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Members

Principal investigator

Graduate students

  • John Bracken joined the Rowlands group as a PhD student in 2004. He is developing a hybrid X-ray/magnetic resonance imaging system (XMR) to provide new diagnosis and treatment options for cardiologists that will help them improve their ability to treat patients with certain heart conditions and who are ineligible for surgery.

  • Matthew Wronski received his B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto in 2003 and 2005, respectively. He is pursuing a PhD while working with the Rowlands group and is developing an enabling detector technology based on avalanche multiplication in a-Se.

Research associates

  • Naomi Matsuura specializes in using nanotechnology to devise innovative solutions in the field of medical imaging. She joined Sunnybrook in 2005 as a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) strategic training fellow through the Excellence in Radiation Research for the 21st Century Program, hosted by the department of radiation oncology, University of Toronto. She heads a program within the imaging department at Sunnybrook, funded through the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. Her team designs, synthesizes and characterizes innovative nanostructures that can be effectively incorporated into biological systems for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

  • Normand Robert received his PhD from the department of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto in 1996 and spent over two years doing medical image software development at ISG Technologies (now called Cedara). He joined the Canadian Heart Research Centre in 1998 and also began working as a visiting scientist at Sunnybrook. Normand holds a research grant from the CIHR with John Rowlands and is interested in developing methods to improve image quality and reduce X-ray exposure in coronary angiography.

Visiting scientist

  • Alla Reznik received her PhD in solid-state physics from the department of physics, Technion, Israeli Institute of Technology, in 2000. Her doctoral studies were devoted to examining the electrical properties of diamond as a promising material for radiation detectors. Her research now is on the transport properties of and avalanche phenomena in a-Se to be used in the indirect flat-panel detector with avalanche gain. She is also developing the positron emission mammography system.

Research engineer

  • Justin Bimbrahw received his B.A.Sc. in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto in 2007 and joined the Rowlands group the same year. He is investigating the photogeneration process in a-Se using X-rays and visible light (quantifying photoconversion gain factor, gain fluctuations and deep trapping). He is also assisting in the avalanche multiplication project, which will make possible the use of flat panels for fluoroscopy.

Research technicians

  • Giovanni De Crescenzo started working with the Rowlands group in 1987. He has been involved with the basic physics of a-Se (characterizations of sensitivity, trapping), image intensifiers, Wiener spectra and MTF and DQE of imaging systems. His main research interest is the fundamental properties of a-Se as an X-ray detector. He also works with stimulable phosphors.

  • David Green joined the Rowlands group in October 2007 after working in the field of positron emission tomography for nearly 14 years. He is helping with the mechanical design and build of the XMR system.

Research chemist

  • Ivan Gorelikov received his M.Sc. (1995) and B.Sc. in chemical engineering and ecology at the Mendeleev University for Chemical Technology of Russia in Moscow. He joined the Rowlands group in 2004 and works on the development of nanoparticles for use in medical imaging.

Research physicists

  • Winston Chi Ji received his PhD in physics from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He worked as a research associate in the Coordinate Science Lab of the University of Illinois in the research and development of high-speed electronic GaAs devices, and in the Ontario Laser and Light Wave Research Centre of the University of Toronto in the research and development of optical communication devices. His current research interest is the theoretical modeling of X-ray detectors with a photoconductor (a-Se), phosphors (the standard phosphor Gd2O2S and the needle crystalline phosphor CsI) and storage phosphors (BaFBr and CsBr).

  • Philip Komljenovic received his B.Sc. in physics and astronomy from York University in 1998. He joined the Rowlands group in January 2000. Philip previously worked as an X-ray physicist at Communications and Power Industries. He is working on the design and development of the clinical hybrid XMR system.

  • Robert MacDougall received his B.Sc. in physics and mathematics from Acadia University in Nova Scotia in 2005. He completed his M.Sc. in the department of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto in 2008. During his master's program in the Rowlands group, he worked to characterize the imaging performance of the X-ray light valve (XLV). He is a research physicist in the XLV lab where he is working to complete imaging studies to evaluate the image quality of the XLV system.

  • Kristina Watt received her M.Sc. in medical biophysics from the University of Toronto in pulmonary magnetic resonance imaging. She completed her B.A.Sc. at the University of Waterloo in systems design engineering, where she worked as a co-op student in the Rowlands group, focusing on photostimulable phosphors and the XLV project. She is developing methods to improve image quality and reduce X-ray exposure in coronary angiography.

Visiting research engineers

  • Steve Germann received his B.A.Sc. in engineering science, electrical engineering option, from the University of Toronto in 1984. After spending several years in the industry, he joined the Rowlands group in 1993. He has worked on several of the group's projects involving digital electronics and system design. Currently, he is studying the properties of selenium and liquid crystals in connection with the XLV project.

  • Christie Webster received her B.A.Sc. in engineering science, physics option, from the University of Toronto in 1992 and has a P.Eng. She previously worked at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in magnetic resonance imaging research. She joined the Rowlands group in 2000, continuing the development of the XLV.

Co-op students

  • Siqi Zhu has completed three years of undergraduate study in biochemistry and biotechnology at the University of Waterloo. She is working on the development of multimodality nanostructure under the supervision of Dr. Matsuura.

  • Kelvin Wan is a co-op student entering his third year of nanotechnology engineering at the University of Waterloo. He is working on the development of nanosized contrast agents for cancer imaging.