Dr. Berkin Bilgic, ECE Faculty Candidate Seminar

- Sponsor
- Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Speaker
- Dr. Berkin Bilgic, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
- Contact
- Angie Ellis
- amellis@illinois.edu
- Phone
- 217-300-1910
- Originating Calendar
- Illinois ECE Calendar
Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Candidate Seminar
Dr. Berkin Bilgic
Associate Professor of Radiology, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
B02 CSL Auditorium or Online via Zoom
Title: Next Generation MRI: tailored encoding and reconstruction across scales and field strengths
Abstract: MRI has demonstrated ability to provide exquisite contrast for non-invasive imaging. What limits its efficiency and sensitivity are the tradeoffs between scan time, resolution, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). My research is devoted to breaking this stalemate by developing acquisition and reconstruction methods that simultaneously exploit MR physics, cutting-edge hardware capabilities, signal processing, and machine learning. We develop these technologies and pursue their applications to enable,
- high-resolution imaging at the mesoscale to examine the human cortex in vivo,
- quantitative imaging to map biophysical tissue parameters with precision,
- radiofrequency pulse development to combat physical confounds at ultra-high fields,
- open-source development for harmonized acquisition, reconstruction and analysis, and
- self-supervised machine learning synergistic with physics-based reconstruction.
The overarching goal is to push the limits of resolution, fidelity and SNR, and improve efficiency of MRI exams to make them more cost effective and more widely used in the clinic. Special emphasis is given to tackling physical and physiological challenges of ultra-high field MRI in an end-to-end manner to render it successful in the clinic and transformative as a neuroscientific tool.
Dr. Berkin Bilgic is an Associate Professor of Radiology at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, where he leads the BRAIN (Bilgic Reconstruction Acquisition for Imaging Neuroscience) group that develops data acquisition and reconstruction techniques for MRI.