The goal of my research is to lower the number of bone fractures associated with osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, and aging.

One project investigates the determinants of bound water in bone and the ability of 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to explain the age- and diabetes-related decrease in bone's resistance to fracture. Another project aims to identify novel Raman spectrocospy signatures that can distinguish normal bone quality from poor bone quality. Using wild-type and genetically modified mice with and without exogenous treatments, I also have several projects investigating how advanced glycation end-products, matrix proteins, and growth factors affect bone toughness. In collaboration with my colleagues at the Center for Bone Biology, we test new therapeutics to prevent fractures or heal fractures in pre-clinical rodent models of disease (namely, diabetes, bone metastasis, neurofibromatosis type 1).

Postdoctoral Fellow 2019 thru 022  

Current: Associate professor at West China Hospital

In my role in the Office of Research (OOR), I support the research and education missions of the Medical Center overall. This work is extended through focus on centers and institutes such as VUIIS. For those interested in the broader mission of the OOR, please visit our website here.

My current emphasis involves supporting the Director of VUIIS in overseeing the administration and financial health of the Institute, through collaborative efforts to maximize existing resources and identify new opportunities to sustain and grow the VUIIS research and training missions.

My interests pertain to statistical issues in medical image analysis such as quantification of uncertainty and replicability and performing high dimensional inference.

My work lately has focused on making accurate probabilistic statements for high-dimensional neuroimaging data such as computing voxel-wise and spatial extent adjusted p-values that describe how unlikely the observed results are under a particular null hypothesis. In imaging this requires dealing with low-rank estimates for complex covariance matrices, issues of normal approximations in high-dimensional data, and model misspecification. I developed several new (semi)parametric bootstrap joint (PBJ) inference procedures, which are available as an R package (pbj) on github. My current research is attempts to accurately estimate the probability that a thresholded statistical image contains all truly activated regions using small sample sizes. This is more akin to constructing confidence intervals than hypothesis testing and affords more power when the null hypothesis is false. I am also interested in the estimation of the proportion of the image with a nonzero effect size, inference for machine learning models of imaging data, topological data analysis, and unsupervised deep learning.

My lab develops novel optical imaging systems for clinical diagnostics and therapeutic monitoring in ophthalmology, gastroenterology, and oncology.

Biomedical optics enable noninvasive subcellular visualization of tissue morphology, biological dynamics, and disease pathogenesis. Ongoing research in my lab focuses on clinical translation of therapeutic tools for image-guided intraoperative feedback using modalities including optical coherence tomography and nonlinear microscopy. My lab has also developed optical imaging techniques that exploit intrinsic functional contrast for in vivo monitoring of blood flow and oxygenation as surrogate biomarkers of cellular metabolism and early indicators of disease. The majority of my research involves multidisciplinary collaborations between investigators in engineering, basic sciences, and medicine.

My research interests include advanced MRI acquisition methods, data reconstruction, and artifact corrections. While all MR imaging research is of interest to me, I have a particular interest in brain and spinal cord imaging.

I am interested in new imaging methods based on x rays, magnetic resonance, and ultrasound.  I am also interested in the clinical application of medical physics.

Current projects include phase contrast tomosynthesis, where x-ray phase contrast effects are combined with digital tomosynthesis to provide improved visualization of soft tissues, and the study of coherent scatter computed tomography, where the coherently scattered x rays are used to improve soft-tissue visualization in a cross-sectional imaging (CT) system.  Coherent scatter CT is at the stage of Monte Carlo simulation of such a system.  Both of these projects are part of a collaborative group effort.

My interests have been in cardiopulmonary imaging using MRI, CT, and radionuclide techniques.  My current responsibilities center primarily on external relations " corporate and international " for the School of Engineering.

Currently, I serve as Associate Dean of the School of Engineering and am responsible for external relations both corporate and international. I am VUSE"s liaison to the Career Center and interact with employers recruiting VU students. A number of prominent corporate leaders serve on the VUSE Committee of Visitors, a group I coordinate. Internationally, I assist with the development of global relations for research and academic study and also facilitate study abroad for VUSE students. I enjoy teaching courses in systems physiology and imaging including clinical translational imaging.

I work for Philips Healthcare and provide technical support for the Human Imaging Core for their 7.0T Machine as well as their 3.0T Machines. I started here in 2006 as part of the collaboration project between Philips and Vanderbilt. I am part of the Customer Experience Team for the Business Information Unit (BIU) and provide level 3 support for all of North America MRI.