciences (CTIS) study sections of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Sinusas has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Cardiovascular Council (CVC), Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence (MICoE), and Center for Molecular Imaging Innovation and Translation (CMIIT) of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM), and Board of Directors of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He was the 2008 recipient of the SNMMI Hermann Blumgart Award. His research is directed at development, validation and application of non-invasive cardiovascular imaging approaches for the assessment of cardiovascular pathophysiology, including the targeted molecular assessment of myocardial ischemic injury, angiogenesis, arteriogenesis, and post–infarction atrial and ventricular remodeling, and peripheral artery disease. The investigation of these biological processes involves, ex vivo and in vivo imaging in animal models of cardiovascular disease and humans. This translational research employs the 3–D modalities of X-ray computed tomography (CT) and fluoroscopy, SPECT/CT, PET/CT, echocardiography, and MR imaging in an animal physiology laboratory and clinical environment. Dr. Sinusas is the principal investigator of several NIH grants involving multi-modality cardiovascular imaging, and directs a NIH funded T32 grant providing training in multi-modality molecular and translational cardiovascular imaging. He is the author of over 250 peer reviewed publications and invited reviews related to cardiovascular imaging, and co-edited a textbook entitled Cardiovascular Molecular Imaging published in 2007 and Hybrid Imaging in Cardiovascular Medicine in 2018.
  • Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, of Biomedical Engineering and of Electrical Engineering; Director of Undergraduate Studies, Biomedical Engineering

    Research Interests
    • Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Machine Learning
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
    • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
    • Neural Networks, Computer
    • Radiology
    • Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
    Lawrence Staib received his A.B in Physics from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University. He is now Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Yale. He is a member of the editorial board of Medical Image Analysis and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He was elected to the Council of Distinguished Investigators of the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research. His research interests are in the development of methods for medical image analysis with applications in cancer, neuroimaging, and cardiology using machine learning and model-based approaches.
  • Research Scientist in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

    As a director of translational PET chemistry, my focus is on development and translation of PET radiotracers for studying the molecular basis of disease using Positron Emission Tomography or PET in non-human primates and humans. As a metabolite manager, my second focus is to oversee the metabolite analysis lab, to generate high quality metabolite data of novel PET tracers for input function used in brain modeling and modeling for cardiology and cancer imaging.