Congratulations to Olivia Stanley and Jason Kai
Our Congradulations to Olivia Stanley and Jason Kai, Both were awarded The Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform (CONP) Student Scholar Program.
Olivia Stanley is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Biophysics department supervised by Dr. Ravi Menon at The University of Western Ontario. She completed her Bachelors of Science at the University of Waterloo in Physics with a minor in Biophysics. Her research interest is improving the localization of functional MRI activation using both the magnitude and phase of the functional MRI signal.
Her project with CONP is to design a software platform allowing for the easy inclusion of phase data in functional MRI analysis (fMRI). fMRI is sensitive to large and small vessels which can lead to a mislocalization of brain activity. fMRI phase data is selectively sensitive to large vessels and it can be used to remove them from the magnitude signal. Her software platform will allow for the user to assure that their phase data is of sufficient quality for this task, try different techniques to remove these large vessels, and finally select the best one to use for their specific data.
Jason is currently a PhD candidate in Medical Biophysics at Western University, supervised by Dr. Ali Khan. He previously obtained a B. Eng. in Electrical & Biomedical Engineering from McMaster University. His research primarily focuses on studying the short, U-shaped pathways that join nearby regions of the brain using diffusion MRI techniques.
The research project focuses on developing pipelines and tools to aid in the study of the brain’s structural connectivity. Additionally, the research is also concerned with the use of such pipelines and tools to perform reproducible research and aims to characterize the reliability of the developed tools. Ultimately, the project intends to provide the community with additional open resources to support research that improves understanding of the brain’s complex connections and how it gives rise to function and cognition.
#MRI #science #CFMM #robarts #imaging #medicalbiophysics
