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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
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.
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!
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

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

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 '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 '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 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.
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).