WELCOME 

Our research focuses on developing and applying medical imaging (MRI) acquisition and analysis methods (include machine learning) to study health and disease, aiming at early detection, accurate diagnosis, evaluation and prediction of disease courses and treatment responses.  More recently, we also study COVID-19 disease and long COVID using a large cohort of EMR data. We collaborate closely with clinicians to solve clinically impactful problems. 

 

Biography

Science at the Heart of Medicine

Overarching Research Themes: 

  • Imaging (MRI) and analysis methods to detect and diagnose diseases early and accurately,
  • COVID-19 disease and long COVID,
  • Modeling using imaging and EMR/EHR data to predict disease courses and treatment responses, and
  • Applications of these methods to characterize disease pathophysiology and progression to inform patient care.
Please click on the Research Projects tab for current research projects. 
  • Another high impact covid paper (in Hypertension) 8/21/23 and its news feeds. Please visit our publication tab above).
     
  • Congratulations to many trainees who will be moving onto to the next stages of their careers (see News tab). 
     
  • Open positions (postdoc, research coordinators, research scientists, and faculty). See Job Opportunities Tab

We offer research opportunities to highly motivated medical, undergraduate, and high school students.  Our priority is to get trainees to publish first or co-first author papers (we have an excellent track record here) and we ask for your commitment to work toward publications.  We also host research/clinical visiting research scholars.

Covid project collaboration: We have built a large database of COVID-19 patients (with hundreds of longitudinal EMR variables in ATLAS/OMOP data structure and different propensity matched controls from 2016 to date).  If you have ideas and would like to collaborate, please reach out.  We are interested in long covid and are publishing a steady number of papers.  Long covid involves many organs and many disorders so we welcome collaboration with domain experts that long covid could potentially affect.

 

PhD training in biomedical imaging - a poster of what our faculty work on.

Technical expertise: MRI and other imaging methods, neuroimaging methods, big data, informatics, bioinformatics, machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, large language models, image-data analysis, predictive modeling, data sciences, and imaging clinical trials.

Clinical domain expertise: Neuroscience, neurology, physiology, animal models, retinal disease (glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy), neurodegenerative disease, cancer, and COVID-19.

Group Dynamics: Our research is translational and transdisciplinary.  We collaborate closely with radiologist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, and physicists to solve relevant problems.  Trainees learn from a large group of experts based on their projects.  Group members include imaging scientists, data analysts, engineers, and a few medical doctors.

Mentoring: We place strong emphasis on mentoring and career development.  I have mentored over two dozen predocs, three dozen postdocs, and two dozen non-tenure track faculty and tenure-track faculty.  Grantsmanship is important part of the training and about have of our graduate-level trainees are funded by individual and/or institutional training grants.  Many of our trainees have become leaders in their fields.  Most of our trainees end up as tenured faculty, tenure-track faculty, research scientists in academic institutions, research scientists in drug companies, and medical physicists in hospitals.

 

About Montefiore-Einstein Radiology: Montefiore-Einstein Radiology has over 70 radiologist, 15 PhD or MD/PhD faculty, and a large network of state-of-art, advanced imaging facilities that provide medical care across multiple acute care hospitals, a dedicated children's hospital, as well as multiple satellite clinics across Montefiore Health System.  Our physicians and faculty actively engage in research in all organ systems.  In addition, we provide research facilities and expertise to support a wide range of collaborative research projects.  Our patient cohort is diverse with a large population of underserved minorities.  We also provide research opportunities to fellows, residents, medical, undergraduate and high school students.

 

About Montefiore-Einstein

Founded in 1955,  the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein) is one of the nation’s premier institutions for medical education, basic research and clinical investigation. Montefiore Medicine Academic Health System, one of the largest in the country, is an integrated academic delivery system comprising seven campuses, including 15 hospitals, a multi-county ambulatory network. Einstein is home to multiple Centers of Excellence including 8 NIH-designated research centers. Montefiore-Einstein has an annual NIH grant funding of $245 (2020). A full-time faculty of some 2,000 conducts research, teaches, and delivers health care in every major biomedical specialty. The college has some 730 medical students, 193 Ph.D. students, 106 MD/Ph.D. students and 275 postdoctoral fellows. Montefiore-Einstein faculty also train over 1,300 residents, 420 allied health students, and 1,600 nursing students annually. 

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