Background
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, 2021-Present
Senior Computer Scientist, Thermal Sciences and Engineering, Sandia National
Laboratories, 2018-2021
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences,
University of Utah, 2014-2017
PhD, Bioengineering, University of Utah, 2014
BS, Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, 2009
Cancer Research
My research interests include magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS)
surgery, an emerging approach to treating cancer and other diseases. This non-invasive
therapy involves the focusing of ultrasound waves inside a tumor that quickly increase the local
tissue temperature and induce protein coagulation and necrosis without damaging nearby
healthy tissues. MRI is used for treatment guidance via non-invasive temperature monitoring.
In the BYU Bioheat Transfer Laboratory, we are developing methods for non-invasive and
temperature-dependent characterization of tissue properties used as inputs to acoustic and
thermal simulations for MRgFUS model-based treatment planning. Better properties lead to
improved modeling and, in turn, greater treatment efficacy. We strive to make our simulations
accurate and computationally efficient, running fast enough to be useful in the clinical setting,
through reduced order modeling (ROM), high performance computing, and parallelization. This
research has the potential to advance our understanding of the physics driving unexplained
clinical phenomena, improve simulation capabilities for model-based treatment planning, and
improve treatment outcomes in the growing field of MRgFUS thermal therapies.
Publications
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sLoDM9kAAAAJ&hl=en