Department of Neurology
Posse MR Lab
Associate Professor/Principal Investigator
Stefan Posse, PhD Dr. Posse obtained his
undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of Cologne, Germany
and pursued his PhD in Magnetic Resonance in vivo at the University of
Florida and the University of Berne in Switzerland. During his
postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health he
developed MR methodology to investigate brain metabolism and function
at high magnetic field, and introduced one of the first high-speed MR
metabolic imaging methods in human brain. He subsequently moved to
Germany to build an MR research laboratory at the Research Center
Juelich and pioneered
real-time
functional MRI in human brain. In 2000 he joined Wayne State
University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI, where he built a
high-field MR research laboratory with one of the first clinical 4
Tesla whole body MR scanners. Since 2003 he is Associate Professor at
the University of New Mexico School of Medicine with adjunct
appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, and Physics and Astronomy.
His federally funded research program is aimed at advancing functional
and metabolic MRI for applications in Neuroscience and Clinical
Research. He trains students, fellows, residents, faculty and staff to
prepare them for successful careers in academia and industry. He
serves frequently on NIH study sections
and
collaborates with national and
international research centers in the United States, Europe, Australia
and Taiwan.
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Postdoctoral Fellows
Kaung-Ti Yung, PhD After receiving his
PhD in 1999 from Dr. Paul C. Lauterbur at U. of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Kaung-Ti Yung was on faculty of Geneva College near
Pittsburgh, PA and continued MR research at Carneige Mellon University
and U. of Pittsburgh from 2003-2008. While there Dr. Yung constructed
RF coils, implemented sequences, and calculated diffusion tensor
anisotropy maps for murine models. Currently he is optimizing
saturation band placement for high-speed MR spectroscopic
imaging
(PEPSI),
and comparing short TE and TE-averaged PEPSI data for mapping
Glutamate.
Chenguang Zhao, PhD Since completing his
PhD study in medical image processing in 2005, Chenguang Zhao has been
working on MR imaging and spectroscopy (MRI/S). Dr. Zhao's background
spans from Mathematics, MR physics, to signal processing. He is
currently developing high-speed MR spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI) for
the human breast to map total Choline, a metabolic marker
of
breast
cancer. He recently implemented online reconstruction of PEPSI
data on the Siemens 3T scanner which permits viewing of reconstructed
spectra on the scanner.
Weili Zheng, PhD
Weili Zheng received her Ph.D in 2007 from the University of
Singapore. Her research interests include signal and image processing
and medical image analysis. Dr. Zheng has worked on vascular
segmentation of MRA in strokes, and MR brain image analysis of
Alzheimer's disease. She is currently working on novel
pattern
classification methods for real-time fMRI and outer volume
suppression in high-speed MR spectroscopic
imaging
(PEPSI).
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Graduate Student
Ernesto Akio Yoshimoto Ernesto Akio
Yoshimoto is a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at the
University of New Mexico, specializing in digital image processing
applied to magnetic resonance imaging. Since 2007, he has been working
on high-speed MR spectroscopic imaging with parallel reconstruction
techniques using large scale array coils. He also works on spectral
quantification in high-spatial resolution MR spectroscopic imaging
(PEPSI) to obtain
detailed metabolite maps of the brain.
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Programmers/Analysts
Elena Ackley, MS Elena Ackley received
her Masters in Computer Science from the University of New Mexico in
2000. Most recently she programmed the 'Negative Database' for UNM CS
research. Currently, she is developing the TurboFIRE real-time fMRI
analysis software package and novel
pattern classification methods for real-time fMRI.
Kunxiu Gao, MS Kunxiu Gao received his
Master's degree in Computer Science from Wayne State University in May
2001, and started working with Dr. Posse on the real-time fMRI project
in August 2001 at the Brain Imaging Research Division, Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, at Wayne State University
School of Medicine. Currently, he is lead developer of the TurboFIRE
real-time fMRI software package and resides in Massachusetts.
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Administrative Support
Jennifer Cordova, AS Jennifer Cordova
completed her Associate Degree in Business Management through CNM in
2005, and recently became a member of UNM Department of Neurology
coordinating Contract and Grant submissions for all Principal
Investigators. She works closely with Dr. Posse and his team, and is
the initial contact for volunteers interested in participating as
subjects in the MR research
studies.
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Our Collaborators
Acknowledging the many talented people we work with here at home, and
around the globe:
University of New Mexico: Juan Bustillo
MD, S. Eberhardt MD, C. Ford MD PhD, P. Heintz PhD, L. Lomo MD,
R. Rosenberg MD, M. Royce MD, L. Sillerud PhD, A.M. Wallace MD
MIND Research Network: Vincent Calhoun
PhD, Arvind Caprihan PhD, Hongji Chen, Chuck Gasparovic PhD
MGH/Harvard University: B. Jenkins PhD,
A. van der Kouwe PhD, Fa-Hsuan Lin PhD, Lawrence Wald PhD
CMRR/University of Minnesota: Patrick
Bolan PhD, Pierre-Gilles Henry PhD, Kelvin O. Lim PhD, Malgorzata
Marjanska PhD, Bryon Mueller PhD, Kamil Ugurbil PhD
UCLA/University California Los Angeles:
Jeffry R. Alger PhD
University of Madrid, Spain: Manel
Martínez-Ramón PhD
University of Iowa: Vincent Magnotta PhD
New York University Medical
Center: Ricardo Otazo PhD, Daniel Sodickson PhD
University of Washington: Stephen R. Dager
MD
Seattle Children's Hospital: Denis Shaw MD
University of Montreal, Canada Gary Duncan
PhD, Emma Duerden M.Sc., Ph.D. candidate
McGill University, Canada Bruce Pike PhD
National Taiwan University and Chang Gung University,
Taiwan: Fa-Hsuan Lin PhD, Shang-Yueh Tsai PhD
University of Magdeburg, Germany: Oliver
Speck PhD
University of Freiburg, Germany: Maxim
Zaitsev PhD
Radboud University, The Netherlands: Tom
Scheenen PhD
Georgetown University: John van Meter PhD
University of Texas at Arlington: Timothy
N. Odegard PhD
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center: Richard W. Briggs PhD
Kopenhagen University, Denmark: Lars
Hanson PhD
McLean Hospital: Blaise Frederick PhD,
Chun Zuo PhD
JABSOM, University of Hawaii: Thomas Ernst
PhD, Linda Chang MD,MS
Heinrich-Heine-University
Düsseldorf: Rüdiger J. Seitz, MD
Purdue/Indiana University: U. Dydak PhD
Siemens Medical Solutions, Inc.
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