| University of Utah
School of Computing
Salt Lake City, Utah
I am currently a Research Assistant at the Scientific Computing Institute (SCI), working towards a Ph. D in Scientific Computing. My research focuses on developing new methods for extracting features from Electron Microscopy data to aid in neural circuit reconstruction.
Research Interests
Neuroscientists at the University of Utah are developing new imaging techniques to better understand the complex structure of the retina and optic tract. This is an important area of research because it closely models the behavior of the neural system in the brain, but on a smaller scale. Also, understanding how the retina and optic nerve process signals helps scientists develop cures for debilitating eye diseases.
The complexity and size of this data makes human interpretation a labor intensive task. To aid in the analysis, we are developing segmentation techniques for identifying neurons and axons in image data acquired from a transmission electron microscope. The extremely anisotropic resolution of the data makes segmentation and tracking across slices difficult. In addition, the thickness of the slices can make the membranes of the neurons can be hard to identify. Tools designed to handle inconsistent data must be flexible enough to account for the changes and uncertainty in the neuron segmentation. For more information: Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) |
