Awards

Prof. Bell Inducted into National Academy of Inventors

Congratulations to Prof. Bell! She was inducted as a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). NAI Senior Members consist of faculty with success in patents, licensing, and/or commercialization, producing technologies that impact society’s welfare. Senior members foster a spirit of innovation within their communities and institutions while educating and mentoring the next generation of inventors.

Prof. Bell was inducted at the15th Annual NAI Conference taking place in Hollywood, California, June 1-4, 2026. The theme of this conference was From Discovery to Destiny. As part of her induction, Prof. Bell received a senior member certificate, pin, and challenge coin from NAI founder Paul Sanberg, USPTO Director John A. Squires, and former NSF Director (and creator of the NAI senior member program) Sethuraman Panchanathan.

#NAI2026
Prof. Bell accepting her certificate at the NAI Senior Member induction ceremony, flanked by NAI founder Paul Sanberg, USPTO Director John A. Squires, and former NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

NAI Announcement

Malone Center Announcement

ECE Department Announcement

Brazilian Best Thesis Award

Congratulations to Guilherme Fernandes, visiting PULSE Lab PhD student, whose thesis (based on work completed in the PULSE Lab) won the 2025 CAPES Thesis Award in the field of Medicine II in Brazil. The CAPES Thesis Award recognizes the best doctoral theses defended in Brazilian postgraduate programs based on the following criteria: originality, relevance to scientific, technological, cultural, social, and innovation development, and the value added by the educational system to the candidate. 

Guilherme’s thesis “Impact of skin tone on photoacoustic images with linear transducer: in vivo and in silico studies” used short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) beamforming of photoacoustic images (the theory for which was developed by the PULSE Lab) to demonstrate acoustic clutter reduction in images of radial arteries of multiple volunteers with a wide range of skin tones. This work has implications for the detection of cancer and other diseases in multiple fields of medicine.

Related PULSE Lab News

Prof. Bell Wins Award from The Franklin Institute

Congratulations to Prof. Bell! She is the winner of the 2025 Benjamin Franklin NextGen Award from The Franklin Institute.

For two centuries, The Franklin Institute Awards has paid tribute to America’s first citizen scientist, Benjamin Franklin, by honoring great minds in science, engineering, and industry, including Nikola Tesla, Marie and Pierre Curie, Thomas Edison, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, etc.  Since 2021, the Benjamin Franklin NextGen Award has been presented annually to an early-career investigator for a transformative discovery, development, innovation, or invention in science or engineering. Dr. Bell is being recognized “for her contributions to the novel design of medical imaging systems involving ultrasound and light that make robotic and non-robotic guided surgery safer and more effective.”

The following video was created for the general public to get to know Prof. Bell as she shares something on her bucket list, advice for aspiring scientists, a fun science fact, and more!

Beginning April 29, the Franklin Institute will present a series of Awards Week events, including the 2025 Franklin Institute Awards Ceremony and Dinner, which will be live streamed on May 1, 2025 at 7pm. Earlier that day, Dr. Bell will present a public lecture.

Convocation Book (contains details about award laureates)

Public Lecture (virtual attendance registration link)

Livestream Link (for the Awards Ceremony)

Six Abstracts Accepted to SPIE

Six PULSE Lab abstracts were accepted to SPIE Photonics West, which is taking place place January 25- 30, 2025, and the following work will be presented:

Photo with one of the winners from the 2024 3-minute poster competition, where Prof. Bell served as a a judge representative from the JBO Editorial Board. This year Prof. Bell will host as the new JBO EIC.

Congratulations to Junior, Gareth, Taylor, Rhea, and Nethra!

In addition to the accepted papers, Rhea Rasquinha will participate in the 3-minute poster competition:

Prof. Bell was invited to speak on recent work from the PULSE Lab:

And, Prof. Bell will deliver a lightning talk on leadership at the celebration of Women in Optics event:

PULSE Lab Wins TEDCO MII Award

The PULSE Lab received a $115,000 TEDCO Technology Assessment Award from the Maryland Innovation Initiative to commercialize technology related to peripheral nerve injury. The project title is “A Non-invasive Imaging Device to Modernize Treatment of Peripheral Nerve Injury.”

Peripheral neuropathy occurs when the nerves that are located outside of the brain and spinal cord (peripheral nerves) are damaged. Causes of peripheral nerve injuries include injury from
accidents (sports), injury from medical conditions (autoimmune disease, diabetes, Guillain-Barre syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome), and injury during surgical interventions. Severe nerve
injuries affect the sensory and motor functions, and lead to devastating impact on patient’s quality of life. The main treatment method of severe nerve damage is through nerve reconstruction
surgery. 250K patients are affected by peripheral nerve injury each year in the US and 150K are managed surgically. The choice of technique for surgical nerve repair is largely determined by nerve injury location. During surgery however, it is very difficult to establish the exact location and extent of a nerve injury. Viopsy will be the first commercially available device to quantify peripheral nerve viability intraoperatively and monitor nerve regeneration prior to target organ reinnervation. In doing so, this device is anticipated to transform the practice of peripheral nerve surgery. This work will be completed as a collaboration among Prof. Bell (PI), Sami Tuffaha, MD (co-investigator), and Shri Prabha Shivram (research specialist).

The PULSE Lab’s pioneering publications in this area include:

  • Graham MT, Sharma A, Padovano WM, Suresh V, Chiu A, Thon SM, Tuffaha S, Bell MAL, Optical absorption spectra and corresponding in vivo photoacoustic visualization of exposed peripheral nerves, Journal of Biomedical Optics, 28(9):097001, 2023 [pdf]
  • Graham M, von Guionneau N, Tuffaha S, Bell MAL, Design and optimization of simulated light delivery systems for photoacoustic assessment of peripheral nerve injury, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, January 22-27, 2022 [pdf]

The foundational research to support this work was initially funded by a Johns Hopkins Discovery Award.

Prof. Bell Wins NSF Alan T. Waterman Award

Prof. Muyinatu Bell receiving Waterman Award medal from NSF Director Dr. Panchanathan

Prof. Bell was selected to receive the 2024 NSF Alan T. Waterman Award, which is the highest honor in the United States offered to early-career scientists and engineers. The award comes with a medal and $1,000,000 to advance each recipient’s research. Prof. Bell is the first ever recipient from Johns Hopkins University in the award’s 48-year history, which is a significant achievement for America’s first research university. Prof. Bell is also one of few women and Black scientists to receive the award. There is a lot of rich history behind this win.

When receiving this award, Prof. Bell was recognized “for  pioneering innovations in ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging, particularly coherence-based beamforming, photoacoustic-guided surgery, and deep learning. These innovations cross interdisciplinary boundaries to improve medical image quality in patients, reduce patient deaths during surgery, inspire new surgical designs, and provide more equitable healthcare.” Congratulations to Prof. Bell!

Waterman Awardee Distinguished Lecture (delivered August 21, 2024)

The recorded lecture is also available at the bottom of the lecture event page at this link: https://players.brightcove.net/679256133001/NkgrDczuol_default/index.html?videoId=6360892996112

JHU Hub Announcement

NSF Press Release

Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

Malone Center Announcement

BTHS Alumni News

Three Abstracts Accepted to SPIE



Three PULSE Lab abstracts were accepted to SPIE conferences this year.

SPIE Photonics West took place January 27- February 1, 2024, and the following work was presented by Jiaxin Zhang.

SPIE Medical Imaging is taking place February 18-22, 2024, and the following work was presented by Md Ashikuzzaman. 

In addition to the above papers, Prof. Bell was invited to be a session chair at SPIE Photonics West for the the Advanced Biomedical and Clinical Diagnostic and Surgical Guidance Systems XXII, Session 6: Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy on January 28th from 11:00 AM-12:20 PM PST.

Prof. Bell Elected Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA)

Congratulations to Prof. Bell on being elected as a Fellow of Optica!

Optica, formerly the Optical Society of America (OSA), is the oldest preeminent professional society in the field of optics and photonics, uniting and educating scientists, engineers, educators, technicians and business leaders, with over 22,000 members from more than 180 countries and 45 Nobel Laureates in its ranks.

Optica Fellows are members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics through distinguished contributions to education, research, engineering, business, and society. Fellows are selected by the society’s board of directors for this distinction, recognition, and honor, which is annually limited to approximately 0.5% of the society’s membership total at the time of election. 

Prof. Bell is honored specifically  “for pioneering contributions to photoacoustic imaging techniques and applications for surgical guidance.”

Optica News Release (Prof. Bell appears under surname “Lediju Bell” in this news release)

Meet the 2024 Fellows

ECE Department News

Malone Center Announcement

Optics and Photonics News

Prof. Bell Receives NIH R01 Grant

Prof. Bell received a $1.5M NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Hysterectomies. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding ureteral injury during hysterectomies, due to the close proximity of uterine arteries (which must be severed) and ureters (which must be preserved). Complications from accidental ureteral injuries include extensive repeat surgeries, complete kidney failure, sepsis, acute renal insufficiency, and patient death. The goal of this project is to establish optimal parameters to advance photoacoustic technology toward differentiation of ureters, uterine arteries, and tool tips during hysterectomies. This work will be completed in collaboration with primary co-investigator, Karen Wang, MD.

Four of our pioneering publications in this area include:

  • Wiacek A, Wang KC, Wu H, Bell MAL, Photoacoustic-guided laparoscopic and open hysterectomy procedures demonstrated with human cadavers, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 40(12):3279-3292, 2021 [pdf]
  • Wiacek A, Wang KC, Wu H, Bell MAL, Parking sensor-inspired approach to photoacoustic-guided hysterectomy demonstrated with human cadavers, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021 [pdf]
  • Wiacek A, Wang KC, Bell MAL, Dual-wavelength photoacoustic imaging for guidance of hysterectomy procedures, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, February 1-6, 2020 [pdf]
  • Wiacek A, Wang K, Bell MAL, Techniques to distinguish the ureter from the uterine artery in photoacoustic-guided hysterectomies, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, February 2-7, 2019 [pdf]

This work was initially funded by a Johns Hopkins Discovery Award.

JHU Malone Center Announcement

Prof. Bell Receives JHU Discovery Award

Dr. Muyinatu Bell and plastic and reconstructive surgeon collaborator Dr. Sami Tuffaha were among the 35 interdisciplinary faculty teams at Johns Hopkins selected to receive one of the 2023 JHU Discovery Awards. This award is designed to support cross-divisional research teams who are poised to arrive at important discoveries or creative works. The expectation is that these awards will spark new, synergistic interactions between investigators across the institution and lead to work of the highest quality and impact. This award will support their research topic of “Photoacoustic Assessment of Peripheral Nerve Injury.”

JHU Office of Research Announcement

JHU Hub Announcement

Prof. Bell Elected SPIE Fellow

Congratulations to Prof. Bell on being elected as a Fellow of SPIE! SPIE Fellows are are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging and are honored for their technical achievements, service to the general optics community, and service to SPIE.

Prof. Bell was recognized for her “achievements in photoacoustic imaging techniques and applications for surgical guidance.” She is a regular attendee and author of two SPIE communities and was honored as a new 2023 Fellow within both communities. Prof. Bell received her SPIE Fellow pin and certificate at SPIE Photonics West, presented by Symposium Chair Jennifer Barton and SPIE President Bernard Kress. Three weeks later, she was honored with a Fellow certificate presentation at SPIE Medical Imaging, delivered by Symposium Chair Despina Kontos.

New SPIE Fellows Announcement

WSE Announcement

Khadijat Kokumo Wins SPIE Best Paper Award

Congratulations to PULSE Lab summer undergraduate student Khadijat Kokumo, who won the Best Paper Award runner up at the 2023 SPIE Physics of Medical Imaging conference! This conference features a student paper award specifically to recognize outstanding papers in development and application of medical imaging and diagnosis.

Khadijat’s first-author paper, entitled “Theoretical basis and experimental validation of harmonic coherence-based ultrasound imaging for breast mass diagnosis,” describes and summarizes research she completed in summer 2022 as a CSMR REU student from Northwestern University.

The award is sponsored by Konica Minolta, and it was presented to Khadijat by John Sabol from Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. Lifeng Yu (Mayo Clinic) and Rebecca Fahrig (Siemens Healthcare GmBH) are the conference chairs. Prof. Bell is the senior author of the paper.

Four Abstracts Accepted to SPIE



Two PULSE Lab abstracts were accepted to SPIE conferences this year.

SPIE Photonics West is taking place January 28- February 2, 2023, and the following work was presented by Jiaxin Zhang.

SPIE Medical Imaging will take place February 20-24, 2023, and the following work will be presented by Khadijat Kokumo. 

The PULSE Lab also contributed to the following two collaborative works, which will also be presented at SPIE Medical Imaging.

In addition to the above papers, Prof. Bell was invited to be a session chair at SPIE Photonics West for the the Advanced Biomedical and Clinical Diagnostic and Surgical Guidance Systems XXI, Session 8: Novel Techniques on January 29th from 3:40-5:20 PM PST and for Multiscale Imaging and Spectroscopy IV, Session 7: Emerging Sources of Multiscale Contrast II on January 29th from 1:20 – 3:10 PM PST.

Prof. Bell Wins IEEE Ultrasonics Early Career Investigator Award

Prof. Muyinatu Bell (center) with UFFC-S Awards Chair, Prof. Jafar Sanie (left) and UFFC-S President, Prof. Mark Schaffer (right).

Prof. Bell was selected to receive the 2022 IEEE Ultrasonics Early Career Investigator Award, which was announced on  at the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium in Venice, Italy. This award recognize the achievements of a young researcher in the area of ultrasonics and its applications. Prof. Bell was recognized for “pioneering contributions to spatial coherence beamforming theory and deep learning methods for ultrasound and photoacoustic image formation.”

WSE Announcement

Prof. Bell Wins $1.15M Science Diversity Leadership Award

Congratulations to Prof. Bell on winning the inaugural Science Diversity Leadership Award! 

This $1.15 million award is offered by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in partnership with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to launch this program. The award recognizes and furthers the leadership and scientific accomplishments of excellent biomedical researchers who—through their outreach, mentoring, and teaching—have a record of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in their scientific fields. Recipients will additionally connect with each other and international scientific leaders through
gatherings over the course of the five years.

CZI Announcement

JHU Hub Announcement

Johns Hopkins Office of the Provost

Prof. Bell Wins Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award

Congratulations to Prof. Bell on winning the 2022 Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award! 

Awarded to 38 early-career faculty this year, across all divisions within Johns Hopkins, the Catalyst Award honors the accomplishments, creativity, originality, and academic impact of its recipients. The award provides a $75,000 grant to conduct preliminary studies with the eventual goal of redefining laser safety for photoacoustic-guided liver surgery. In addition to the grant, the award comes with mentoring opportunities and institutional recognition.  

Two of our pioneering journal publications in this area include:

  • Huang J, Wiacek A,Kempski KM, Palmer T, Izzi J, Beck S, Bell MAL, Empirical Assessment of Laser Safety for Photoacoustic-Guided Liver Surgeries, Biomedical Optics Express, 12, 1205-1216, 2021 [pdf]
  • Kempski K, Wiacek A, Graham M, González E, Goodson B, Allman D, Palmer J, Hou H, Beck S, He J, Bell MAL, In vivo photoacoustic imaging of major blood vessels in the pancreas and liver during surgery, Journal of Biomedical Optics, 24(12):121905, 2019 [pdf]

It is a huge honor to be a recipient of this award, and all recipients will be celebrated at a university-sponsored event taking place on October 20, 2022! Congrats again to Prof. Bell! 

JHU Hub Announcement

HEMI Announcement

Prof. Bell Receives NIH R01 Grant

Prof. Bell received a $1.4M NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, Minimizing Uncertainty in Breast Ultrasound Imaging with Real-Time Coherence-Based Beamforming. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding ultrasound images yielding inconclusive results in a subset of patients, necessitating biopsies, aspirations, or follow-up imaging, which increase patient anxiety and places additional burdens on the time available for clinical care and the resource allocations of our healthcare system. The goal of this project is to develop new, real-time ultrasound imaging technology that will simplify clinical workflows by distinguishing fluid-filled masses from solid masses and from complex cystic and solid masses, which all appear hypoechoic in traditional ultrasound B-mode images. This work will be completed in collaboration with breast radiologists Eniola Oluyemi, MD, Kelly Myers, MD, Emily Ambinder, MD, and Lisa Mullen, MD.

Three of our pioneering journal publications in this area include:

  • Wiacek A, Rindal OMH, Falomo E, Myers K, Fabrega-Foster K, Harvey S, Bell MAL, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Breast Ultrasound Data: Initial Clinical Results, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 66(3):527-540, 2019 [pdf]
  • Wiacek A, Oluyemi E, Myers K, Mullen L, Bell MAL, Coherence-based beamforming increases the diagnostic certainty of distinguishing fluid from solid masses in breast ultrasound exams, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 46(6):1380-1394, 2020 [pdf]
  • Wiacek A, González E, Bell MAL, CohereNet: A Deep Learning Architecture for Ultrasound Spatial Correlation Estimation and Coherence-Based Beamforming, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 67(12):2574-2583, 2020 [featured on journal cover] [pdf]

This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:

We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

JHU Hub Announcement

Prof. Bell Installed as the John C. Malone Professor

Prof. Bell was installed as the John C. Malone Professor on Monday, May 16, 2022. The John C. Malone Professorship was endowed through the generosity of John C. Malone ’64, ’69 to support outstanding Whiting School faculty members within the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. Family, friends, colleagues, and students gathered together to celebrate this momentous occasion. The event was live-streamed, and the recording is available on YouTube.

Alycen Wiacek Wins AIUM New Investigator Award

Congratulations to Alycen Wiacek for winning the New Investigator Award from the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM)! Alycen was selected to present her research in the New Investigator Scientific Session Plenary at the AIUM 2022 Annual Meeting. She discussed her three first-author papers on the clinical implications of spatial coherence features for breast ultrasound:

  1. Wiacek A, Rindal OMH, Falomo E, Myers K, Fabrega-Foster K, Harvey S, Bell MAL, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Breast Ultrasound Data: Initial Clinical Results, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 66(3):527-540, 2019 [pdf]
  2. Wiacek A, Oluyemi E, Myers K, Mullen L, Bell MAL, Coherence-based beamforming increases the diagnostic certainty of distinguishing fluid from solid masses in breast ultrasound exams, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 46(6):1380-1394, 2020 [pdf]
  3. Wiacek A, Oluyemi E, Myers K, Mullen L, Bell MAL, Coherence-based beamforming improves the diagnostic certainty of breast ultrasound exams, Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, Virtual, September 6-11, 2020 [pdf]

Alycen was selected as the winner of this symposium, alongside Prof. Brooks Lindsey from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Prof. Bell Elected to AIMBE College of Fellows

Congratulations to Prof. Muyinatu Bell on her election to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows! AIMBE Fellows represent the top 2% of medical and biological engineers. In addition, Prof. Bell is one of only four Assistant Professors to be elected at this career stage, out of 1,500 fellows elected in the past 10 years! This significant achievement highlights Prof. Bell’s outstanding research contributions and impactful advocacy for her field.

Prof. Bell was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the AIMBE College of Fellows for pioneering contributions to development of ultrasonic and photoacoustic medical imaging systems, including coherence-based beamforming, photoacoustic-guided surgery, and deep learning applications.

AIMBE News Release

BME Department Announcement 

WSE Announcement 

HEMI Announcement 

Malone Center Announcement

IEEE UFFC-S Announcement 

Four Abstracts Accepted to SPIE

Four PULSE Lab abstracts were accepted to various SPIE conferences this year.

SPIE Photonics West took place January 22-27, 2022, and the following work was presented by Michelle and Eduardo.

SPIE Medical Imaging will take place February 20-24, 2022, and the following work will be presented by Ben Frey.

In addition, Prof. Bell was invited to speak at SPIE Optics + Photonics, which will take place August 22-25, 2022, where she will deliver the presentation:

  • Bell MAL, Ultrasound Image Formation in the Deep Learning Age, SPIE Optics + Photonics, Emerging Topics in Artificial Intelligence, San Diego, California, August 22-25, 2022

Alycen and Jessica Named ARCS Foundation Scholars

Alycen Wiacek and Jessica Su each received the distinction of being selected as scholars of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation, Metropolitan Washington Chapter, for the 2021-2022 academic year. Jessica is the 2021-2022 Bill & Marilynn Sweetser Undergraduate Scholar. Alycen is the 2021-2022 JCM Foundation Graduate Scholar. Congratulations Alycen and Jessica!

JHU ECE Department Announcement

Alycen Wiacek Named 2022 Siebel Scholar

Congratulations to Alycen Wiacek! She was named to the 2022 Class of Siebel Scholars — a highly selective group of individuals representing the top graduate students in the world. Alycen was recognized in the bioengineering category, and she is the only student not enrolled in the JHU BME PhD program to be recognized in this category this year. Alycen is also the first JHU ECE PhD student to receive this outstanding recognition. 

 

Businesswire Announcement

JHU Hub Announcement

JHU ECE Department Announcement

PULSE Lab REU Student Wins 2nd Place Presentation Award

Congrats to Benjamin Frey! He was our summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student who conducted a virtual summer research project with us. His research topic was centered on deep learning applied to lung ultrasound imaging of COVID-19 patients. His outstanding work earned him a second place presentation award at the 2021 Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics (CSMR) REU Final Presentations Award Ceremony. Ben joins a long list of PULSE Lab REU students to win this award.

    Special thanks to Ben’s postdoc mentor, Lingyi Zhao, for helping to make Ben’s project such a resounding success!

    Reese Dunne Wins Goldwater Scholarship

    Congratulations to Reese Dunne, our 2020 summer REU student, who was recently selected to receive the 2021 Barry S. Goldwater Scholarship! The Goldwater Scholarship Program is one of the oldest and most prestigious national scholarships in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States. This program seeks to identify and support college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming the nation’s next generation of research leaders.

    After completing summer research in the PULSE Lab through our NSF-Funded CSMR REU Program, Reese returned to complete his undergraduate studies at Mississippi State University. Reese is now his university’s only Goldwater Scholar in 2021 and his university’s 6th winner since 2012. Reese’s additional successes since departing from our program and winning the program’s 2nd Best Presentation Award include winning the 2nd place award in the Biological Sciences and Engineering category at his school’s Fall 2020 Undergraduate Research Symposium and winning the Best Oral Presentation award in the STEM category at his state-wide Mississippi Honors Undergraduate Conference. Reese presented his summer research with us to secure these outstanding wins.

    JHU Hub Story

    Mississippi State University News (re: Goldwater)

    Mississippi State University News (re: Undergraduate Research Symposium)

    Early Career Achievement Award Celebration, Invited Talk, and Five PULSE Lab Abstracts Accepted to SPIE Photonics West 2021

    Five PULSE Lab abstracts were accepted to SPIE Photonics West. This conference is taking place virtually, March 6-11, 2021.

    1. Graham M, Dunne R, Bell MAL, Investigating the effects of compressional and elastic photoacoustic waves to predict transcranial photoacoustic image quality for guidance of minimally invasive neurosurgeries, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021
    2. Graham M, Creighton F, Bell MAL, Validation of eyelids as acoustic receiver locations for photoacoustic-guided neurosurgery, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021
    3. Wiacek A, Wang KC, Wu H, Bell MAL, Parking sensor-inspired approach to photoacoustic-guided hysterectomy demonstrated with human cadavers, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021
    4. González E, Jain A, Bell MAL, Photoacoustic differentiation of cortical from cancellous bone in the lumbar vertebrae of an intact human cadaver to prevent bone breaches during spinal fusion surgeries, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021
    5. Kempski KM, Graham MT, Wiacek A, Gubbi MR, Bell MAL, Generalized contrast-to-noise ratio as a metric of photoacoustic image quality, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021

    This work spans two tracks within the SPIE Photonics West BiOS Conference:

    In addition to these five PULSE Lab contributions:

    1. Prof. Bell was invited to present on the topic Photoacoustic vision for surgical guidance.
    2. Pof. Bell’s Early Career Achievement Award was celebrated in a live presentation by 2021 SPIE President David Andrews. The recording of this presentation will be available soon.

    Prof. Bell Wins SPIE Early Career Achievement Award

    Congratulations to Prof. Bell, who was selected to receive the 2021 SPIE Early Career Achievement Award. This award recognizes excellence in academia, particularly with regard to significant and innovative technical contributions in the engineering or scientific fields of relevance to SPIE. The SPIE Awards Committee made this recommendation in recognition of Prof. Bell’s pioneering contributions to photoacoustic imaging for surgical guidance, including innovative technology designs, novel deep learning applications, informative spatial coherence beamforming theory, and visionary clinical possibilities.

    Award Details

    SPIE Announcement

    ECE Announcement

    HEMI Announcement

    Malone Center Announcement

    Prof. Bell Wins NSF Smart & Connected Health Award

    Prof. Bell was awarded $1M from the NSF to advance cardiac procedures with the broader goal of replacing fluoroscopy one day. The objective of this award is to apply theoretical spatial coherence models and experimental optical analyses to understand the limits of a novel, integrated robotic-photoacoustic imaging system for guiding cardiac surgeries and interventions. This work will be completed in collaboration with Jonathan Chrispin, MD at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

    More details on the basic principles of the proposed approach are available in our initial journal publication on this topic:

    • Graham M, Assis F, Allman D, Wiacek A, González E, Gubbi M, Dong J, Hou H, Beck S, Chrispin J, Bell MAL, In vivo demonstration of photoacoustic image guidance and robotic visual servoing for cardiac catheter-based interventions, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 39(4):1015-1029, 2020 [pdf]

    This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:

    We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

    NSF Award Announcement

    ECE Department Announcement

    Alycen and Kelley Receive MICCAI Student Participation Award


    Alycen Wiacek and Kelley Kemspki were selected to receive the MICCAI Student Participation Award! The MICCAI Society provided 50 of these awards non-author student member registrations to support online participation from diverse members of the global scientific community, considering the virtual nature of the MICCAI 2020 conference this year. The award selection committee included representation from the MICCAI Student Board, the MICCAI Society Diversity Working Group, Women in MICCAI, and the MICCAI 2020 Conference Organization. This selection committee was chaired by the MICCAI awards coordinator. Congrats to Alycen and Kelley on their selection!

    PULSE Lab REU Student Wins 2nd Place Presentation Award

    Congrats to Reese Dunne! He was our summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student who conducted the first ever virtual summer research project with us. His research topic was centered on a comparison of compressional and elastic wave simulations for presurgical planning of photoacoustic guided neurosurgery, building on recently published paper from the PULSE Lab. His outstanding work earned him a second place presentation award at the 2020 Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics (CSMR) REU Final Presentations Award Ceremony. He joins a long list of PULSE Lab REU students to win this award.

    Special thanks to Reese’s graduate student mentor, Michelle Graham.

    SPIE Photonics West Recap

    The PULSE Lab recently returned from SPIE Photonics West 2020, after enjoying multiple opportunities for exposure throughout various aspects of this grand annual event with 23,000+ attendees. First, Professor Bell was invited to give a Hot Topics presentation during the conference Plenary session. She was selected as the inaugural Journal of Biomedical Optics speaker for having the most impactful paper in 2019.

    We are live at the 2020 #SPIEBiOS Hot Topics with Muyinatu Lediju Bell (Johns Hopkins University)! Watch her tech talk on photoacoustic imaging assistants for minimally invasive surgeries, sponsored by the Journal of Biomedical Optics.

    Posted by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics on Saturday, February 1, 2020

    Three PULSE Lab students additionally presented aspects of their work on this hot topic.

    Michelle Graham presented “Photoacoustic image guidance and robotic visual servoing to mitigate fluoroscopy during cardiac catheter interventions”

    Alycen Wiacek presented “Dual-wavelength photoacoustic imaging for guidance of hysterectomy procedures”

    Eduardo Gonzalez presented “A GPU approach to real-time coherence-based photoacoustic imaging and its application to photoacoustic visual servoing”

      In addition to these four technical presentations, PULSE Lab members who were involved in the first known in vivo demonstration of photoacoustic image guidance for abdominal surgeries were featured in the Show Daily Weekend Edition (see pg. 3).

      SPIE Event Highlights

      Optics Show Daily

      ECE Department Announcement

      LaserFocusWorld Announcement (see first paragraph & “Hot Topics and Other Plenaries” section)

      SPIE Newsroom

      Prof. Bell Wins Inaugural IEEE UFFC Star Ambassador Lectureship Award

      Congratulations to Prof. Bell for being selected to receive the inaugural IEEE UFFC Star Ambassador Lectureship Award! This award from the IEEE Ultrasonics Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society is intended to support early career professionals with the delivery of technical talks highlighting their research.  Up to $2,500 of support is provided to create new contacts and promote new collaborations with colleagues and students at academic institutions, national laboratories and local industry.

      HEMI Announcement

      Prof. Bell Elevated to Senior Member of IEEE

      IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional society and serves professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic, and computing fields and related areas of science and technology. Congratulations to Prof. Muyinatu Bell, who was elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member this year, an honor that is only bestowed on those who have made significant contributions to the profession. 

      IEEE Senior Members are eligible to hold executive IEEE volunteer positions, can serve as a reference for other applicants for Senior Membership, and are invited to participate on the panel to review Senior Member applications.

      The full IEEE criteria for elevating members to the Senior Member grade includes ten years of professional experience, five years of significant performance, and three references from current IEEE members holding Senior Member, Fellow, or Honorary Member grades. 

       

      ECE Department Announcement

      IEEE RAS Newsletter Announcement

      Eduardo González Receives Student Travel Award to IEEE IUS 2019

      PULSE Lab grad student Eduardo González was selected by the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Organization Committee to receive a Student Travel Award to attend the 2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium taking place October 6-9, 2019 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland. Eduardo will give an oral presentation on his work entitled GPU implementation of coherence-based photoacoustic beamforming for autonomous visual servoing of a needle tip. Congratulations Eduardo!

      Prof. Bell Wins ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award

      Congratulations to Prof. Bell, who was selected to receive a competitive ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, which is designed to help ORAU member institutions retain their best young faculty members. This award will provide seed funding for the project entitled, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Hypoechoic Breast Masses, which focuses on development and patient testing of a novel beamforming method developed in the PULSE Lab to differentiate fluid-filled masses from solid breast masses with greater certainty than the current ultrasound beamforming methods used in breast clinics today. Fluid-filled masses are often benign, but with current uncertainty rates, many fluid-filled masses undergo the same costly, time-consuming, and anxiety-provoking diagnostic work-ups as malignant masses, which are often solid.

      The long-term goal of this research is to improve breast cancer screening and detection for the benefit of patients and for the redistribution of more healthcare system resources to cancer patients who need them most.

      Related Highlights:

      ORAU Press Release

      ECE Department Announcement

      Malone Center Announcement

      Kelley Kempski Wins NSF GRFP Fellowship

      Kelley Kempski, an undergraduate researcher in the PULSE Lab during Summer 2018 and winner of the NSF CSMR REU Best Presentation Award, received one of the highly competitive NSF GRFP Fellowships. We are excited to welcome Kelley back to our lab this fall! Kelley was admitted into the Johns Hopkins BME PhD program, and we are thrilled that she has chosen to pursue her graduate studies with us.

      Muyinatu Bell named Maryland’s Outstanding Young Engineer

      Congratulations to Prof. Bell who was named as Maryland’s Outstanding Young Engineer by the Maryland Academy of Sciences and the Maryland Science Center. This award recognizes,  encourages, and increases public awareness of the important work and accomplishments of young engineers, age 35 and under, residing in the state of Maryland.  Important factors in the final decision are the recipient’s contributions to the advancement of his or her field of research, the possibility that this work could become a game changer, and the prospect of the recipient to rise to national and international prominence in the next 5-10 years.  

      Prof. Bell is recognized for her pioneering and innovative contributions to the field of photoacoustic-guided surgery. These innovations include novel light delivery systems that attach to surgical tools, coherence-based and deep learning beamforming techniques to clarify images, and integration of photoacoustic imaging systems with surgical and interventional robots. The award is accompanied by the Allan C. Davis medal and a cash prize.

      Maryland Science Center Press Release

      ECE Department Announcement

      Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

      Malone Center Announcement

      JHU Hub Announcement

      YouTube Video

      • Prof. Bell during feature video reveal ceremony

      Alycen Wins Whiting School of Engineering Research Trainee Award

      Congratulations to Alycen Wiacek! She won the Whiting School of Engineering Trainee Award at the DOM/WSE Hopkins Research Retreat, a joint retreat with the Department of Medicine (DOM) and Whiting School of Engineering (WSE), which took place on Friday, March 1, 2019 at the School of Medicine’s East Baltimore Campus. This award highlights one graduate student or postdoc within the WSE who submits a written statement clearly explaining the broad significance of his or her research to engineering, the major research hypothesis or question, the research approach and findings, and the relationship between this research and the applicant’s early career goals. Alycen presented her work on Coherence-Based Beamforming to Improve the Diagnostic Power of Breast Ultrasound Imaging. She was one of five finalists from multiple engineering departments across WSE.

      Prof. Efie Kokkoli from the JHU Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering announced and presented Alycen with the award, which includes a $500 prize.

      Also at the retreat, the PULSE Lab was recognized as one of three finalists for the WSE Lab Excellence Award. The lab was well represented with excellent poster presentations by Alycen, Eduardo, and Derek:

      • Alycen Wiacek
      • Derek Allman
      • Eduardo González

      ECE Department Announcement

      JHU ECE Facebook Post

      Medicine Matters Blog Post

      Prof. Bell Named 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow

      Congratulations to Prof. Muyinatu Bell who was selected by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as a 2019 Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. The Sloan Research Fellowships are provided to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. These two-year fellowships are awarded in recognition of distinguished performance and the unique potential of recipients to make substantial contributions to their field. A total of 126 Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually with only 23 awarded in Physics this year.

      “Sloan Research Fellows are the best young scientists working today,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Sloan Fellows stand out for their creativity, for their hard work, for the importance of the issues they tackle, and the energy and innovation with which they tackle them. To be a Sloan Fellow is to be in the vanguard of twenty-first century science.”

      The 2019 Sloan Research Fellows each receive a two-year fellowship in the amount of $70,000 to further their research.

      Sloan Foundation Press Release

      JHU Hub Announcement

      ECE Department Announcement

      Malone Center Announcement

      Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

      HEMI Announcement

      Kelley Kempski Wins Best Presentation Award

      Congratulations to PULSE Lab summer undergraduate student Kelley Kempski who won the best presentation award at the closing ceremonies for the NSF-funded REU program in Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics. Her presentation was entitled In Vivo Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Abdominal Surgery. Prof. Jerry Prince announced the award and congratulated Kelley on this great achievement.

      Kelley’s award continues the 4-year winning streak of previous PULSE Lab winners and mentees of Prof. Bell in the NSF CSMR REU Program:

      • Kelley Kempski (2018)
      • Margaret Allard (2017)
      • Blackberrie Eddins (2016)
      • Alicia Dagle (2015)

      Special thanks to Kelley’s graduate student mentor, Alycen Wiacek.

      LCSR Announcement

      ECE Department Announcement

      Mechanical Engineering Department Announcement

      Prof. Bell Receives NIH Trailblazer Award

      Prof. Bell received the NIH Trailblazer Award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, A Machine Learning Alternative to Beamforming to Improve Ultrasound Image Quality for Interventional Access to the Kidney. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding artifacts in ultrasound images, specifically artifacts caused by multipath scattering and acoustic reverberations (which occur when imaging through the abdominal tissue of overweight and obese patients or visualizing metallic surgical tools). There are no existing solutions to eliminate these artifacts based on today’s signal processing techniques. The goal of this project is to step away from conventional signal processing models and instead learn from raw ultrasound channel data examples with state-of-the-art deep learning techniques that differentiate artifacts from true signals to deliver a new class of clearer, easier-to-interpret ultrasound images that we call CNN-Based images. This work will be completed in collaboration with Austin Reiter, PhD and Kelvin Hong, MD.

      Two of our pioneering publications in this area include:

      • D Allman, A Reiter, MAL Bell, Photoacoustic source detection and reflection artifact removal enabled by deep learning, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 37(6):1464-1477, 2018 [pdf | datasets | code]
      • AA Nair, T Tran, A Reiter, MAL Bell, A deep learning based alternative to beamforming ultrasound images, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, April 15-20, 2018 [pdf]
      • Additional related publications are featured here

      This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:

      We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

      ECE Department Announcement

      Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

      LCSR Announcement

      Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare Announcement

      HEMI Announcement

      JHU Hub Announcement

      JHU Engineering Magazine

      Johns Hopkins Magazine

      Alycen Wiacek Receives Student Travel Award to IEEE IUS 2018

      PULSE Lab grad student Alycen Wiacek was selected by the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Organization Committee to receive a Student Travel Award to attend the 2018 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium taking place October 22-25, 2018 at the Portopia Hotel, in Kobe, Japan. Alycen will give an oral presentation on her work entitled Clinical Feasibility of Coherence-Based Beamforming to Distinguish Solid from Fluid Hypoechoic Breast Masses. Congratulations Alycen!

      Prof. Bell Receives JHU Discovery Award

      Dr. Muyinatu Bell and gynecologic surgeon collaborator Dr. Karen Wang were among the 30 interdisciplinary faculty teams at Johns Hopkins selected to receive one of the 2018 JHU Discovery Awards. This award is designed to support cross-divisional research teams who are poised to arrive at important discoveries or creative works. The expectation is that these awards will spark new, synergistic interactions between investigators across the institution and lead to work of the highest quality and impact. This award will support their research topic of “Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Gynecological Surgeries.”

      JHU Hub Celebration Coverage

      JHU Office of Research Announcement

      JHU Hub Announcement

      Malone Center Announcement

      HEMI Announcement

      Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

      ECE Department Announcement

      Prof. Bell Receives NSF CAREER Award

      Congratulations to Prof. Bell for being selected to receive the NSF CAREER Award. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.  The objective of Prof. Bell’s proposal entitled CAREER: Technical & Theoretical Foundations for Photoacoustic-Guided Surgery is to apply optical analyses, spatial coherence theory, and independent resolution models to describe fundamental performance limits of photoacoustic-based navigation during robotic and nonrobotic surgery.

      ECE Department Announcement

      Malone Center Announcement

      WSE Announcement

      JHU Hub Announcement

      LCSR Announcement

      Brooke Wins Second Place in Undergrad Poster Competition

      Congratulations to PULSE Lab undergraduate student Brooke Stephanian on her 2nd place win in the Optics and Photonics Conference at JHU! She presented a poster that summarized the work she completed this semester on the topic “Theoretical Simulation to Optimize Short-Lag Spatial Coherence (SLSC) Photoacoustic Image Quality”.

      Conference website: https://engineering.jhu.edu/ece/osa/hopkins-photonics-conference/

      Margaret Allard Receives Best Presentation Award

      Congratulations to PULSE Lab undergraduate student Margaret Allard who received the best presentation award from the NSF REU program in Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics. Her presentation was entitled Identifying Optimal da Vinci Tool Orientations for Photoacoustic Guided Hysterectomies. Prof. Jerry Prince presented Margaret with this award.

      This award was shared by Margaret Allard and Mindy Wagenmaker.

      JHU ECE Department Announcement

      NIH R00 Grant Awarded

      The PULSE Lab received the 2nd phase of Dr. Bell’s NIH K99/R00 award to support our project entitled “Coherence-Based Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Transsphenoidal Surgeries”. This work is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding the removal of pituitary tumors using the minimally invasive endonasal transsphenoidal approach, which incurs the deadly risk of causing injury to the internal carotid arteries. We propose to eliminate this risk by developing a sophisticated photoacoustic imaging system that visualizes blood vessels located behind bone during the surgical operation. This photoacoustic imaging system will be equipped with our novel coherence-based beamformers and our specialized light delivery systems.

      JHU ECE Announcement

      REU student wins first place award

      Congratulations to PULSE Lab undergraduate student Blackberrie Eddins for winning the first place final presentation award in the 2016 NSF Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics (CSMR) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at JHU! She tied in first place for this award with Luke Arend, another student participant.

      Two “Best” Awards in One Week

      • Dr. Bell’s co-authored paper, System Integration and Preliminary In-Vivo Experiments of a Robot for Ultrasound Guidance and Monitoring during Radiotherapy, was the runner-up for the Best Paper Award at the 17th International Conference on Advanced Robotics in Istanbul, Turkey. The paper received honorable mention.
      • Dr. Bell’s student, Alicia Dagle, received the Best Presentation Award at the 2015 NSF Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics Research Experience for Undergraduates (CSMR REU) Award Ceremony. Alicia is an undergraduate student at Clark University who will pursue a joint engineering program with Columbia University. She worked closely with Dr. Bell at Johns Hopkins University throughout the ten-week summer program.

      NIH K99 Pathway to Independence Award

      Dr. Muyinatu A. Lediju Bell received the NIH Pathway to Independence Award for her project entitled Coherence-Based Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Transsphenoidal Surgeries. This award promises support for 1-2 more years of postdoctoral training and the first 3 years of Dr. Bell’s independent faculty position.

      JHU Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

      JHU Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) Announcement

      Dr. Bell Wins the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship

      Dr. Muyinatu A. Lediju Bell is selected as an awardee in the Ford Foundation Fellowship 2013 postdoctoral competition, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies. The competition seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

      Two-Time UNCF-Merck Fellowship Recipient

      Dr. Muyinatu A. Lediju Bell was one of 10 postoctoral fellows to win the prestigious UNCF-Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is officially a two-time recipient of the award, as she also won the graduate level award to complete her PhD dissertation entitled, Improved Visualization of Endocardial Borders with Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging. The postdoctoral award totals $92,000 for a maximum of two years.