Meet the Principal Investigator
Jae Mo Park, Ph.D.
Associate Professor I Email
Dr. Park received all of his degrees in Electrical Engineering. His doctoral work at Stanford University was focused on technical developments of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) with application to preclinical brain tumor metabolism. Following completion of his Ph.D. in 2012, he broadened his research into advanced biomedical imaging as a postdoctoral research fellow and a research associate in the Department of Radiology at Stanford School of Medicine. He moved to the Advanced Imaging Research Center at the UT Southwestern in 2016 as an Assistant Professor. He also joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Dallas in 2017. He has been an Associate Professor of the Advanced Imaging Research Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Department of Radiology at UT Southwestern since 2022 when he received his tenure.
Current Lab Members
Crystal E. Harrison, Ph.D.
Research Scientist I Email
Dr. Harrison received her BS in Physics at the University of Texas at Austin in 2003. She later got her MS and PhD, both in Physics, from the University of Texas at Dallas studying the metabolism of pyruvate in cancer using hyperpolarized 13C spectroscopy and imaging. Dr. Harrison held two postdoctoral positions at UT Southwestern in the Advanced Imaging Research Center and Radiology. Her research interests include MR sequence programming, data reconstruction, and mathematical modeling. Dr. Harrison is the Regulatory Manger of Human Studies at the AIRC, the primary operator of the human hyperpolarizer, the SPINlab®, and a mom of three.
Jun Chen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow I Email
Dr. Chen graduated with a BA in Biomedical Sciences from Imperial College London in 2011. Afterwards, she obtained her PhD from Department of Biochemistry of UT Southwestern in 2017 where she researched how TORC1 regulates nitrogenic cataplerotic metabolism in response to amino acid starvation. She is interested in developing new probes for assessing intermediary metabolism and exploring the pathophysiological metabolism using 13C/15N-labeled MR imaging and spectroscopy.
Kelley A. Derner, R.N.
Research Nurse & Coordinator I Email
She received her BS in Psychology from Texas A&M University and in Nursing from Texas Woman's University. Kelley joined the lab in 2022 as a research nurse and coordinator. Prior to joining the lab, she worked for UT Southwestern Medical Center, including the AIRC human core.
Mai Huynh, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow I Email
Dr. Huynh received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Dallas where she researched the interaction of bovine serum albumin coated-MWNTs and macrophages using SR-A knockout RAW 264.7 cells that were generated using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. She is interested in synthesizing and developing the 13C-labeled metabolic probes generated by dynamic nuclear polarization and parahydrogen induced polarization techniques that can be used as a tracer in in vivo metabolism study and MRI.
Richard Martin, B.S.
Biomedical Engineer I Email
Richard is a biomedical engineering specialist with years of experience in biomedical instrumentation, electro-mechanical design fabrication, systems integration, and equipment evaluation. After working as a telecom engineer at MCI/WORLDCOM and a senior engineering technician at Texas Instruments, he joined the Advanced Imaging Research Center in 2008. He maintains NMR and MRI equipment, and develops hardware such as MR RF coils. He is also responsible for new AIRC facility installations, including interfacing with vendors, planners to ensure compliance with plumbing, electrical & HVAC to meet specific requirements, for example clinical MRI, DNP polarizers, and NMR systems.
Sung-Han (Hank) Lin, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow I Email
Dr. Lin obtained his BS from National Taiwan University and PhD from Institute of Clinical Medical Science of Chang Gung University in 2021, where he mainly focused on the image-based machine learning algorithm for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. He is interested in developing novel MR pulse sequences and image reconstruction algorithm to accelerate hyperpolarized 13C imaging.
Baljeet Seniwal, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow I Email
Dr. Baljeet Seniwal is a physicist with a strong foundation in medical physics. He holds a Master's degree in Medical Physics from Panjab University and completed internship as a medical physicist at the Department of Radiation Oncology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India. His Ph.D. work at the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, focused on the biomedical application of radiation. Prior to joining the lab, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Université Laval in Quebec, Canada, where he made significant contributions to a project dedicated to developing personalized 3D-printed eye plaques for cancer treatment. His current research focuses on advancing image acquisition and reconstruction techniques for metabolic imaging with hyperpolarized probes.
Sasanka Nadishan G. Wathukara Dewage, B.S.
Graduate Student I Email
Sasanka received his B.S. honors degree in Nuclear Medical Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2021. Before joining the lab, he worked on nuclear instrumentation and coincidence detection of gamma radiation of positron annihilation. He joined the lab in 2024 as a biomedical engineering graduate student.
Zohreh Erfani, M.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow I Email
Dr. Erfani was born and raised in Ilam in the west of Iran. Prior to joining the lab, she studied medicine at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She is interested in imaging and cellular metabolism in different neurological conditions. She enjoys learning new things and exploring the world.
Alumni
- Edward P. Hackett, M.S.
- Research Assistant (2017 - 2020)
- Next position: MD Candidate, Medical College of Wisconsin
- Pranav Matthews, B.S.
- Undergraduate Student of UTD Electrical Engineering (2020 - 2021)
- Next position: PhD Candidate, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Galen Reed, Ph.D.
- Research Scientist, GE Healthcare (2017 - 2021)
- Next position: Senior Computer Vision Engineer, Truvian
- Junjie Ma, Ph.D.
- Graduate Student of the UTSW, Biomedical Engineering (2017 - 2021)
- Next position: Cardiac MRI Scientist, GE Healthcare
- Shiori Harima
- High School Student, Frisco High School (2022 - 2022)
- Next position: B.S. Candidate, Johns Hopkins University
- Enya-Angel Hachem, B.S.
- Undergraduate Student of UTD Electrical Engineering (2022 - 2023)
- Next position: Toyota Motor Corp.
- Sarah Al Nemri, B.A.
- Research Assistant (2022 - 2023)
- Next position: M.S. Candidate, University of North Texas
- Maheen Zaidi, B.S.
- Research Assistant (2021 - 2023)
- Next position: M.D. Candidate, the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM)
- Leon Khalyavin, M.S.
- Graduate Student of UTD Electrical Engineering (2021 - 2023)
- Next position: Ph.D. Candidate, Imperial College London