People — Biomedical Ultrasound Lab

Faculty

Jason White

Ph.D., Acoustics, Pennsylvania State University
M.Eng., Acoustics, Pennsylvania State University
B.S., Physics, Florida State University
B.A., Music, Florida State University

I joined the faculty of Simmons University in 2019, arriving from the Department of Radiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). I was a doctoral student, a post-doctoral fellow, and then faculty member at the Focused Ultrasound Lab (BWH/HMS), where I helped develop a novel way of performing noninvasive brain surgery with ultrasound. I now leverage my training as a physicist, together with the 20+ years of research on focused ultrasound, to teach and work with my students in the exploration of new techniques for using ultrasound as a tool for neurosurgery, neurology, and neuroscience.

I maintain an active clinical schedule with the BWH Departments of Radiology and Neurosurgery, where I use MR-guided focused ultrasound to treat patients with essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. I am also involved in an early-stage clinical trial to investigate the use of transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation for treating epilepsy.

Formerly, I had been a classically trained musician (Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University), and had spent eight seasons as artist-faculty at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. I had performed and recorded in several local venues, including the Berklee College of Music, WGBH, and Boston’s Symphony Hall. Beyond New England, I had performed in several cities throughout North America, including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Chicago, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

Michael Jordan

D.Phil., Engineering, Oxford University
B.A., Physics, Oxford University

Talisi Meyer

Ph.D. Candidate, Material Science & Engineering, Cornell University
M.Sc., Material Science & Engineering, Cornell University
B.S., Physics, Simmons University
B.S., Biochemistry, Simmons University

I began my academic journey at Simmons University, studying Biochemistry and Physics which allowed me to explore the use of non-invasive therapy at the Focused Ultrasound Lab in the Department of Radiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Here, I helped to develop the use of focused ultrasound as a non-invasive, targeted therapy to kill bacteria within the root canals of teeth. While continuing this work, I also transitioned into the role of a Clinical Research Assistant at the Engle Lab at Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) where we studied pediatric genetic eye disorders. Later, I participated in a National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU) at the High Intensity Gamma Ray source located at Duke University’s Nuclear Physics facility. Here, I worked to design and build a scrubbing source for tritium, a radioactive isotope released during operations that could be harmful to operators and the planet, alike.

Since graduating from Simmons, I have been a member of the Robinson Group at Cornell University, working to optimize, simplify, and scale the synthesis of complex multi-metal sulfide synthesis for electrocatalysis and energy storage. My latest work focuses on high entropy materials, crystal structures composed of at least 5 metals uniformly distributed throughout a single lattice. Formally, my work at Cornell has also brought me to the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton, OH where I studied self-healing polymers known as Vitrimers.