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Katherine Whittaker Ferrara received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of California, Davis. Following an appointment as an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Dr. Ferrara served as the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis. She is currently a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis with research interests in imaging and drug delivery. She is a fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Acoustical Society of America and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and is currently a member of the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. kwferrara@ucdavis.edu |
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Charles Caskey received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 where he conducted undergraduate research on ultrasound elasticity imaging in the Panscopic Imaging Lab at Texas and developed RF coils for MRI while interning at the University of Rochester, New York. He received his Ph. D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California at Davis in 2008 and now conducts post-doctoral research on the use of ultrasound contrast agents for drug delivery and harmonic imaging. cfcaskey@ucdavis.edu |
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Lisa Even received her B.S. in Animal Science with focus on companion animals from the University of California, Davis in 2003 and has worked as a veterinary technician for 8 years . In 2008, Lisa received her M.S. in Comparative pathology from UC Davis where her work included developing an immunohistochemical test for Cardiac Troponin C in horses and studying myocardial necrosis caused by the highly toxic oleander plant. Lisa also spent an extra year in graduate school working with Shriners Hospital for Children in Sacramento in the field of neurology focusing on culturing and differentiating human embryonic stem cells to oligodendrocytes. Post- graduate school, Lisa worked with The Jackson Laboratory West as an in vivo technologist performing a broad range of pre-clinical studies for various pharmaceutical companies. She joined the Ferrara laboratory in 2009 working as an SRAIV and serving as the lab’s manager of in vivo studies. lmmahakian@ucdavis.edu |
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Brett Fite received his B.A. in both Physics and Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 2003 where he conducted undergraduate research during all of the four years of his undergraduate career on examination of enzymatic mechanisms employing fluorescence, especially time resolved fluorescence, to probe various catalytic states. He subsequently attended Stanford University to study synthetic organic chemistry for the novel synthesis of anti-cancer drugs and now conducts graduate research toward a Ph.D. on the use of MRI and MR contrast agents and its integration with ultrasound for the targeted delivery of chemotherapeutics. bzfite@ucdavis.edu |
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Karen Gagnon received a BSc in Chemistry from Mount Allison University in 1999 and a PhD from The University of Western Ontario in 2005. During her PhD studies she developed polymer-supported aryl and vinyl stannanes that could be used as scaffolds for labeling molecules of biological interest with radioactive iodine. She began a postdoctoral position at UCDavis in 2005 investigating new radiolabeled peptides to target cell surface receptors upregulated in certain disease states. She joined the Ferrara lab in 2009 as an organic/peptide/radio-chemist and is now working on developing multivalent compounds that can be used for molecular imaging. mkgagnon@ucdavis.edu |
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Mario Hlawitschka received his BSc and MSc. in computer science (Diplom-Informatiker) from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany in 2004 and received a PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Leipzig, Germany in 2008. Since then he is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Data Analysis and Visualization (IDAV) at the University of California at Davis where his work focuses on scientific visualization with a focus on tensor data and medical data. He joined the Ferrara Laboratory in 2009 where his main focus is fast, hardware-accelerated ultrasound beam simulation using graphical processing units. hlawitschka@ucdavis.edu |
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Xiaowen Hu received his B.S. degree in 2004 and M.S. degree in 2007, both in Biomedical Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. His research in UCDavis focuses on molecular imaging using ultrasound contrast agents. xwhu@ucdavis.edu |
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Elizabeth Ingham received her B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Davis in 2004 and her M.S. degree in Molecular Biology from California State University, Sacramento in 2008. From 2005 to 2009, Elizabeth served as lab manager at the UC Davis Chronic Acceleration Research Unit where she studied the environmental influences of light and gravity on circadian physiology. During this time, she also completed her Master’s thesis research concerning development of a cell-specific immunotoxin for selective ablation of melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells. Elizabeth joined the Ferrara Lab in 2009 and is currently investigating the in vitro efficacy of various targeted drug delivery systems. esingham@ucdavis.edu |
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Sarah Johnson received her B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Davis in 2008. The following two years she worked at The Jackson Laboratory West as a custom breeding technician, assisting in the production and study of mouse models for pharmaceutical research. She joined the Ferrara Lab in 2011 as a Junior Specialist, serving as an assistant to in vivo studies. smjohns@ucdavis.edu |
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Azi Kheirolomoom received a B.S. in chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Tech. (Tehran-Iran) and M.S. & Ph. D. degrees in Chemical/Biochemical Engineering from Kyoto University (Kyoto-Japan) in 1984, 1988, and 1992, respectively. Her PhD work was focused on membrane-bound enzymes, their reconstitution in lipid bilayer of liposomes, and their productivity in bioreactors after immobilization. In 1992 she joined CIBA-GEIGY (Japan) as a post-doctoral research fellow and worked on kinetic studies of plant histidinol dehydrogenase to design a novel herbicide. In 1994 as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow she joined Jülich Research Center in Jülich, Germany to clarify the kinetics of mitochondrial Phosphate carrier. She became a faculty member of Graduate School of Chemical Engineering, Sharif University of Tech. in 1995. In Ferrara lab her interest is targeted drug delivery and she is currently investigating the efficacy of cholesterol as a drug/gene-delivery component. akheirolomoom@ucdavis.edu |
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Dustin E. Kruse received a B.A. degree in physics from the State University of New York College at Geneseo in 1996, the M.E. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering in 2004, also from the University of Virginia. His graduate work involved the development and application of high frequency ultrasound to image blood flow in the microcirculation. Dr. Kruse is currently a research engineer at the University of California, Davis, Department of Biomedical Engineering, where his research interests are in the areas of ultrasound signal processing, high frequency ultrasound, contrast-assisted imaging, and therapeutic ultrasound. Dr. Kruse also instructed BIM281- Biomedical Signal Acquisition and Analysis in the W02, W03, and S03 quarters. dekruse@ucdavis.edu |
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Jiro Kusunose received his BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Washington (’05), Seattle. There, his earlier research focused on plant genetics, and later switched to optics, where he designed and assembled a Schlieren Imaging device for a High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) lab. His is currently pursuing a PhD in Dr. Ferrara’s lab, working on targeted drug/gene delivery through the use of peptide conjugated liposomes. jkusunose@ucdavis.edu |
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Yu Liu received her B.S. degree in 2007 in Biomedical Engineering from Tianjin University, China. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering in UC Davis. Her research focuses on MR guided HIFU therapy. uliu@ucdavis.edu |
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Chun-Yen Lai received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan in 2003 and 2005, respectively. He also finished a training program from the Biotechnology Program offered by the Center for Biotechnology in National Taiwan University in 2005. His research focuses in the master program were microbubble-assisted acoustic cavitation, production and improvement of ultrasound contrast agents, and quantitative relations of acoustic inertial cavitation with sonoporation and cell viability. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California at Davis. His research interests include therapeutic ultrasound and effective drug delivery. He conducts his research by using a co-linear array ultrasound transducer and a clinical ultrasound system to accomplish mild hyperthermia, for both in vitro and in vivo controlled tissue heating. cylai@ucdavis.edu |
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Eric Paoli received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 2006 where he conducted undergraduate research on creating and categorizing ultrasound contrast agents. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph. D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis where he performs research on image-guided drug delivery of activatable particles by exogenous energy, in particular ultrasound. Eric is a trainee of the NIH Imaging Training Grant focused on Biomedical Imaging and is a member of the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi. eepaoli@ucdavis.edu |
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Craig Patterson After his enlistment in the Army, Craig received a B.A. in International Relations from UC Davis in 1992. He worked as a consultant in the high tech sector until changing careers and joining UCD in 2006. Craig is a contracts and grants analyst for BME and manages the departmental and Ferrara Lab accounts. cwpatterson@ucdavis.edu |
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Shengping Qin received a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Riverside with research emphasis on the mechanical mechanisms of microvasculature damage caused by the asymmetrical oscillations of the constrained microbubbles during shock wave lithotripsy. His current research in Dr. Ferrera’s lab focuses on the interaction of the microbubble and microvessel under Megahertz-ultrasound insonation and the mechanism by which the vascular permeability is increased in ultrasound-mediated target drug delivery with microbubbles. He’s now working on pharmacokinetic imaging using noninvasive techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) and fluorescence imaging. Quantitative characterization of liposomal drug delivery systems in vivo at real-time is obtained by establishing the pharmacokinetic models. The effect of ultrasound on the permeability of tumor vasculature is investigated. spqin@ucdavis.edu |
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Jai Woong Seo received a B.S. (2001), M.S. (2003), and Ph. D. degrees (2007) in chemistry at Inha University in Korea. He conducted the preparation of ionic liquids by the time he finished B.S. and development of nitric oxide suppressor as M.S. degree. While he was doing Ph. D course, he studied about estrogen receptor imaging for breast cancer detection with F-18 labeled cyclofenil derivatives at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting graduate student (2003-2004). After then, he developed facile F-18 labeling methods for small molecules until he finished Ph. D. at Inha University (2004-2007). He joined professor Ferrara group in University of California, Davis (2007). Now his research involves development of Cu-64 and F-18 labeling method for tracking liposome in vivo, and synthesis and evaluation of near-infrared dye for optical imaging. His research interest is the molecular imaging for targeted drug delivery system. jwseo@ucdavis.edu |
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Douglas N. Stephens received a B.S. in Physiology from the University of California, Davis in 1976, and the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering in 1981 and 1983, respectively, from California State University, Sacramento. He has more than twenty five years of bioengineering industry experience in both design and management, and has led the engineering effort in the creation of the world’s only solid state intravascular ultrasound array catheter, still in use as an important commercial product today. Mr. Stephens is currently in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis developing methods for ultrasound mediated drug delivery, ultrasonic and optical methods of arterial plaque characterization, and novel intracardiac imaging catheters for use in electrophysiology procedures. He is an IEEE member of the Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, and the Engineering in Medicine and Biology societies. dnstephens@ucdavis.edu |
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Katherine Watson (aka Kate) is a Veterinary Scientist Training Program Fellow in the Molecular, Cellular, Integrative Physiology (MCIP) Graduate Group pursuing a dual Veterinary Medicine/Ph.D. degree under the direction of Dr. Katherine Ferrara. She received a B.S. in Neurology, Physiology, and Behavior (NPB) from the University of California, Davis in 2004. In preparation for her current career path she spent two years working as a research associate for Dr. Sarah Yuan with the Department of Surgery, U.C. Davis School of Medicine and two years in Dr. Ferrara’s lab. Her research focus with the Department of Surgery centered on microvascular barrier dysfunction in thermal trauma, VEGF signaling and microvascular permeability, control of microlymphatic dysfunction, and mechanisms of lymphangiogensis and lymphedema. She is currently studying the physiologic mechanisms underlying permeability increases after ultrasound induced hyperthermia that may permit localized chemotherapeutic drug delivery to tumors. kdwatson@ucdavis.edu |
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Andrew Wong received his B.S. in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2008, performing undergraduate research in biomimetic robotics and bipedal locomotion. Following graduation, he worked as a research associate in the Orthopedic Surgery Department of the San Francisco Veterans Administration Hospital, in the field of cartilage tissue engineering. He is now pursuing a dual MD-PhD degree studying targeted, image-guided, drug delivery, with the support of the UC Davis Physician Scientist Training Program and NIH Clinical Translational Science Training Grant awo@ucdavis.edu |
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Hua Zhang obtained her B.E. and M.E. degrees in 1994 and 1997 from Tianjin University and Beijng University of Chemical Technology, respectively. In 2005, Hua finished her Ph.D. study in Polytechnic University and joined Professor Ferrara’s group in University of California, Davis. In the past three years, she has worked on lipopeptide synthesis, targeted particles preparation and studies on their in vivo performance. She is continuing her research on particles targeted to healthy as well as diseased organs for medical imaging and drug/gene delivery. hchzhang@ucdavis.edu |
