Lab Members

Nicholas J. DurrPrincipal Investigator

Nick is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, with appointments in the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Ophthalmology.

He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley in 2003. After graduation, he joined the medical device company Nellcor. He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from U.T. Austin in 2010, working with Adela Ben-Yakar. After a 1-year Postdoctoral Fellowship with John Frangioni at Harvard Medical School, Nick became an independent M+Vision Fellow at MIT. He left MIT to co-found PlenOptika, which he led as CEO until he joined Hopkins in 2016. Nick has helped start several new companies out of Hopkins, including Kubanda Cryotherapy.

Nick grew up rural Oregon and California, in an unstable, impoverished household. He is a first-generation college student that benefited from Upward Bound and EOP at Cal. If you are a first-generation or low-income student at Hopkins (especially in BME!), he wants to meet you. Hopkins is tough! You can find him at FLI Network events or email him directly.

Taylor BobrowMalone Postdoctoral Fellow

Taylor completed his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Old Dominion University. He completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2024. As a Malone Fellow, he is researching computational imaging technologies to monitor biofluids. When not in the lab, Taylor enjoys playing live music on the drum set.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2017, received the NSF Graduate Fellowship in 2018, and the Malone Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in 2024.

Michaela Taylor-WilliamsPostdoctoral Fellow

Michaela received her PhD in Physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge for her research on multispectral imaging. Her areas of interest include imaging tissue vasculature and perfusion using optical methods. Apart from her work, she enjoys history, swimming, and sailing tall ships.

She joined the Durr Lab in 2024.

Marisa MorakisBME Ph.D. Candidate

Marisa received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Bucknell University. Currently, she is interested in optical system design for low-cost, non-invasive blood analysis. Outside of the lab, Marisa plays field hockey and also enjoys cooking, baking, gardening and hanging with her cats.

She joined the Durr Lab in 2020 and received the NSF Graduate Fellowship in 2022.

Mayank GolharBME Ph.D. Student

Mayank was a Senior Software Engineer at Samsung R&D, Bangalore in the Health and Medical Equipment Division working on ultrasound image analysis. Previously, he obtained his B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IITG) with a major in Electronics & Communication Engineering, and a minor in Computer Science. He is currently interested in image analysis for endoscopy using computer vision & deep learning. When not in front of the screen, he can be found playing basketball, doing cardio boxing, or hiking on trails.

He completed his Masters degree in ECE in the Durr Lab then joined as a Ph.D. BME student in 2021.

Luojie HuangBME Ph.D. Student

Luojie completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering focusing on Medical imaging & Analysis from Southeast University in China. He then completed his MS in BME at Hopkins while researching in the Durr Lab. Currently, he is working on Deep Learning Cytometry for in-vivo capillary videos. In spare time, he enjoys good movies and jogging.

He completed his Masters degree in BME in the Durr Lab then joined as a Ph.D. BME student in 2021.

Anthony SongBME Ph.D. Student

Anthony received his B.S. in Chemistry and Data Science from Iowa State University. He is currently interested in developing a novel multi scale structured light macroscope to superficially image untreated cellular structures and utilize deep learning architectures to predict histologic primitives. Outside of the lab, Anthony plays ice hockey and also enjoys board games, and learning to play guitar.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2021 and received the NSF Graduate Fellowship in 2022.

Corey SimmererBME Ph.D. Student

Corey completed his B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering from Duke University, with a focus on biomedical imaging systems and image analysis. He is currently working on computational imaging for low-cost retinal and corneal imaging. In his free time, Corey enjoys playing volleyball and exploring Baltimore on his bike.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2022.

Teja MaruvadaECE Ph.D. Candidate

Teja received his B.Tech. in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). He graduated with a master’s degree in Bioengineering innovation and design from CBID program at Hopkins. Prior to joining Durr Lab, he was a founding member and CTO of a urologic medical device startup, CeleFlux LLC. He has a strong interest in Biodesign and needs-based innovation and is currently working on real-time monitoring and early detection of catheter-based infections using lens-free imaging. Outside of the lab, he watches and plays soccer, does gardening and home-improvement projects.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2022.

Mantej SinghBME Ph.D. Student

Mantej received his B.S in Computer Science from Rice University in 2022. His current research is focused on developing affordable, miniaturized microscopes and algorithms for non-invasive blood cell imaging. His goal is to create cost-effective medical devices to improve healthcare for underserved communities.

Outside of work, Mantej enjoys hiking, exploring Baltimore’s coffeeshops, doing stand-up comedy, and building wacky electronics projects in his room.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2022.

Hyun Seo LeeBME Undergraduate Researcher

Hyun Seo Lee is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University, pursuing a dual major in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science, with a specialized focus on Imaging and Medical Devices. Her passion lies in the intersection of these disciplines, where she is interested in the creation of innovative and user-friendly medical devices. Beyond her academic pursuits, she enjoys cooking, playing volleyball, and watching movies.

She joined the Durr Lab in 2022.

Lucas Galeano FretesBME Undergraduate Researcher

Lucas is an undergraduate student at JHU majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on Imaging and Medical Devices. His research interests include 3D modeling, optical characterization of biological tissues and advanced imaging techniques for colorectal cancer screening. Outside of the lab, he enjoys trying new recipes, taking piano lessons, and going for early morning runs.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2023.

Luiza Brunelli BuhrerBME Undergraduate Researcher

Luiza is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University, majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on Imaging and Medical Devices, and Computer Science. Her passion lies at the intersection of these fields, particularly in developing cutting-edge optical medical devices for minimally invasive surgeries and diagnostics. Her goal is to eventually make these novel technologies available to underserved communities. Beyond academics, Luiza enjoys travel, fitness, and karaoke.

She joined the Durr Lab in 2023.

Loren AyersBME Undergraduate Researcher

Loren is a Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate student with a focus in Imaging and Medical Devices, and an interest in learning more about how technology can be used to advance medicine. Outside the classroom, she enjoys working her part-time job at the Life Design Lab, drawing, and exploring new genres of music.

She joined the Durr Lab in 2023.

Openings

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Computational Biophotonics

Posted October 1st, 2024

Tags: optics, microscopy, endoscopy, fluorescence, image-guided surgery, instrumentation, computer vision, machine learning, translational research

Multiple Postdoctoral Fellowships are available in the Durr Lab at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Fellows will research novel optical and computational technologies to address important clinical needs in hematology, global health, surgery, and pathology.

Intravital Microscopy Position: We seek a talented microscopist or optical engineer to explore the area of non-invasive, label-free microscopy for intravital blood imaging and slide-free 3D pathology. The Fellow will design, construct, optimize, and clinically test high-speed phase contrast microscopes. This work will involve creating miniaturized systems, implementing novel optical techniques, hardware and software development, image analysis and human studies research. This position is flexible, and the Fellow will be additionally supported to create new technologies and applications. This position is fully funded by several sources, including the NIH and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Robotic Fluorescence-Guided Surgery Position: We seek a talented biophotonics researcher to develop a novel laparoscope technology to improve tissue visualization during robotic surgery. The Fellow will design, construct, optimize, and test laser endoscopy technologies for 3D fluorescence localization. This work will involve optoelectronics development, novel structured-light optical techniques, imaging system integration, and collaboration with a large team of academics, entrepreneurs, and large industry partners. This position is flexible, and the Fellow will be additionally supported to create new technologies and applications. This position is fully funded by several sources, including the ARPA-H Cancer Moonshot Program.

About Us: Our laboratory is located in the heart of the Johns Hopkins Medical School in East Baltimore. In 2025, we will on move to the new, $400M CMSC North Tower Research Building. Hopkins combines world-leading biomedical engineering and medical programs, providing a fertile environment for impactful translational research. Our interdisciplinary team works side-by-side with healthcare providers. Trainees are encouraged to complete clinical observations and human subjects research. Please see https://durr.jhu.edu/ for more information about our group.

Candidate Requirements: Applicants must have a Ph.D. in a relevant field (engineering, optics, computer science, or physics) and have authored relevant publications. Positions are available immediately.

Application Instructions: Please email your CV; a cover letter describing your background and specific interests in these projects; and the contact information for three references to Dr. Durr: [email protected]. Please use the words [Durr Lab Postdoc 2024] as the subject of your email.

Graduate positions available in Computational Biophotonics

For PhD students, a background in electrical engineering, computer science, physics, optics, or medical imaging is desirable. For external applicants, please apply to Hopkins BME or ECE and indicate my name in your application. For current Hopkins students, please contact me directly.

Alumni

Neha RajanBME MSE Student

Position after graduation: Hardware Verification Engineering @ Smith+Nephew

Neha received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Computing and Devices from Georgia Tech. She is pursuing her Master’s in Biomedical Engineering. Currently, she is working on developing a novel imaging system for slide-free pathology detection using UV Surface Excitation. She is interested in novel imaging systems and image analysis for optimized disease detection. In her free time, she enjoys exploring coffee shops in Baltimore, plant-based cooking, and going to concerts

She joined the Durr Lab in 2023.

Naomi KifleBME MSE Student

Position after graduating: R&E Staff Engineer at Optosurgical.

Naomi received her BEng in Biomedical Engineering from King’s College London. Currently, she is working using phone cameras to detect hand perfusion non-invasively. In her free time, she enjoys playing soccer, listening to music, and cooking.

Greg McKayM.D./ Ph.D. in 2023/22

Position after graduation: surgical resident at Hopkins

Greg’s finished the PhD part of his MD-PhD program in the Durr Lab in April 2022, focusing on non-invasive blood analysis. He completed his B.S. in Optics and B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Rochester in 2014.

He joined the Durr Lab in Fall 2017.

Tianyi (Mason) ChenPh.D. in BME 2022

Position after graduation: Applied scientist at Amazon.

Mason’s PhD in the Durr Lab focused on structured light macro-imaging and machine learning. He received his B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, where he researched on high-intensity focused ultrasound beam mapping.

He joined the Durr Lab in 2017. He completed an internship at Amazon in 2021 and finished his Ph.D. in March 2022. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Durr lab March-June 2022.

Ryan NiemeierHartwell Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow 2020-21

Position after graduation: Senior Product Engineer at Axsun Technologies.

Ryan received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2020 for his work in multi-channel visible-light optical coherence tomography. His current research interests include leveraging optical scattering as an intrinsic contrast source in quantitative imaging.

Faisal MahmoodPostdoctoral Fellow 2017-2019

Position after graduation: Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Faisal received his PhD from the Structural Cellular Biology Unit at OIST Graduate University, Japan. His research interests include signal and image processing, high performance computing, machine learning and biomedical instrumentation. When he’s not playing with code he enjoys photographing everything imaginable!

Luojie HuangMSE in BME, 2021

Position after graduation: Ph.D. student in Durr Lab.

Luojie completed his MSE degree in BME in 2021, researching machine learning approaches to analyzing blood cells.

Mayank GolharMS in ECE, 2020

Position after graduation: Ph.D. student in Durr Lab.

Mayank completed his MSE in ECE in the Durr Lab in December 2020 and then stayed on as a staff researcher in 2021 until he started his Ph.D. program in BME.

Richard ChenMS in CS, 2019

Position after graduation: PhD Student at Harvard.

Richard completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Hopkins, and is currently pursuing a M.S. in Computer Science with a focus on Statistical Pattern Recognition, with applications in medicine and healthcare. His interests include exploring semantic segmentation networks and adversarial examples for better medical image understanding. When he travels, he likes to make friends through pop-up dance workshops.

Yixin (Clarisse) HuResearch Assistant 2019-2020

Position after graduation: CTO of Kubanda Cryotherapy.

Clarisse completed her M.S.E in Robotics and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in Instrumentation at Johns Hopkins University. She co-developed a cryosurgical system for treating breast cancer in low resource areas. She loves crafting, hiking, and open water swimming.

Bailey SurteesResearch Assistant 2018-2020

Position after graduation: CEO of Kubanda Inc.

Bailey completed her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in Instrumentation from Johns Hopkins University. She continued her design project, developing a low-cost system for breast cancer cryotherapy, in the DurrLab as a staff Research Assistant after graduating. In 2020 she founded and became CEO of Kubanda Inc.

Jordan SweerMS in BME in 2018

Position after graduation: Optical scientist at Triple Ring.

Jordan Sweer was a Masters student in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in Instrumentation and Computational Biophotonics. He completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, where he researched 3D-printed optical phantoms and Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy Imaging in the Biomedical Optical Technologies lab. In the Durr Lab, he completed research in using Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging for the characterization of precancerous cells in the gastrointestinal tract.

Rotation Students

Anisha OommenBME Ph.D. Rotation Student

Anisha completed her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Currently, she is interested in image reconstruction and low-cost diagnostic tools and is excited to work on projects with lens-free imaging. Anisha also loves reading books, playing monopoly with her family, and experimenting in the kitchen.

Thomas AtheyBME Ph.D. Rotation student

Thomas graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 with a B.S. in BME and decided to stay because of the ambitious and talented faculty. He is most interested in using data science for automated image interpretation, especially when there are complex underlying systems and limited training data as is the case for most medical applications. He appreciates most things that involve practice and strategy, but in particular enjoys flyfishing, tennis, and emulating Clarence White on the guitar.

Alex TrickPh.D. Rotation Student

Alex completed his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a concentration in biomaterials. Outside of the lab, he enjoys cooking and playing soccer.

Vikram ChandrashekharPh.D. Rotation Student

Vikram completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, where he developed software for real time visualization and speech and language processing.

Undergraduate Researchers

Keerthana ThammanaUndergraduate Researcher

Keerthana is an undergraduate student majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science with a focus in Instrumentation. She is working on developing non-invasive blood analysis technologies. In her free time, she enjoys painting, playing the piano, and hiking.

Lia Gomez-PerezUndergraduate Researcher

Lia is an undergraduate student and Goldwater Scholar majoring in biomedical engineering and minoring in computer science and business at The Ohio State University. She is interested in combining artificial intelligence and bioimaging techniques to develop low-cost diagnostic tools. Outside of lab, she enjoys cooking, listening to music, and traveling.

After the Durr Lab, Lia was awarded an NSF GRFP and matriculated into MIT/Harvard’s HST Program.

Ethan LevyUndergraduate Researcher

Ethan is an undergraduate student studying biomedical and electrical engineering. He is working to characterize and improve current endoscopes for cancer diagnosis. Besides messing with electronics, he enjoys cooking and listening to music from all around the world.

Nela MohanUndergraduate Researcher

Nela is an undergraduate student studying Biomedical Engineering with a focus on instrumentation. She is working on developing housing for a non-invasive in vivo blood cell monitor. In her free time, she enjoys hiking with her dog, dancing, rock climbing, and playing music.

Victoria ChenUndergraduate Researcher

Victoria is an undergraduate Biomedical Engineering major. She is working to develop a catheter that more precisely delivers embolization agents to tumors. Outside of work, Victoria likes to bake, hike, and explore Baltimore.

John HanUndergraduate Researcher

John is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying Electrical Engineering. He is interested in developing medical imaging technology for clinical use. Outside of academics and work, he enjoys playing various instruments and participating in church activities.

Melina PapadakisUndergraduate Researcher

Melina is an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins pursuing biomedical and electrical engineering degrees. She is interested in working at the intersection of machine learning and hardware to improve imaging systems. On the weekends she enjoys working within the arts and making tiramisu.

Helena HahnUndergraduate Researcher

Helena is an Electrical and Computer Engineering undergraduate working to develop a deep learning algorithm that determines eye glass prescriptions with lower cost materials. Whenever she gets the chance, she’ll be listening to podcasts, watching YouTube, or learning about economics.

Madeline ChababUndergraduate Researcher

Maddie is an undergraduate Electrical Engineering major. She is interested in biomedical instrumentation for low-resource settings, both locally and globally. In her free time, Maddie enjoys spending time with her new nephew, going to the beach, discovering new coffee nooks, and practicing yoga.

Miguel InserniUndergraduate Researcher

Miguel graduated in Spring 2020 from Hopkins BME, and completed work on laser speckle endoscopy in the Durr Lab. After graduation, he joined a JHU BME startup company called Spine Align.

Daniel BordersUndergraduate Researcher

Daniel is an undergraduate Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science major. He is interested in computer vision and increasing machine learning’s role in day-to-day life. Daniel also enjoys board games, off-road racing, and computerized stock market prediction.

Yang ZiyunVisiting Undergraduate Researcher

Yang is an undergraduate at the Beijing Institute of Technology. He is interested in image classification with deep neural networks. He likes sports and working out. If you can’t find him in the lab, then he must be in the gym!

Xinyun ZhangVisiting Undergraduate Researcher

Xinyun Zhang is an undergraduate student from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication majoring in computer science. She is interested in biomedical applications of deep learning.

Eric ChiangUndergraduate Researcher

Eric Chiang was an undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Major with a focus in Computational Biology at Johns Hopkins University. In the Durr Lab, he completed research in improving the accuracy of spatial frequency domain imaging for complex geometries.

Matthew JorgensenVolunteer Researcher

Matt has a B.S. in Neuroscience from BYU. He developed tissue phantoms with complex 3D geometries to test and improve the accuracy of spatial frequency domain imaging.

Zheyuan ZhangUndergraduate Researcher

Zheyuan Zhang (David) is a Precision Instrumentation undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering with a second major of Finance at Tsinghua University. He is developing a custom Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging system. Outside of the lab, he enjoys nature photography and playing table tennis.