07/18/2022
By Sokny Long

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Fan Yang on Image processing and graph theoretic models in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and prognosis.”

Ph.D. Candidate: Fan Yang
Defense Date: Monday, Aug. 1, 2022
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: This will be a virtual defense via Zoom. Those interested in attending should contact fan_yang@student.uml.edu and committee advisor, joyita_dutta@uml.edu, at least 24 hours prior to the defense to request access to the meeting.

Committee Chair (Advisor): Joyita Dutta, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, UMass Lowell

Committee Members:

  • Hengyong Yu, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UMass Lowell
  • Rachel Melamed, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Center of Biomedical and Health Research in Data Sciences (CHORDS), UMass Lowell

Brief Abstract:

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is the most prevalent form of dementia among older adults. AD-related deaths have increased by 145% between 2000 and 2019 making it a looming public health challenge. My research focus is to develop computational methods, including novel image processing and graph theoretic tools for medical images for the accurate diagnosis of preclinical AD and for the identification of at-risk individuals for enrollment in clinical therapeutic trials for AD.

My research contributions include 1) the development of mathematical models for tau aggregation based on longitudinal tau measures from positron emission tomography (PET) and structural connectivity graphs from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), 2) the identification of mechanisms of tau buildup in the aging brain to offer a macroscopic perspective on tau spread, 3) the prediction of tau buildup at future time-points with high accuracy from baseline data, and 4) the development of methods for the joint analysis of AD genotype and tau PET for relational inference and subtyping.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend the online defense via remote access.