During the course of my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University, I completed a three term co-op/internship at Baxter Healthcare in an exploratory research division. In my final year, I was an REU Fellow at Duke University, completing a short project investigating the resolution of cardiac ablation sites using acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging. After graduating, I received a Whitaker Fellowship to undertake an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town with Professor Thomas Franz where I used computational modelling to investigate the impact of injected biomaterials into infarcted myocardium as a potential therapy to minimise cardiac remodelling.
In Auckland, New Zealand, I did a PhD investigating inverse methods for the estimation of anisotropic stiffness of the heart using magnetic resonance elastography and diffusion tensor MRI data, at the University of Auckland with Professor Alistair Young. My most recent move has taken me to the UK where I currently work as a Research Associate at Kings College London using MR data along with computational modelling to better understand the progression of cardiac pathologies such as hypertrophic and hypertensive cardiomyopathy.
Research Interests
I’m interested in data-driven cardiac modelling, incorporating magnetic resonance images with novel modelling techniques to provide patient-specific information which can aide diagnosis, treatment and therapy planning in patients with cardiac pathologies. Additionally, I’m interested in developing inverse methods to estimate stiffness of tissue from MR elastography data, providing a non-invasive means of measuring mechanical properties of tissue.