meet the Team

Below is a list of our current lab faculty and staff. Visit our other team pages to meet our research residents, visiting scholars, and volunteers, interns, & medical students.

Director Of Clinical Trials

Michael Middleton, PhD

Together with others at UCSD, over the last 15 years Dr. Middleton has developed and improved breath-hold quantitative MR magnitude imaging and spectroscopic methods to assess liver fat, and has developed methods to assess the adequacy of MRI PDFF and MRE liver stiffness assessment measurements. He and his group used MRI for the first time to assess liver fat content in clinical trials for the NASH CRN, and he currently serves on the Steering and Radiology Committees of the NASH CRN. Together with Dr. Claude Sirlin he formed the Liver Imaging Group at UCSD to study fatty (and other) liver disease, further improved MR acquisition and interpretation techniques, and conducted studies to validate PDFF (proton density fat fraction) as a biomarker of hepatic steatosis. Dr. Middleton is also an active member of the QIBA PDFF and MRE Biomarker committees.

Physicist

Gavin Hamilton, PhD

Gavin is a Scottish Physicist who joined the LIG at UCSD in May 2006. His main area of research is developing in vivo 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques, focusing on liver and triglyceride.  The techniques he has developed have not only served as the gold standard against which MRI PDFF estimation techniques are compared, they can characterize quantities MRI struggles to estimate, such as liver fat composition. He is also been heavily involved in other MRS studies, both in vivo and in vitro, in body regions outside the liver and spectra acquired in nuclei other than proton such as 31P. His contribution has allowed the LIG to become one of the leading sites for liver MR Spectroscopy.

Clinical Research Supervisor

Walter C. Henderson

Walter C. Henderson is Clinical Research Supervisor and Laboratory Manager at the Liver Imaging Group. After completing his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of San Diego, Walter joined the LIG as a research analyst in 2016. After a stint as the lab's Senior Research Analyst, Walter became the Lab Manager in 2021. Walter provides administrative support to all laboratory personnel and administers the lab's research projects and grant proposals. Outside of work, Walter can be found in the backyard by the barbecue with his wife and two greyhounds.

SENIOR COORDINATOR

Yesenia Covarrubias, MFS

Yesenia is a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator for the LIG. As senior coordinator, Yesenia recruits, screens and enrolls patients in various studies. She coordinates study visits according to protocol, ensures good clinical practice is followed, and trains new coordinators. Yesenia manages the regulatory components of the LIG by submitting and maintaining new IRB protocols, preparing analysis recharge activities for collaborators, and preparing for any FDA, sponsor or IRB audits. Yesenia also oversees a global IRB that facilities prospective and retrospective observational research. This global IRB is available to all Department of Radiology faculty. In her spare time, Yesenia volunteers at the San Diego Medical Examiners Department and enjoys hiking, running, and dancing.

Research Data Analyst/Clinical Coordinator

Lael Ceriani, MS

Lael is a research data analyst and has been with the lab since 2021. She graduated from East Carolina University in 2018 with a BS in Molecular Biology. She then attended a masters program at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi studying nutritional stress on human muscle. Lael defended her thesis titled “The effect of replicated intermittent fasting on type 2 diabetic and non-diseased human skeletal muscle myoblasts” in 2020 and graduated with her Master of Science in biology. She is now coordinator for several of the labs ongoing studies, and handles image analysis and processing. Her academic interests include the study of metabolic diseases and the effect of nutrition and stress on the body. When she is not working, Lael enjoys longboarding, playing volleyball, and going to the beach.  

Senior Image Analyst

Danielle Batakis

Danielle is an Image Analyst for the LIG lab. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in May of 2018 with a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering with a minor in Biomedical Engineering. Danielle worked in the lab during the Summer of 2017 where she did analysis for the Gilead Sciences ASK-1 project. The aim of this project was to optimize the number and location of ROIs as well as intra-exam and inter-exam repeatability. Since graduating, she has returned to the lab to work as an Image Analyst focusing on industry research studies for the lab. In Danielle’s free time she enjoys watching sports, enjoying the beautiful San Diego beaches and going to the dog park.