Announcement
September 29, 2023

RIDR Summer Intern Symposium 2023

RIDR 2023 Symposium Zoom Participants

Eighteen student interns from the 2023 RIDR cohort – including 5 high school students, 2 undergraduate college students, and 11 medical school students – presented their final research projects at the RIDR Symposium on Friday, August 18. 

Developed by UCSF Radiology and Biomedical Imaging’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, the Research Initiative to promote Diversity in Radiology (RIDR) offers an 8-week summer internship for students from diverse backgrounds. Students get an early opportunity to experience what a career in radiology would be like with hands-on research in the labs and one-on-one mentorship from faculty members.

"The RIDR program had another successful year, introducing high school, college, and medical school students to radiology through mentorship and research projects at UCSF. This year, we were truly impressed by the caliber of participants and the wide range of research questions they were able to explore over the course of the summer, in collaboration with their mentors,” said Tatiana Kelil, MD, who co-chairs the DEI Committee with Preethi Raghu, MD.

“We would like to express immense gratitude for all the mentors that volunteered their precious time to work with RIDR students, as the program would not be possible without their participation. We are incredibly proud that RIDR program alumni have amassed many accolades, and some have been accepted into radiology residency, reaffirming the importance of early exposure to radiology," added Kelil.

The virtual symposium was organized by RIDR program directors Raghu and Kelil and program coordinator Samira Zebarjadian and  featured live and recorded presentations including:

2023 RIDR Symposium Cohort & Presentations

  • Intern: Azin Anees
    “Head Computed Tomography and Brain Injury Guidelines (BIG) to Select Low-Risk Traumatic Brain Injury Patients for Discharge From the Emergency Department”
    Mentor: Esther Yuh, MD, PhD
  • Intern: Kelly Du
    “Reproducibility of pancreatic MRI fat fraction measures based upon manually drawn ROIs”
    Mentor: Susan Noworolski, PhD
    Collaborators: Edgar Castellanos-Diaz
  • Intern: Luis A. Garcia Cruz
    “The potential use of 134Ce-PSMA-617 as an imaging surrogate agent for 225Ac-PSMA-617 prostate cancer therapy”
    Mentor: Robert Flavell, MD, PhD, Kondapa Naidu Bobba, PhD
    Collaborators: Anju Anju, PhD, Henry Vanbrocklin, PhD
  • Intern: Ibukunoluwa Ibrahim
    “Brain Mapping: Using fMRI to Study DBS Effects in OCD”
    Mentor: Melanie Morrison, PhD
  • Intern: Alexandra Jellinger
    “Dedicated Breast PET Imaging to Monitor Estrogen Receptor Positive Breast Cancer During Neoadjuvant Therapy”
    Mentor: Natsuko Onishi, MD, PhD Nola Hylton, PhD
    Collaborators: Julia Carmona-Bozo, MD, PhD, Wen Li, PhD, Lisa Wilmes, PhD, Bonnie Joe, MD, PhD, Judith Zimmerman, PhD Jessica Gibbs, Nu Le, BS, Jyothikaa Ramann, Sophia Ramirez
  • Intern: Vanya Krishna
    “Age Prediction in Healthy and Alzheimer’s Diseased Subjects”
    Mentor: Ashish Raj, PhD
    Collaborators: Daren Ma, MSc
  • Intern: Jyothikaa Ramann
    “ADC and SNR Comparative Analysis, Repeatability Studies, and Gradient Non-Linearity Correction techniques to Improve Reliability and Accuracy of Quantitative Metrics regarding DWI Imaging in Breast Phantom”
    Mentor: Wen Li, PhD
    Collaborators: Lisa Wilmes, PhD, Nola Hylton, PhD, Natsuko Yamashita, MD, PhD, Dr. Nue Le, Bonnie Joe, MD, PhD, Judith Zimmerman, PhD
  • Intern: Sophia Ramirez
    “Validating Automated MR Visible Thermometer on Breast DWI Phantom”
    Mentor: Bonnie Joe, MD, PhD
    Collaborators: Lisa Wilmes, PhD, Wen Li, PhD
  • Intern: Pamela Rodriguez de la Torre
    “Cerebral oxygenation assessment in CHD using NIRS and MRI”
    Mentor: Elizabeth George, MBBS
  • Intern: Alennie Roldan
    “Multi-omics analysis of Adenocarcinoma vs Small Cell Neuroendocrine Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancers”
    Mentor: Renuka Sriram, PhD
    Collaborators: Jinny Sun, PhD, Donna Peehl, PhD, Tanya Stoyanova, PhD, Renuka Sriram, PhD
  • Intern: Kaitlyn Sabb
    “MRI Segmentation for the Assessment of Body Composition in People Living with HIV”
    Mentor: Galateia Kazakia, PhD, Dr. Zehra Akkaya
    Collaborators: Felix Liu
  • Intern: Brandon Schonour
    “Predictors of 0.55T Respiratory Navigated Lung MRI Image Degradation”
    Mentor: Jae Ho Sohn, MD, PhD
    Collaborators: Felicia Tang, Kiara Bowers, Yang Yang, PhD, Pan Su, Peder Larson, PhD, UCSF China Basin MRI Technologists and Imaging Scientists
  • Intern: Amritpal Singh
    “Developing Patient Cohort with Sufficient Follow-up to Identify Novel CT-based Biomarkers of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Progression”
    Mentor: Dimitrios Mitsouras, PhD
  • Intern: Theodore Su
    “Evaluating optimal positions for deep brain stimulation electrodes in Parkinson’s patients”
    Mentor: Melanie Morrison, PhD
    Collaborators: Skyler Deutsch
  • Intern: Jenny Vo-Phamhi
    “Investigating the Effects of HIV on Bone Health using High-Resolution Peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography”
    Mentor: Galateia Kazakia, PhD
    Collaborators: Saghi Sadoughi, PhD
  • Intern: Kasen Wong
    “A Phantom Study of Secretin-Enhanced MRCP with Pancreatic Fluid Injection into Duodenum at Slow Rate Over Time: Comparing Image Quality Across Eccentric Contrast Agents”
    Mentor: Benjamin Yeh, MD
    Collaborators: Yuxin Sun
  • Intern: Hossam Zaki
    “Predicting IR CPT codes using NLP”
    Mentor: Jae Ho Sohn, MD, PhD
  • Intern: Luann Zerefa
    “Evaluation of 225-Ac radioimmunotherapy in preclinical metastatic prostate cancer models using sub-organ alpha particle dosimetry methods”
    Mentor: Robert Flavell, MD, PhD
    Collaborators: Anil Bidkar, PhD