Current Members
- Faculty
- Research Fellows
- Graduate Students
- Staff
- Professional Trainees
- Undergraduate Trainees
- Affiliated Faculty
Faculty
Walter Witschey, PhD
Associate Professor of Radiology
witschey@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
215-662-2310
Dr. Witschey is an Associate Professor of Radiology and member of the Bioengineering and Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Graduate Groups at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the recipient of the 2011 NIH/NIBIB Pathway to Independence Award, 2014 McCabe Foundation Award, and 2016 W.W. Smith Foundation Award. He was a former trainee in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Penn and finished his postdoctoral training in Bioengineering at the University Medical Center in Freiburg, Germany. The research goals of his group include non-invasive imaging of myocardial ischemia progression and salvage, innovative technologies for imaging arrhythmias, and MR-guided interventions for heart disease.
Victor Ferrari, MD
Professor of Medicine; Professor of Medicine in Radiology; Chair, Penn Cardiovascular Imaging Council, Depts. of Medicine, Radiology, and Penn Cardiovascular Institute
I focus strongly on a collaborative approach to care with my patients, advocating for them, and educating them regarding their disorders. I emphasize an active and joint approach to managing their conditions, and blend state-of-the-art care with a humanistic approach. I practice many areas of cardiology, including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, and preventive care. I also see patients with rare disorders such as Marfans disease, HHT (Osler-Weber-Rendu), Friedreich's Ataxia, and Fabry's disease. I will shortly complete LGBT training and offer cardiovascular care in this area.
Hersh Sagreiya, MD
Assistant Professor of Radiology
Physician-scientist, with clinical work in Abdominal Imaging and research in Informatics and Machine Learning.
Harold I. Litt, MD, PhD
Professor of Radiology; Chief, Cardiothoracic Imaging Division; Chief, Cardiovascular Imaging Section; Director, Center for Advanced Computed Tomography Imaging Services
Paco Bravo, MD
Assistant Professor of Radiology; Director of Nuclear Cardiology; Nuclear Medicine Modality Chief; Vice-Chair for the Radiation Research Safety Committee (RRSC); Chair for Nuclear Cardiology Governance; Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Phenotyping Unit, Center for Human Phenomic Science (CHPS)
I have a particular interest in the complementary role of radionuclide molecular imaging techniques and tissue characterization with contrast-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging for sub-clinical detection, phenotyping, diagnosis, and risk stratification of individuals with various forms of cardiomyopathy.
Research Fellows
Neil Chatterjee, MD, PhD
Research Fellow
Neil Chatterjee is a research track resident in diagnostic radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his MD/PhD at Northwestern in 2018 with a focus on cardiovascular perfusion MRI, but these days his interests are focused below the diaphragm. He will be doing a body imaging fellowship, but before that he will spend his PGY-5 year working on AI applications to body imaging.
Graduate Students
Sophia Swago
PhD Student
Sophie is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Bioengineering and a fellow in the HHMI-NIBIB Interfaces Program. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2016. She joined the lab in 2020 after completing a year and a half of didactic medical training. Her research focus is on the development and application of downfield magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques at high field.
Beth Thompson
MD/PhD Student
Beth Thompson is an MD/PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. Her research interests are in using imaging and computational fluid dynamics to better understand cardiovascular pathophysiology.
Ryan Sokolow
Master's Student
Ryan is a bioengineering master's student at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with a bachelor's in biomedical engineering from The College of New Jersey. Ryan's research interests are using reduced-order models for hemodynamic flow in blood vessels with geometry acquired from imaging data.
Raheema Damani
Rotating PhD Student
Raheema Damani s a Bioengineering Ph.D. student and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) - Interfaces Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from University of Alabama at Birmingham with a Bachelors in biomedical engineering. Her research interests are in using machine learning algorithms to extract image-based phenotypes from medical images to diagnose diseases and predict responses to treatment.
Jessie Dong
Master's Student
Jessie Dong is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Engineering Physics from Emory University. Her research is focused on the development of computational techniques for medical image analysis. She is currently working on deep learning-based reconstruction methods for cardiac MRI.
Marina Awad
PhD Student
Marina is a Bioengineering PhD student, starting Fall 2023, at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia in 2023. Her research interests are in cardiac MRI post-processing methods and using medical imaging to better understand physiological mechanisms and improve clinical care.
Cameron Beeche
PhD Student
Cameron is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Bioengineering. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2021 and after spending two years as a research staff member in the Department of Radiology he joined our lab in 2023. His research interests are in deriving image phenotypes for prognostic and diagnostic modeling.
Staff
Abhi Bhattaru
Research Assistant
Abhi is an incoming MD candidate at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. He graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from The College of New Jersey as part of the 7-year BA/MD program. He joined the lab in 2021 as a research assistant in the Department of Cardiovascular imaging. His research focus is on the applications of machine learning in medical imaging, specifically in sarcoidosis, amyloidosis, and congenital heart disease.
Lipika Vuthuri
Research Technician
My name is Lipika Vuthuri! I graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Virginia Commonwealth University. I am a research technician here in the Department of Cardiovascular Imaging. I hope to go to medical school, but would like to explore areas of research regarding applications of medical imaging!
Professional Trainees
Allison Chae
Medical Student
Allison is an MD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from University of Southern California in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. Her research interests are in leveraging neural networks to better predict patient outcomes through analyzing and clinically interpreting MRI scans.
Undergraduate Trainees
Richard Tran
Richard Tran ’23 recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in Biology. He joined the lab in 2021, and has participated in projects regarding calcium quantification of coronary arteries, machine learning methods on abdominal muscle segmentation, and hepatic steatosis association with diabetes. His research interests lie in incorporating electronic health records data and image-derived phenotypes to elucidate findings in metabolic and onologic diseases. Richard will be an incoming medical student at the UMass Chan Medical School.
Pavan Raghupathy
Pavan Raghupathy ’24 is a Bioengineering major at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests involve the application of machine learning algorithms on medical imaging and data analytic techniques to metabolic and oncologic diseases. He is currently working on projects determining the relationships between several image-derived phenotypes and different diseases, including Type II Diabetes and pancreatic cancer.
Jin-seo Kim
Jin-seo Kim '24 is a Cognitive & Computer Science Major at the University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in applications of machine learning in the diagnosis and prediction of cardiovascular diseases and neurological disorders.
Benjamin Chan
Benjamin Chan '25 is a Systems Engineering Major at the University of Pennsylvania. He has a strong interest in machine learning, decision science, and data analytics. He has previously developed software toolkits in MATLAB for cancer image processing, working with the National Cancer Institute, for which he was recognized as a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar and an International Science and Engineering Fair Finalist.
Isabel Song
Isabel is an electrical engineering major at the University of Pennsylvania (c’25). Her research interests include using medical imaging, machine learning, and biomedical informatics to contribute to a better understanding of pathological diseases.
Hannah Liu
Hannah Liu ’25 is a Cognitive Science major (Computation concentration) at the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in researching the different ways that machine learning can be applied to a variety of fields of study. Currently, she is working on applying a machine learning algorithm that will effectively diagnose muscle tear injuries from MRI scans done on athletes, with hopes that this project will help make the recovery process for athletic injuries faster.
Joonghyun Kim
Joonghyun Kim '26 is a Bioengineering major at the University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in applying machine learning to radiology and aims to develop innovative solutions for interpreting medical image data.