research : people

Director

David Koff, MD FRCPC, has been chair of the Department of Radiology at McMaster University and chief of Diagnostic Imaging at Hamilton Health Sciences for the past ten years. He is Professor of Radiology at McMaster University, and is founder and director of MIIRC@M, the Medical Imaging Informatics Research Centre at McMaster, leading research projects on radiation monitoring and integration of images in the electronic patient record, among others.

For the last 20 years, Dr. Koff’s research has centered on the electronic communication and workflow integration of medical images, and he helped develop the Canadian standards on lossy compression. He co-founded Easy Pax Inc, in 1998, a Canadian corporation developing and marketing a set of tools and services for image transmission over the Internet. He has been a co-founder of IHE Canada (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise), is a member of the board of IHE International and a member of the IHE section of the Medical Informatics committee at RSNA, has been running a Medical Imaging Informatics conference for the past twelve years, and contributes to multiple radiology societies and journals. He is the current president of the Canadian Heads of Academic Radiology Departments, and has recently been invited to be an expert for the WHO.

Before his appointment at McMaster, Dr. Koff held positions as a staff radiologist and research associate at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto, assistant professor at University of Toronto, and staff radiologist at the Montréal Heart Institute at the Université de Montréal. Before coming to Canada, Dr. Koff graduated in medicine and radiology from Université Paris V Rene Descartes, France and managed a large radiology practice for 18 years. His clinical expertise is mainly in chest and body radiology with a special interest in ultrasound.


Research Associates

Thomas Edward Doyle holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering Science from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He also holds a Masters of Engineering Science (M.E.Sc) in Electrical and Computer Engineering, a Bachelor of Engineering Science (B.E.Sc) in Electrical and Computer Engineering, a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Computer Science. Dr. Doyle has taught at McMaster University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

Dr. Doyle’s technical domain research areas include biomedical signal processing, health informatics, human-computer interfacing (HCI), brain computer interfacing (BCI), and machine learning for the augmentation, rehabilitation, and enhancement of human attributes. His research investigates the communication channel between the man and the machine for the enhancement of assistive and rehabilitative computing technology. Recent research has focused on the hearing prosthetic and the use of electrophysiological signals for improved autonomous control. This research has resulted in the development of a model that successfully classifies its users affective response by using a learning algorithm on several hearing related electrophysiological signals.

Reza Samavi is an Assistant professor in the Department Computing of Software Engineering and the Engineering Lead for the eHealth Graduate Program. His expertise lies in data management including information privacy and security, health data management, ontology engineering, semantic web, Linked Data and data analytics. For his research on information privacy Reza received the Privacy Technologies Research Award from the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies and the Privacy By Design Research Award for the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Todd Hoare, lab works at the interface of polymer science, physical chemistry, and biology, aiming to design novel materials with “smart” properties precisely tuned to the environment and application in which the material is to be used. Dr. Hoare’s main expertise lies in the rational design of “smart” hydrogel-based materials on different length scales (i.e. bulk hydrogels, microgels, and nanogels) based on a fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationships in such materials. While most of Dr. Hoare’s target applications lie within biomedical engineering (drug delivery, cell encapsulation, biomedical devices, biosensors, and tissue engineering), he also applies his engineered hydrogels in food, nutraceutical, agricultural, and environmental applications.

Karim S. Karim’s research on digital X-ray imaging is documented in over 200 publications, 10 issued patents, and has been recognized internationally with 27 awards over the past decade. Dr. Karim’s expertise lies in semiconductor fabrication, device and circuit design for digital X-ray imagers. His group has demonstrated the world’s first large area amorphous silicon active pixel sensor X-ray detector and recently, the world's highest resolution 5.6-μm direct conversion X-ray detector with Prof. Peter Levine. His pioneering work on current mode active pixel sensors for dynamic imaging using amorphous semiconductors resulted in the 2004 NSERC Doctoral Prize, the 2003 Douglas Colton Medal, and the 2004 CAGS-UMI Best Doctoral Thesis Award in Science, Engineering and Medicine in Canada. He later commercialized these active pixel sensors for ultrasonic fingerprint readers that are currently sold by Qualcomm to mobile phone manufacturers globally (including Xiaomi and LeTV). Dr. Karim was awarded the 2012 and 2016 Grand Challenges Canada Global Health Awards valued at $113,000 and $1,000,000 respectively for his work on low cost digital X-ray detectors for low-income countries. Karim holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and is a co-founder of a UW spinoff, KA Imaging that makes digital X-ray detectors.


Project Manager

Jane Castelli, for over 20 years has been involved in developing large international research projects from their point of identification to project completion. Ms. Castelli has been instrumental for the Department of Radiology at both McMaster University and Hamilton when it comes to developing research projects. Providing a large contribution to a number of successfully awarded grant, she has helped to ensure the sustainability of research in the department.

Using her university education in Health Science and Project Management, Ms. Castelli has overseen and managed a number of large multi-million dollar projects, where she was the point person for all stakeholders and sponsors. Ms. Castelli brings her background in research methodology, project management, and data collection and analysis to each of the projects that she works on to ensure a favourable and complete outcome.


Statistician

Sandra Monteiro completed her PhD in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University. She holds several titles at McMaster University. Her primary position is Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics with Associate status in the Department of Radiology. Sandra is also a senior Scientist in the Program for Educational Research and Development, a research fellow at the McMaster Institute for Innovation & Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a senior Psychometrician at Touchstone Institute. Sandra also maintains membership status with the Wilson Centre at the University of Toronto.

Sandra has a strong background in research methodology and statistics, which she puts into practice consulting with various health professionals. At McMaster, Sandra guides Radiology Residents in their design of clinical and education research. In particular, Sandra applies her knowledge to improve the quality of study designs, grant applications, manuscript preparation, research presentations and data analysis.


Collaborators

In addition to the MIIRC@M core staff noted above, MIIRC@M has established collaborations with a number of prestigious researchers who have or intend to work with MIIRC@M on various projects. The specifics of these projects can be found in the MIIRC@M Projects section of this document. The following individuals are considered collaborators with MIIRC@M:

  • Dr. Mike Noseworthy, Department of Radiology, McMaster University
  • Dr. Geoff Norman, Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, McMaster University
  • Dr. Naveen Parasu, Department of Radiology, McMaster University
  • Dr. Mitchell Levine, Department of Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology, McMaster University
  • Dr. Helen Chen, School of Public Health and Health Systems and David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
  • Mr. David Wormald, President, St Joseph's Health Centre Guelph and Elder Care St. Joseph's Health System
  • Dr. Catherine Burns, Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo
  • Dr. Ian McKillop, School of Public Health and Health Systems and David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
  • Dr. Pascal Poupart, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
  • Dr. Ilona Kowalik-Urbaniak, University of Waterloo
  • Dr. Kamran Sartipi, Department of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Institute of Technology
  • Dr. Jacob Scharcanski, Instituto de Informatica, UFRGS, Brazil
  • Pr. Guy Frija, President of the European Society of Radiology
  • Mr. Duane Bender, Mohawk College
  • Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh, Prof. System Design Engineering, University of Waterloo
  • Mr. Don Dennison, SIIM, co-Chair MIIT
  • Ms. Brittany Tomlin, co-organizer MIIT