Prof. Parsin H. Reza Professor Parsin Haji Reza joined the University of Waterloo in April 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering within the Department of Systems Design Engineering, after completing his doctoral (2015) and postdoctoral research (2018) at the University of Alberta. Dr. Haji Reza has an interest in designing and developing novel hardware and software methods for clinical and pre-clinical biomedical applications. He pioneered several new technologies/concepts including, Photoacoustic Remote Sensing (PARS™) microscopy, an absorption-based, non-contact, non-invasive, label-free imaging technique. He co-founded a start-up company illumiSonics Inc., which is focusing on commercializing PARS™ technology for pre-clinical and pharmaceutical applications To read more click here! Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Very open minded when it comes to ice-cream but generally fruity ice creams specially Mango!
Administrative Assistant Stephanie Clarke Stephanie completed her undergraduate degree in Social Development Studies (SDS) at the University of Waterloo. Continuing her education, she completed an Ontario College Graduate Certificate in Public Service from Conestoga College. Previously, she worked in other administrative roles for the Department of Systems Design Engineering and Engineering Outreach before joining the PhotoMedicine Lab's team and start-up company illumiSonics Inc. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Mango or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Current Team
Main Collaborators
Kevan Bell, PhD. Past: University of Alberta Kevan Bell joined the PhotoMedicine Labs as a post-doctoral fellow after completing his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Alberta. He had previously moved to the Waterloo Region in 2018 to work in the lab’s spin-off company, illumiSonics Inc., serving as Engineering Director while completing his thesis work. Kevan has played a pivotal role in the development of photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS™) microscopy and has contributed to the majority of currently published academic investigations on the topic. During his graduate career, Kevan was the recipient of both NSERC’s Post-Graduate Scholarship and Alberta Innovate’s Graduate Student Scholarship, as well as several institutional awards. Kevan brings a wide background and interests in optical physics, biophotonics, optical engineering, software development, simulation, and project management. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour:Vanilla Bean
Shahid Haider, PhD. Past: University of Waterloo Shahid is a post-doctoral research fellow in the PhotoMedicine Labs. He has 4 years of experience designing and building multispectral and polarimetric optical systems for non-destructive testing purposes. His current research interests include the probing of biological morphology using polarised light, optically probing temperatures, and building endoscopic imaging systems. He has a background in building computational polarimetric systems for portable ORD and CD measurements to analyze chemicals and has a background in image processing, building algorithms for lung cancer segmentation and image saliency analysis. He received his M.A.Sc. and PhD from the Vision and Image Processing (VIP) Lab at UW supervised by Prof. Alexander Wong & Prof. David Clausi Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Caramel Cone Explosion from Haagen-Dazs.
Saad Rasheed Abbasi Past:University of Leicester Awards: MITACS accelerate fellowship, Int'l Masters Student Award, UW Grad Scholarship. Saad is a second year M.A.Sc student working in the PhotoMedicince Labs. He has a background in Electrical Engineering, where he did his undergrad program at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. His research interests include image reconstruction, data acquisition methods, image processing and label-free histology-like imaging. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour:Vanilla Bean Nicholas Pellegrino Past: University of Waterloo Awards: Engineering Dean's Entrance Award co-supervised by Dr. Paul Fieguth Nicholas graduated from Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo and joined the PhotoMedicine labs in May 2019 as a masters student. Co-supervised by Dr. Haji Reza and Prof. Fieguth, his main focus is on multi-spectral unmixing, working towards chromophore-selective PARS imaging with applications in PARS™ histology. Email: nicholas.pellegrino@uwaterloo.ca Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Chocolate
Layla Khalili Past:Mayo Clinic Awards: MITACS accelerate fellowship Layla graduated from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse with a B.Sc. in Biomedical Physics and minor in Biology. After graduating, she worked for about a year at the Mayo Clinic in the Neurology department. Currently, she is pursuing her M.A.Sc. in Systems Design Engineering, and is working on an Ophthalmology project and IGF (Image Guided Fibre) project. She has always had a passion in Neurology/Neuroscience with the hopes of steering towards functional PARS imaging of the brain in the future. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Ben and Jerry's Non-Dairy Chunky Monkey or Mint Jasmine Chan Past:National University of Singapore Awards:Int'l Masters Student Award, UW Grad Scholarship. co-supervised by Dr. John Yeow Jasmine previously graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. Earlier this year, January 2019, she joined the PhotoMedicine Lab and is being co-supervised by Prof. John Yeow. Her main focus of her project is on using Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers (CMUTs) for photoacoustic imaging. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Mint
Benjamin Ecclestone Past: University of Guelph Awards: Dean's Scholarship Ben completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Guelph. Following this, he will be joining the PhotoMedicine Labs in May 2020 as a M.A.Sc student under Prof. Parsin Haji Reza. His research interests include optical systems, data processing methods, image reconstruction techniques and the development of histological imaging techniques. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Vanilla Bean from Haagen-Dazs
Zohreh Hosseinaee Awards: MITACS Accelerate Fellowship, Norman Edmund Award, Provost Doctoral Entrance Award for Women in Engineering. After completing her B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering, Zohreh received her M.Sc. in photonics engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran. She started her Ph.D. in the Systems Design Engineering department at UW in 2016. She has worked in the field of Biphotonic and optical imaging, especially optical coherence tomography (OCT). Her current research interest includes multi-modal optical imaging and image processing. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Swiss Chocolate Marian Boktor co-supervised by Dr. Paul Fieguth Marian completed both her undergraduate and master's degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport. She joined the PhotoMedicine Labs in January 2020 as a Ph.D student, and is being co-supervised by Dr. Parsin Haji Reza and Prof. Paul Fieguth. Her research interests include biological signal/data processing and analysis, data acquisition methods, image processing, computer vision, and machine learning techniques. Marian is a highly motivated researcher who believes knowledge is power - Loves traveling and helping people to survive. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Stretchy Middle Eastern Ice-Cream or Blueberry Fro-Yo
Alex Tummon Simmons Awards: NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award
Karam Danial Karam is an Undergraduate Research Assistant helping in the PhotoMedicince Labs for the Winter 2020 term. His hobbies include chess, guitar and art. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Chocolate Banana (really anything with chocolate)
Sheen Thusoo Sheen is an Undergraduate Research Assistant helping in the PhotoMedicince Labs during the Winter 2020 term. Her interests inclue AI, dance and tennis. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie
Maggie Zhang Maggie is an Undergraduate Research Assistant helping in the PhotoMedicine Labs for the Winter 2020 term. Her interests include robotics, cooking and travelling. Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Saffron & Pistachio
Amanda Hope Undergraduate Research Assistant
Past: Martin Le Research Assistant, Co-op Student URI award
Serene Abu-Sardanah Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Chandu Subramaniam Undergraduate Research Assistant URA award
James Tweel Undergraduate Research Assistant URA award
Daniel Javaheri_Zadeh Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Moujan Saderi Undergraduate Research Assistant URA award
Auguste Koh Undergraduate Research Assistant URA award
John Quinto Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Mikaela MacMahon Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Aysegul Alpay Co-op Student URI award
Natasha Willis Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Yun Kim Undergraduate Research Assistant President's award
Bazil Lorenzo Sonier Co-op Student
Cassandra Maxwell Undergraduate Research Assistant URA award
Amir Mohammad Farzaneh Ranked second in Iran National Exam ( more than 500,000 participants)
