Below is a list of our current lab faculty, staff, volunteers, and medical students. Visit our other team pages to meet our research residents and visiting scholars.
Director
Claude Sirlin, MD
Claude B. Sirlin, MD, Professor of Radiology at UC San Diego in the United States, is a clinician scientist who specializes in liver imaging, metabolic imaging, and imaging of abdominal cancers. As founder and director of UC San Diego Health’s Liver Imaging Group (LIG), Claude actively collaborates with hepatologists, surgeons, pathologists and statisticians to advance screening, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of individuals with liver disease. He is the Founder of the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System, which is now used worldwide for radiologic imaging of liver cancer. He is a Chair of the Imaging Workstream for the Non-Invasive Biomarkers of Metabolic Liver Disease (NIMBLE) Project. He is a Chair of the Radiology Committee for two National Institutes of Health’s networks (the Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis Clinical Research Network and the Liver Cirrhosis Network), and he is a member of the Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance. Claude mentors medical students, residents, fellows, visiting scholars, and junior faculty. Over the last 20 years, he has supervised more than 300 trainees in clinical imaging research, and he has hosted over 40 radiologists from around the world as visiting scholars.
Investigator
Kathryn Fowler, MD
Katie was born and raised in Wisconsin, she attended he University of South Carolina for her undergraduate studies, majoring in biology and medical humanities. She attended the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison. She then completed her radiology training and a fellowship in Body MRI at Washington University School of Medicine, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. She served as a faculty member in the abdominal imaging section, was the Director body MRI and as a Medical Director overseeing PET/MRI and MRI for the Center for Clinical Imaging Research from 2011-2018. She joined the faculty at UCSD in 2018 and now serves as an investigator in the LIG and as Division Chief of Body Imaging. Her research has primarily focused on liver imaging, advanced MRI applications, and PET/MRI. She is active in many societies and currently serves as a Deputy Editor for Radiology. She enjoys spending time with her family and pets, reading fiction, crossfit, and being active outdoors.
Clinical Research coordinator
Ashley Louie
A California native, Ashley grew up in San Francisco and graduated from UCSD in 2016 with a bachelor’s in Psychology. She joined the Gene Yeo laboratory at Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in 2014, to further understand neurodegenerative diseases and motor neurons using human embryonic stems cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as model systems. She also worked on the project-- Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) using cells lines derived from liver tissue with hepatocellular carcinoma and cell lines with human immortalized myelogenous leukemia. Ashley joined the Liver Imaging Group as a staff research associate in the Winter of 2017, where she is working as an image analyst focusing on the lab’s industry-sponsored research studies. When she is not performing analysis in the lab, Ashley enjoys yoga, running around scenic San Diego, and eating breakfast burritos.
Clinical Research coordinator
Celene Gonzalez
Celene is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator for the LIG Lab. Celene joined the lab in 2021. Celene is spontaneous, as she always tries something new every month. You don’t want to mess with Celene as her free time is spent in the ring training in Muay Thai.
Research Assistant
Colter Sirlin
Colter is currently a Research assistant for the LIG Lab. Colter joined the lab in 2020. Colter is currently attending the University of California Santa Barbara studying computer engineering and is a 2nd year student.
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.
Physicist
Gavin Hamilton
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.
Image Analyst
Jake Weeks
Jake is an image analyst for the LIG lab. Jake joined the lab in 2021. Jake has an extensive list of hobbies and skills in his Arsenal. Whether its’ making Tepache or rock climbing, you are bound to have a hobby that Jake can talk to you about.
POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR
Kyle Hasentab, PhD
Kyle is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Biostatistics at UCSD. He earned his PhD in Statistics from UCLA in 2015 where he developed functional data methods for the analysis of EEG to assess levels of implicit learning in children with autism spectrum disorder. Kyle is currently working with the Liver Imaging Group to develop AI approaches for lesion detection and segmentation. He is also your friendly neighborhood surfer. If you see him at Scripps, don't be shy and say hi!
Clinical research Coordinator
Lael Ceriani
A California native, Lael grew up in San Diego and graduated from East Carolina University in 2018 with a BS in Molecular Biology. She then attended 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 then joined the Liver Imaging group as a coordinator/analyst in 2021, and she is now coordinator for several of the labs ongoing studies. 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.
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
Nikolaus Szeverenyi, PhD
Since his 2008 return to UCSD, Nikolaus has been a researcher in the department of Radiology. Officially he was trained in chemistry at Penn State (undergrad) and UCSD (PhD in 1978), but became interested in imaging when researching 2D solid state NMR techniques at Colorado State University. This lead to a 24 year career at SUNY Upstate Medical University where he was a professor in Radiology, developing an animal imaging facility and later an fMRI laboratory (showcased around a dedicated research Philips clinical MRI scanner). His current interests are in the NMR behavior of the solid-state-like tissues which can be visualized with UTE techniques, as well as MR elastography measurements which find important roles in characterizing liver disease. Nick has a commercial (instrument) rating for single engine airplane and keeps his trusty Grumman Cheetah plane at Montgomery Airport. His latest hobbies include gardening and chickens (egg production).
Postdoctoral scholar
Patricia Burns, MD
Patricia was raised in San Diego, CA. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of California Irvine where she majored in Biological Sciences. She attended the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara School of Medicine. After joining the lab as a volunteer research assistant in June 2021, she became a postdoctoral scholar in September 2022. She is a member of the LI-RADS Lexicon Writing Group and the study lead for two research projects which involve LI-RADS. Patricia enjoys kayaking, hiking, and going to the beach.
Research Assistant
Sam Liew
Sam is an assistant researcher who is a student at UCSD studying Global Health. He started off as a High School Intern in 2019 on a project to develop an automated neural network segmentation AI for the liver, kidney, and spleen. He officially joined the lab in 2020 and has been working on segmentation, High School Biomed Internship program, and other projects that the lab is pursuing. In his free time, he loves to build mechanical keyboards, DJ, and thrift for cool clothes/accessories.
Postdoctoral scholar
Sara Kassani, MD
Sara H. Kassani is a postdoctoral researcher at Liver Imaging Group. She completed her PhD in Computer Science at The University of Saskatchewan in Canada, where she was advised by Prof. Ralph Deters and Prof. Kevin Schneider. Sara's research interests are machine learning, deep learning, and medical image analysis. Her fields of expertise are computer science, convolutional neural networks, autoencoders and supervised learning with applications in medical imaging for digital pathology, ultrasound and computed tomography. In her free time, she enjoys reading, seeing live music and dining out in new restaurants with friends and family.
Postdoctoral scholar
Sedighe Hosseini
To be announced
Statistician
Tanya Woldson, MA
Tanya is a senior staff member of the Computational and Applied Statistics Laboratory (CASL) at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Tanya has more than twenty years of experience as a practicing statistician, including analysis of data from structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, mixed effects modeling, survival analysis, survey data analysis, the use of resampling techniques, and high-dimensional data analysis. Tanya has been collaborating with LIG since 2005
Lab Manager
Walter Henderson
Walter is a Lead Research Image Analyst who has been with the lab since May 2016. A San Diego native, he received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of San Diego in 2014 where he participated in NMR spectroscopy research on DNA hairpin loops containing nucleobase analogs. At the Liver Imaging Group, Walter is the lead analyst for the lab’s industry-sponsored research studies. In his free time, he enjoys riding his Vespa, traveling, watching soccer, and learning Spanish.
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