Medical Imaging Informatics & AI Faculty
Researchers and Postdoctoral Researchers
Alison Myoraku
Staff Research Associate II
[email protected]
MS in Biomedical Imaging, UC San Francisco
Alison’s work spans depression, Alzheimer's disease, and traumatic brain injury. She has worked on various steps of image processing, data harmonization, and the utilization of longitudinal imaging data (PET and MRI) to model regional changes in volume, amyloid deposition, and other characteristics throughout the disease course.
Pallavi Rane
Staff Research Associate I
[email protected]
PhD in Biomedical Engineering, WPI, Worcester, Massachusetts
Pallavi’s background is in pre-clinical and clinical research using MRI in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Currently, her work includes looking at the effects of APOE genotype and sex on the progression of imaging and clinical biomarkers and studying correlations between imaging biomarkers and clinical measures in Alzheimer's disease.
Marta Milà Alomà
Postdoctoral Researcher
[email protected]
PhD in Biomedicine (Neuroscience), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Marta is currently working on elucidating the performance of blood biomarkers in detecting AD pathology and predicting disease progression to optimize their use in clinical trials. Her special interest is studying sex differences in AD biomarkers and the impact of risk factors on neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. She has active collaborations with several groups as well as contributing to an international non-profit organization, “The Women’s Brain Project.”
Imaging Team
Stephanie Rossi
Imaging Core Supervisor
[email protected]
BA in Psychology and Biology with a specialization in Neurobiology, Boston University
Stephanie manages the Imaging Team and also oversees grants and multi-site clinical trials at the VA Advanced Imaging Research Center (VAARC), including, but not limited to, Dementia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Epilepsy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Depression, Parkinson's Disease, and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Additionally, she leads the High Field Center as head MR Tech assisting with the direction, supervision, and management of SFVAMC/VAARC 3T and 7T MRI research.
Mark Choe
Staff Research Associate II
[email protected]
BS in Machine Learning and Neural Computation, UC San Diegoody
Mark helps acquire, manage, process, and analyze imaging data for projects concerning Alzheimer's disease, adult trauma, and lower back pain. Beyond data, he generates billing reports, handles MRI logistics, and develops team protocols.
Mariam Ali
Staff Research Associate II
[email protected]
BA, Cognitive Science (computational) and minor in Arabic, UC Davis
Mariam performs MRI data acquisition on research (7T) and clinical (3T) scanners for neuro-degenerative disease projects, including Alzheimer’s, TBI, epilepsy, and MS. She processes and manages large data using different pipelines, assists in developing studies and scans protocols, and trains new staff handling certification on MRI safety.
Statistics/Biostatistics Team
Tamar Schaap
Biostatistician
[email protected]
MS in Behavioral Science, Radboud University, Netherlands; MS in Artificial Intelligence, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Tamar is a research-oriented statistician with a background in data analytics and machine learning. Her previous work includes creating machine learning models to predict psychological and biological outcomes using data from wearables. Currently, Tamar is working on applying a new harmonization method to data coming from MR Imaging in order to adjust for variations that may result from scanner differences.
Zack Hausle
Biostatistician (Clinical Research)
[email protected]
MS in Biostatistics, University of Michigan
Zack’s current work includes research into biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease in ADNI, as well as statistical education and support for other members of the lab
Information Technology/Scientific Programming
Daniel Cuneo
Programmer/Analyst III
[email protected]
Eliana Phillips
Programmer/Analyst I
[email protected]
MS in Scientific Computing and Applied Mathematics, UC Santa Cruz
Eliana is developing pipelines for neuroimaging data processing and analysis with the aim of studying biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.
Graduate Students
Clara Sorensen
PhD candidate in BioEngineering, UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco
[email protected]
Clara’s research is focused on using artificial intelligence for the discovery and validation of multi-modal biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases, specifically Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Some of her projects use partial least squares regression to understand the extent to which fluid biomarkers (plasma and CSF) are driven by biological changes captured by multimodal imaging. She’s also working on building computational biomarkers using graph neural networks to both predict the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease and to predict protein accumulation from multimodal image-based (structural MRI, diffusion MRI, and PET) graphs.
Serena Tang
PhD candidate in BioEngineering, UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco
[email protected]
Serena is interested in sleep as it affects brain glymphatic clearance mechanisms and potential correlations with Alzheimer's disease. She is currently working on perivascular space segmentation in combination with analysis of cerebral blood flow as one way to quantify these relationships.
Brendan Mitchell
PhD candidate in BioEngineering, UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco
[email protected] | [email protected]
Brendan's research is focused on better understanding the progression of Alzheimer's disease pathology, aiming to inform and guide clinical decision-making. By integrating multi-omics and imaging data from the ADNI, he seeks to elucidate changes in clinically relevant biomarkers to yield new insigghts into the transition from healthy aging to the progression of the disease.
Project Manager/Scientific Writer
Pamela Zobel-Thropp
PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, UC Los Angeles
[email protected]
Pam manages Dr Tosun-Turgut's team who works on large, international scientific initiatives and collaborative projects focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease and Aging. She ensures that these integrative projects are moving forward and helps with manuscript and grant preparation.
Alumni/Past Members
Ryan Ellis
Ryan worked as a Staff Research Associate on neural networks for neuroimaging and developed image processing pipelines.
Machine Learning Engineer, EDO, Inc
Dhaval Kadia
Dhaval worked as a Staff Research Associate on neuroimaging projects to research and develop new machine learning methods for image processing and standardized analysis of neurodegenerative diseases utilizing imaging data on a large clinical trial study.
Machine Learning Engineer, VoxelCloud
Anna Hwang
Anna worked as a Research Data Analyst managing clinical research projects, performing neuropsychiatric assessments, and processing/analyzing large participant datasets.
User Research Operations Specialist, Course Hero
Jiaxiuxiu Zhang
Staff Research Associate I
[email protected]
MS in Biomedical Imaging, UC San Francisco
Xiuxiu has used fMRI BOLD contrast to decode pain perception and anticipation using imaging biomarkers from patients with chronic low back pain. She is currently working on a project using fMRI data to analyze fluid dynamics of CSF clearance in the brain.
