Meet the Principal Investigator

Anke Henning, Ph.D.
Director and Professor Advanced Imaging Research Center
Professor Radiology (secondary appointment)
Diane and Hal Brierley Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Research
Anke Henning, Ph.D., an expert in medical imaging technology development, has been Director of the Advanced Imaging Research Center since January 2019.
A former research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, Dr. Henning has developed novel magnetic resonance imaging methods for noninvasive visualization of disease-related structural, functional, and metabolic changes in the human brain, spinal cord, and heart.
Her expertise is in ultra-high field magnetic imaging technology, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and non-proton imaging. She also directs clinical research with respect to brain imaging in psychiatric disorders, spinal cord imaging in traumatic injury, and imaging of the human heart. At UT Southwestern, Dr. Henning has expanded her research interests as a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Scholar in Cancer Research to include imaging glioblastoma with the ultimate goal of enhancing the treatment of this aggressive, incurable brain cancer.
She obtained a master’s degree in physics from the Technical University of Chemnitz in Germany and her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (also known as Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). She remained at the ETH for postdoctoral training and soon became project leader of the MR Spectroscopy activities. During that time, she also spent a short-term stay as a visiting scientist in the Department of Radiology at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She joined the Max Planck Institute in 2012 and in 2017 was made a full Professor of Medical Physics at the Ernst-Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald, Germany.
Current Lab Members

Bei Zhang, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- Head of the Radiofrequency Coil Laboratory

Manoj Kumar Sarma, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- MRI sequence development & MR spectroscopy

Kimberly Chan, Ph.D.
Instructor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- MRI sequence development & MR spectroscopy
- CPRIT Brain Cancer trial

Mahrshi Jani
Graduate Student
- B0 shimming software, MR spectroscopy
- CPRIT Brain Cancer trial

Celik Boga
Graduate Student
- Parallel transmission, 7T pulse and sequence design

Shengyue Su
Graduate Student
- B0 shimming hardware design

Yeison Rodriguez
Graduate Student
- MR spectroscopy spectral fitting
- CPRIT Brain Cancer trial

Yujia Huang
Research Assistant (shared with Jian Liu’s lab)
- Image Analysis CPRIT Brain Cancer trial

Jeannie Baxter
Research Nurse & Clinical Research Manager
- CPRIT Brain Cancer trial
Collaborators
CPRIT Brain Cancer Trial
Elizabeth Maher, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor, Neurooncology
- Multi-modal 3T/7T MRS/MRI in Brain Cancer: Patient Recruitment, Clinical Expertise
Toral Patel, M.D.
Associate Professor, Neurosurgery
- Multi-modal 3T/7T MRS/MRI in Brain Cancer: Patient Recruitment, Clinical Expertise
Jiaen Liu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- Quantitative Anatomical Imaging, Susceptibility Weighted Imaging, Myelin Imaging
- Motion Correction, Image Reconstruction
- Image Analysis CPRIT Brain Cancer trial
Binu Thomas, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- Perfusion weighted Imaging, Cerebrovascular Reactivity, CMRO2 measurement
- Image Analysis CPRIT Brain Cancer trial
Lafora Disease
Berge Minassian, M.D.
Division Chief, Pediatric Neurology
Professor & Division Chief
- Patient Recruitment, Clinical Expertise, Study Design, Funding
Jimin Ren, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- 31P MRS data acquisition and analysis
Talon Johnson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Advanced Imaging Research Center
- 31P MRS data acquisition and analysis
Schizophrenia
Elena Ivleva, M.D.
- 7T MRI and MRS in Schizophrenia: Study Design, Patient Recruitment, Funding
Cardiac Metabolic Imaging
Vlad Zaha, M.D.
- Hyperpolarized 13C MRI of heart in breast cancer patients
Michael Nelson, Ph.D.
- 31P MRS in heart of HFpEF patients