Beckman Institute Graduate Fellows must be students at the University of Illinois and their research interests should involve at least two faculty members from different groups. Their motivation for seeking a coveted Graduate Fellows appointment, however, can take many forms.
Terrence Chen grew up in Taiwan, the son of a doctor. He came to the University of Illinois for post-graduate studies in computer science and now as a Beckman Graduate Fellow, is involved in research he believes will one day aid his father’s work.
“I was always very interested in computer-aided medical image analysis,” Chen said. “My father is a surgeon and often asked me how computer technology could help with diagnosis.”
Zhi-Pei Liang works with Graduate Fellows in the Image Formation & Processing group.
Chen’s area of interest centers on image processing and computer vision. He found the perfect avenue to follow his research path as a Beckman Graduate Fellow and through interdisciplinary collaborations with Beckman faculty. He’s worked with Psychology Professor Art Kramer (HPP), and Electrical and Computer Engineering professors Thomas Huang and Zhi-Pei Liang of Beckman’s Image Formation and Processing group on research into brain activity and aging. When he began the Fellows program a year ago, Chen had hoped to segment and measure the volume of the brain to see how and if that volume changes with age. A year later, Chen is doing just that. “We have developed novel segmentation and registration algorithms for brain MRI images which outperform existing solutions,” Chen said.
Chen is one of five Illinois graduate students who were awarded Beckman Graduate Fellows appointments in 2004 for research topics that include speech and language studies and using novel materials for electronics and other applications. But work on cutting-edge imaging techniques seems to be a theme for this class of Graduate Fellows.
Jason Sullivan works in the Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory (CNL) with Beckman researchers Gabriele Gratton and Monica Fabiani. Sullivan’s project applies recent advances in functional neuroimaging to determine how the brain processes language in real time. Sullivan and his fellow researchers use a CNL-developed non-invasive functional neuroimaging technique called Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS) that uses light and optic fiber-bundle detectors to image brain activity. Sullivan said the EROS technique is able to take advantage of rapid changes in the light-scattering properties of active neurons to image the brain in action.
“The human cognitive system is capable of integrating meaning, structure, and past experience very rapidly, and the interrelations between these types of information continue to be a subject of theoretical debate,” Sullivan said. “By using (EROS), ... it should become possible to distinguish between separate processes that may or may not be happening simultaneously. Having this type of information will go a long way toward increasing our understanding of how humans understand and produce language.”
Tyler Ralston is another Graduate Fellow whose research centers on an innovative imaging technique. Working in the Biophotonics Laboratory, Ralston focuses on high-speed mapping of neural activity. Ralston, who is working toward a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, maps neural activity through optical scattering changes using real-time, spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) technology.
OCT is a high-resolution imaging system, while the newer technique of spectral domain OCT offers improved signal-to-noise ratio at speeds faster than conventional time-domain OCT. In his project proposal, Ralston said SD-OCT provides micron-scale resolution imaging that would be useful, for example, in the early detection of cells or biomolecules that are precursors to cancer.
“The goal of this project is to provide real-time neural imaging and spectroscopic analysis facilitated by SD-OCT,” Ralston said. “Specifically, high-speed neural imaging would allow for detecting fast neural signal activity through changes in scattering and polarization.”
Ralston said his Fellows appointment “has afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with experts in many fields, such as optics, biology, and neural science.”
These types of collaborations are a key premise of the Beckman Graduate Fellows program. Seokwoo Jeon exemplifies the Fellows program’s goal of creating and sustaining interdisciplinary projects. Jeon worked with Professor Paul Braun of the Advanced Chemical Systems group while pursuing his master’s degree, then served as a graduate assistant for Professor John Rogers of the Nanoelectronics and Biophotonics group. His current research with Rogers’ group is geared toward developing a technique to rapidly create well-defined, large-scale 3-D nanostructures. “I believe this technique will bring a flood of new technologies and scientific discoveries in the near future because of the simple operation and minimal cost,” Jeon said.
Graduate Fellows have the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary environment.
Heejin Kim, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics, collaborates with the Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence groups in research efforts with Beckman professors Jennifer Cole (CS) and Mark Hasegawa- Johnson (AI). Kim is working toward a model of speech rhythms (known as speech prosody) based on acoustic evidence that will aid in the development of speech processing interfaces for computer systems. She said the Fellows program works better than a research assistantship in advancing both her research and her doctoral dissertation. “Having this Fellows (appointment) has given me great encouragement because it allowed me to continue my research,” Kim said. “It also made it possible to expand my research ideas to a field that I otherwise couldn’t reach. This has been especially possible because of the interdisciplinary research environment.”
The other Graduate Fellows agreed.
“The Beckman Fellows (appointment) has given me the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary environment, where I have been able to broaden and develop my research field of interest,” Ralston said.
“Having this Fellows (appointment) allows me to work across several labs and focus my energy on a very exciting project,” Sullivan said.