Wheaton College Students and Faculty Present at SPIE Medical Imaging 2020
In the Computer-Aided Diagnosis conference, Michael presented a poster entitled “Case-based repeatability of machine learning classification performance on breast MRI,” while Amy gave a talk entitled “Repeatability profiles towards consistent sensitivity and specificity levels for machine learning on breast DCE-MRI” as part of the Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment conference. Together, these two works represented the second and third conference presentations from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) R15 grant CA227948 held by Dr. Whitney, entitled “Repeatability and Robustness of Radiomics in Breast Cancer Imaging.” The grant is now in its second year of the three-year period.
Amy Van Dusen (Spanish/Pre-Med ’21) presents her talk at SPIE Medical Imaging 2020
Michael reported, “Attending the SPIE Medical Imaging 2020 conference was a great experience for me. Since my area of research is a very specific topic, it was great to see how my research fits into the bigger picture of using artificial intelligence in medical imaging. The talks I attended were informative about specific tasks, and some talks addressed the field as a whole, with a big push to understand what is actually happening in the "black box" of deep learning. Presenting my research during a poster session allowed me to share what I have learned from doing research and receive valuable insight from other researchers.”
Michael Vieceli (Physics ’20) presents his poster at SPIE Medical Imaging 2020
In addition to serving as senior author on the student presentations, Dr. Whitney also presented research resulting from other projects in her work as Visiting Scholar in the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago. She served as primary author and presenter on a talk entitled “Improvement of classification performance using harmonization across field strength of radiomic features extracted from DCE-MR images of the breast.” She was also co-author on a talk entitled “Using ResNet feature extraction in computer-aided diagnosis of breast cancer on 927 lesions imaged with multiparametric MRI.” Each were part of the Computer-Aided Diagnosis conference.
Dr. Heather M. Whitney, Associate Professor of Physics, presents her talk at SPIE Medical Imaging 2020
“The SPIE Medical Imaging conference is a wonderful opportunity for student participation in research,” said Dr. Whitney. “The work presented at the meeting was the culmination of long-form abstract submission in August 2019, conference proceedings preparation during the winter months, and then formal presentations in February 2020. Our students gained experience in the process that scientists do in constantly evaluating and improving their scientific work through collaboration. We are very grateful for the collaboration we have with Professor Maryellen Giger and colleagues at the University of Chicago, as the research we presented at SPIE Medical Imaging represents intense effort by the team of investigators to cultivate the research aims from the NIH grant and offer development opportunity for students in research.”
Student travel and participation in the meeting was supported by student grants received from the Wheaton College Student Government Conference grant and from the federal NIH NCI grant.