Current Members


Faculty

Walter Witschey PhD

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

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

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

Harold I. Litt MD, PhD

Professor of Radiology; Chief, Cardiothoracic Imaging Division; Chief, Cardiovascular Imaging Section; Director, Center for Advanced Computed Tomography Imaging Services

Jim Pilla, PhD

Research Assistant Professor of Radiology and Surgery


Research Fellows

Neil Chatterjee MD, PhD

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

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

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.


Staff

Abhi Bhattaru

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

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!

Phuong Vu

Phuong Vu

Post-bacc trainee

Phuong graduated from Penn in May 2021 with a Bioengineering major and minors in Math and Computer Science. She is interested in AI and medical imaging.


Professional Trainees

Annefleur Loth

Annefleur Loth

Medical Student

Annefleur is a visiting medical student from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In addition to pursuing her degree in Medicine, she is obtaining a 2-year Research Masters (MRe) in cardiovascular research at the Vrije Universiteit. Her research interests include interventional cardiology and cardiac imaging methods. Her research is currently centered around using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate ischemic heart disease. 

Allison Chae

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

Benjamin Chan

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.

Jin-seo Kim

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.

Isabel Song

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

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.

Jacob Smothers

Jacob Smothers

SUPERS Fellow

Jacob Smothers is an undergraduate chemistry and biology double major at West Virginia University. He is interested in nuclear magnetic resonance and its applications to human health. He is currently studying the metabolism of myocardium in a pig model of myocardial infarction as an undergraduate visiting scholar through the Summer Undergraduate Program for Educating Radiation Scientists (SUPERS).


Affiliated Faculty

Yuchi Han MD

Professor of Internal Medicine; Director of Cardiac Imaging at The Ohio State University

Avanti Gulhane MD, DNB, FSCMR

Radiology Postdoctoral Fellow; Acting Clinical Instructor, Cardiothoracic Imaging at University of Washington