Education

Ph. D., Médecine Nucléaire et Radiobiologie, 1997, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.
Master of Engineering, Engineering Physics, 1987, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China.
Bachelor of Engineering, Engineering Physics, 1985, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China.

Honors & Fellowships

Visitor Fellowship of National Institutes of Health, United States of America, 1997-1999.
Prix d’Excellence, d’Innovation et d’Implication du Regroupement des Étudiants et Étudiantes Chercheurs en Médecine de l'Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, 1997.

Reviewer of Scientific Journals

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Sciences
Medical Physics

Research Areas

Image generation techniques for SPECT and PET: system response modeling and statistical iterative image reconstruction.
New imaging system development: hybrid animal SPECT and PET.
Image analysis: computer aided diagnosis and kinetic modeling for in vivo functional imaging.

Interested in pursuing graduate study or post-doctoral research? Please contact me!

Selected Publications and Presentations

1. R. Yao, T. Ma, V. Rathod, Y. Shao, R. E. Carson, “Deriving the system matrix of a slit-hole micro-SPECT system using Monte Carlo simulation”, Oral presentation (M13-2) at the 2006 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference in San Diego, November 2006.
2. M. D. Jones, R. Yao, C. P. Bhole, "Parallel OSEM Reconstruction Speed with MPI, OpenMP, and hybrid MPI-OpenMP Programming Models", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 53, pp. 2752-2758, 2006.
3. R. Yao, V. Rathod, C. Jose, S. Thada, C. A. Johnson, and R. E. Carson, "Point spread function (PSF) determination for use in HRRT listmode reconstruction," Journal of Nuclear Medicine, vol. 46, supp. 2, 169P, 2005.
4. R. Yao, J. Seidel, J.-S. Liow and M. V. Green, “Attenuation Correction for the NIH ATLAS Small Animal PET Scanner”, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 52, No. 3, pp.664-668, June 2005.
5. R. Yao, J. Seidel, C.A. Johnson, M.E. Daube-Witherspoon, M.V. Green and R.E. Carson “Factors affecting the performance of the 3D OSEM algorithm in the reconstruction of small animal PET images”, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Volume: 19 Issue: 8, pp. 798 –804, Aug. 2000.
6. N. Hartsough, R. Yao, B. Pi, “The calibration methods for the multi-crystal gamma camera”, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, vol. 41, 177P, 2000.
7. R. Yao, M. Bentourkia and R. Lecomte, "Study of multispectral frame-by-frame convolution scatter correction in high resolution PET", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 44, pp. 2489-2493, 1997.
8. R. Yao, P. Msaki and R. Lecomte, "Pre-processing variance reducing techniques in multispectral positron emission tomography", Physics in Medicine & Biology, vol. 42, pp.2233-2253, 1997.
9. R. Yao, P. Msaki, M. Bentourkia and R. Lecomte, "Effects of energy space smoothing and projection space normalization on multispectral PET image quality", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 43, pp.1988-1994, 1996.
10. R. Lecomte, J. Cadorette, S. Rodrigue, D. Rouleau, M. Bentourkia, R. Yao and P. Msaki, "Initial results from the Sherbrooke avalanche photodiode PET scanner", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 43, pp.1952-1957, 1996.

Group Members

Tianyu Ma, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar.
Neeraj Mahajan, Research Assistant.
Ashish Panse, Research Assistant.