Faculty and Staff

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Dr. Brooks was awarded his Ph.D. by Griffith University in Australia. His research work focused on technique development in MR spectroscopy with a specific focus on biological systems. He built on this in post-doctoral work during which he designed and patented one of the first techniques for spatially localized spectroscopy to be employed in humans. In 1991, he joined the Center for Non-Invasive Diagnosis (now MIND Imaging Center) at the University of New Mexico and spent the next decade applying MR imaging and spectroscopy to the study of injury and disease. These studies have shown that biological markers of brain metabolism can predict cognitive function in both normal brain function and in disease. Dr Brooks’ specific research interests include normal function and recovery from traumatic brain injury. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 patents, and is funded to study traumatic brain injury.

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Dr. Bruce received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University after completing an APA-accredited internship in Clinical Psychology at the Boston VA Healthcare System. Currently, Dr. Bruce is doing research related to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and childhood obesity. Her interests also include neuroeconomics and neuromarketing of food-related stimuli. Clinically, Dr. Bruce has experience with psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioral interventions in a wide variety of patient populations (i.e. obesity, mood disorders, anxiety disorders).

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Dr. Choi received her Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University of Minnesota. After her postdoctoral training at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Minnesota, she continued her research in the Department of Medical Physics at the Nathan Kline Institute as a senior research scientist and also served as a Section Leader for MR Spectroscopy at the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging. Dr. Choi’s research focuses largely on in vivo brain energy metabolism using noninvasive neuroimaging techniques. The primary focus of Dr. Choi’s current research is development of novel magnetic resonance techniques to provide quantitative assessment of regional distribution of neurotransmitters and antioxidants in the brain and its application to clinical research to understand the role of oxidative stress in aging, neurological and psychiatric disorders.

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Dr. Cirstea received her initial training in medicine at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania, in 1993. She continued her studies at the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, Canada, and received her M.Sc. in 1999 (first 15%) and her Ph.D. Degree in 2004. During Dr. Cirstea’s Ph.D. study, she was invited to present her results at multiple Universities, such as Université de Caen, Université René Descartes Paris V, and Université de Bruxelles. Her doctoral dissertation was to elucidate the role of a systematic repetitive practice in re-learning of motor skills following stroke as well as to identify which type of training approach is more beneficial for “true” motor recovery. Dr. Cirstea joined the University of Kansas Medical Center in 2004 as a post doctoral fellow and was later appointed Research Assistant Professor in 2006 in the School of Allied Health – Physical Therapy and Rehabilitative Sciences department. Dr. Cirstea’s interests are to understand the mechanisms underlying plasticity of function in humans and its functional relevance. Based on this understanding, new interventional approaches might be developed to enhance them when they play a beneficial role and down regulate them when they are maladaptative. She has published six journal articles and four book chapters.

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Dr. Gustafson was awarded a Ph.D. in Visual Electrophysiology in 1994 for describing abnormalities in retinal signal processing in human subjects with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and mouse models with dystrophin mutations. This work led to the co-discovery of a new dystrophin isoform found only in retina (Dp260). Prior to joining the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center, she was the Director of the Vision Science Laboratory at The Children's Mercy Hospital and Assistant Professor of Rehabilitative Medicine, University of Missouri School of Medicine for nineteen years. She is the Associate Director of the fetal MEG program and is also responsible for research investigations related to Vision Science. Dr. Gustafson was awarded a patent for her involvement in a multi-center trial that showed the nutritional content of a new premature infant formula was essential for optimal infant visual development. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, co-authored 2 book chapters and is currently funded to study visual and stereo acuity development in full term infants fed different diets, the effects of maternal smoking on fetal cardiac and brain neurophysiology and cortical mapping in human ON-pathway disorders.

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Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics from University of Minnesota. His research topic was the physiological bases of functional MRI signals. Dr. Lee completed his postdoctoral training at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research in University of Minnesota. His research continued at the Nathan Kline Institute as a senior research scientist and focused on the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease using MRI by visualizing ß-amyloid plaques in the brain. Dr. Lee’s current research interests include the characterization and understanding of biological processes in the brain in vivo at the cellular and molecular level using magnetic resonance. Dr. Lee also works on the development of novel MR imaging techniques for early diagnosis and identification of changes in functional and physiological aspects of neurodegenerative diseases during the disease progression.

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Dr. Martin received her Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis in Cognitive Neuroscience from Rice University. Her training included coursework in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In addition, she has attended the Dartmouth Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience and MGH’s Functional MRI Visiting Fellowship. Dr. Martin’s graduate work focused on the neural systems of reward processing and individual differences related to impulsivity. Specifically, her doctoral dissertation, which was funded by a predoctoral NRSA training fellowship, examined both event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as related to reward prediction and action-monitoring among high and low impulsive college students. This line of research is currently being expanded to clinical populations with impulse control disorders such as nicotine addiction and obesity. Dr. Martin’s research has been presented at meetings of the Society of Psychophysiological Research and Cognitive Neuroscience meetings.

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Mihai Popescu received his BS Degree in Electrical Engineering from “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Romania. He was a Postgraduate Student (as a TEMPUS grant holder) of the European Postgraduate Course of Biomedical Engineering, organized by the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Patras, Greece. He received the MS Degree (as the best student), and the PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Patras. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Human Brain Dynamics Laboratory, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, Japan, before joining the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center, KUMC, in 2003. The focus of his research is on the design of beamforming algorithms that can provide accurate estimates of the spatio-temporal dynamics of brain activity from multi-channel MEG recordings. Applications of the source reconstruction methodology focus on understanding fundamental brain mechanisms using unimodal/multimodal stimulation paradigms. A second area of research focuses on developing algorithms for the reconstruction of fetal cardiac currents from multi-channel fMCG recordings, including innovative methodologies for the integration of 3D ultrasound information of the feto-abdominal anatomy into the discrete formulation of the forward electromagnetic problem. Applications include examining longitudinal changes of fetal cardiac electrophysiology and the impact of maternal smoking on fetal heart.

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Dr. Harris received her PhD in Neurobiology from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Her doctoral research focused on the role of specific extracellular matrix proteoglycans in adaptive synaptic plasticity following brain trauma. Dr. Harris joined the team at Hoglund in 2008 as a postdoctoral fellow. She is currently investigating pathophysiologic mechanisms of traumatic brain injury in models, evaluating the effectiveness of targeted therapies using magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy along with behavioral and anatomical endpoints.

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Ali received his B.S. in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Jordan in 2004. Before coming to Kansas City, he was involved in clinical work for four years in King Abdullah University Hospital (KAUH), Jordan. His clinical experience involves chronic care and long term interventions in patients with neurological and orthopedic injuries. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Science at the University of Kansas Medical Center under the supervision of Dr. Cirstea. His Ph.D thesis focuses on intervention-driven functional changes in motor cortex in chronic stroke patients. Specifically, the aim of his research is to identify whether the improved performance acquired by true recovery or compensation is subserved by training-driven changes within different neural representations. In addition, Ali is participating as Research Assistant in different projects, i.e., longitudinal neural changes in patients with chronic low back pain undergoing different physical interventions.

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Lori Blanck earned her certificate in Electroneurodiagnostic Technology from Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA in 1984. She has over 20 years experience in EEG, Evoked Potentials and Intraoperative Monitoring as well as research investigations involving visual development in pre-term and term infants. She worked as a technologist at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles before moving to the Kansas City area where she worked at The Children's Mercy Hospital, Neurophysiology Laboratory and then the Vision Science Laboratory in 1990. Lori joined the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center in 2003 as MEG Laboratory Manager and oversees research involving nutrition and infant visual development, fetal magnetocardiology and cortical MEG/EEG studies.

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Abigail received her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. Prior to coming to Hoglund Brain Imaging Center, she worked as a veterinary technician for 7 years. She currently works as a research assistant under Dr. In-Young Choi doing biochemical analysis and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The current research projects in which she is involved includes metabolite levels in the brain in normal mice, Alzheimer's transgenic mice, and Alzheimer's with diabetes transgenic mice; and the effects of vitamin c in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's Disease.

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Frank graduated from the U.S. Army's X-Ray School in 1991, were he spent 16 years working for an Orthopaedic group doing X-rays and MRIs. He spent the last three years working for mobile MRI companies performing MRIs for the military and a veteran’s hospital. Frank is affiliated with ARRT and ASRT. He joined HBIC in 2010 and is currently involved in research MRI scans.

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Jo Ann Lierman is a nationally certified clinical specialist in medical-surgical nursing and an advanced registered nurse practitioner in the state of Kansas and Missouri. She has been in practice for over 25 years in community-based as well as acute care settings. She has been on faculty at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, as well as Graceland College School of Nursing. Dr. Lierman has been involved in research studies in the areas of patient education, perioperative care, and the development of critical thinking in undergraduate nursing students. Dr. Lierman received her BSN from Graceland College, MN from the University of Kansas, Ed.S. from the University of Missouri, and Ph.D. in adult education and curriculum development from the University of Missouri.

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Erica recently graduated from University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in Business. Her research interests include eating disorders and substance abuse. As an Undergraduate Research Assistant, Erica designed an original pilot experiment and is currently collecting data to expand her undergraduate thesis project. Erica joined Hoglund in June of 2012. She is responsible for assisting Dr. Martin with recruitment, data collection, and analysis

Vlad Papa, B.A., Research Assistant

913-588-0173, vpapa@kumc.edu 

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Vlad received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Kansas in December 2010. He focused on brain function and behavior and was the first Undergraduate Research Assistant to complete the entire process of creating a study through data analysis at Hoglund. Vlad joined HBIC in January 2011. He is responsible for assisting Dr. Martin with tasks involving her research: such as programming, recruiting participants, and analyzing data.

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Anda Popescu completed her PhD in Medical Physics in 2008 at the University of Patras, Greece. Prior to joining HBIC, she was enrolled as a research student at Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan, as a grantee of the Japanese Government Scholarship Program, and as a student trainee at Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, Japan. Her research interests include the development and design of advanced computational methods and tools for multivariate data analysis. Her recent work has focused on the identification, extraction and characterization of fetal patterned activity (hiccup and suck activity) in the fetal biomagnetic measurements.

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Kevin received his Bachelor's of Science degree from Creighton University in May of 2010. He majored in Biology and minored in Economics. He is currently a student of the Master's in Public Health program in the Epidemiology track. He currently works with Dr. Laura Martin and will be assisting in subject recruitment and processing as well as minor data analysis.

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Allan graduated with Honors from Houston Community College with an AAS in Radiography. He has 16 years experience ranging from Level 1 trauma to clinical research and drug trials. Allan is affiliated with ARRT, ASRT, ISMRM, and Phi Theta Kappa.

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Justine received a Bachelors degree in Statistics and Quantitative Economics and has an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Avila University, Kansas City, Missouri. Justine is responsible for the day to day operational, administrative, financial, human resources and research administration functions of the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center.

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Kristy received her Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Baker University in 2009 and is currently furthering her studies in nursing.  She joined HBIC as a Senior Coordinator in April 2012.  She is responsible for assisting with the Center's  pre-award functions of grant applications, coordinating various administrative functions and maintaining administrative databases

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Melinda earned her Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science, with an emphasis in Psychology from Sterling College in 2005. She joined HBIC in 2009 and currently works as an Administrative Assistant where she assists with the Center’s various administrative functions, including processing purchasing requisitions, faculty and staff travel and reimbursements.