Amber Simpson, PhD - Memorial Sloan Kettering

Amber Simpson, PhD is a computer scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) specializing in medical image analysis and computer-aided surgery. She received a PhD in computer science from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Simpson joined the MSK faculty as the first PhD in the Department of Surgery, where she leads a research lab in machine learning, biomedical data science, and medical imaging. Her current work aims to advance understanding of cancer biology through interdisciplinary integration of multimodal measurements from imaging (both radiographic and histopathologic) and tissue-based assays (next generation sequencing, atomic force microscopy, etc.). Dr. Simpson is a current recipient of an American Association of Cancer Research Career Development Award and recently received extramural funding from the National Cancer Institute.

Penny Gowland, PhD - University of Nottingham

Penny Gowland has worked on developing quantitative MR techniques to answer a variety of biomedical questions at the University of Nottingham for most of her career. She has particular interests in studying fetal development and placental function with MRI and the interactions of electromagnetic fields with the human body. She also has strong interests in techniques for structural and functional neuroimaging at 7T, imaging gastrointestinal function.

Rebecca Thornhill, PhD - University of Ottawa

Dr Thornhill completed her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics from the University of Western Ontario, where her work focused on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). She continued on to do postdoctoral research fellowships at McMaster University and the University of Toronto (Hospital for Sick Children). Since 2010, Dr Thornhill has been working as an Imaging Scientist in the Department of Medical Imaging at The Ottawa Hospital, with special interests in cardiac MRI as well as quantitative pattern analysis of medical images. Dr. Thornhill is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Ottawa and an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University.

Rebecca Fahrig, PhD - Siemens Healthcare

Dr. Rebecca Fahrig has spent more than 25 years in the development and application of advanced x-ray imaging techniques with the goal of improving guidance, increasing targeting accuracy, and evaluating outcomes during minimally invasive procedures.  Dr. Fahrig earned her Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario in 1999, where she joined pioneers of C-arm-based conebeam CT imaging in the Holdsworth lab. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University developing an x-ray/MR hybrid system. She then joined the faculty of the Department of Radiology at Stanford, where she and her team – in collaboration with national and international clinical and scientific colleagues – developed new MR-compatible hardware, x-ray detectors, image reconstruction and correction algorithms, and protocols for clinical applications with funding from industry and NIH. Dr. Fahrig is currently Vice-president of Innovations, business area Advanced Therapies, at Siemens Healthcare GmbH where she directs a group of 55 scientists designing, prototyping and testing new applications and image guidance systems. She is also Professor at the Pattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany.