I am a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Columbia University Medical Center leveraging Radiomics and AI for breast cancer risk stratification.
Professional
I received my B.A. in Physics (with honors) and Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. I worked with Dr. Vijay Balasubramanian and Dr. Ann Hermunstad for my honors thesis titled Local Statistics of Natural Images Inform Visual Segmentation and Gist Perception with Foreseeable Applications in Scene Analysis and Art Characterization. My summers of 2016 and 2017 were spent at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics division, collaborating with Dr. William Hlavacek on rule-based modeling of protein pathways in energy metabolism and, subsequently, Boolean modeling of these pathways.
After graduating from Penn, I began a PhD program in Physics at The University of Texas at Austin under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Yankeelov in the Center for Computational Oncology and Dr. Jonathan Tamir in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. My thesis work consisted of 3 aims with an overall theme of advancing data acquisition and analyses methods for fast, multi-contrast quantitative MRI. These three aims are described below.
Aim 1: Characterizing errors in pharmacokinetic model parameters from analyzing abbreviated dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI of the breast.
Collaborators: Dr. Julie DiCarlo, Dr. Anum Kazerouni, Dr. Anna Sorace, Dr. John Virostko, Dr. Thomas Yankeelov, Dr. Debra Patt, Dr. Boone Goodgame
In September 2022, I became a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Radiology at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine under the guidance of Dr. Despina Kontos. My work focused on radiomic feature extraction from breast MRI for improving breast cancer risk stratification as well as leveraging deep learning techniques for MRI analysis.
Please take a look at my CV and publications for more details on my academic journey and research findings.
Personal
Summer at the Seven Rila Lakes in Bulgaria
I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in a neighborhood called Boyana, located right at the base of Vitosha mountain. When I was 3 years old, my parents and I moved to the USA to join the Clyde Beaty Cole Brothers circus with the encouragement of other Bulgarian immigrants. A few years later, we settled permanently near Orlando, FL.
Having been around animals all my life, I developed a strong interest in Biology, which generalized to an interest in how the world around us works. It turns out that the field of Physics addresses this topic. I was lucky to be able to cultivate this curiosity through summer schools during high school, like Harvard SSPSSP and the Perimeter Institute's ISSYP. Ultimately maintaining a love for both sciences, I opted for a double major at Penn, which brought me to my medical-themed Physics PhD at UT Austin.
These days, my interests include weight lifting, climbing, going to diners with my husband, amateur photography, and teaching my cat (Zara) tricks. I am also working on learning my 4th language! Before the global pandemic, I would enjoy visiting Bulgaria in the summers and traveling in general (often for conferences in interesting places).
Zara visiting my parents' yard in FL
Share
Following
Follow
Follow
Follow this website
You need to create an Owlstown account to follow this website.