Contijoch Research LaboratoryContijoch Research Laboratory

Lab News

2026

Amanda leaves for Boston Scientific

After completing her PhD (March 2025) and a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab, Amanda is departing for a position at Boston Scientific. Congratulations and best of luck!

2025

Rick defends his thesis and graduates

Rick successfully defended his thesis on December 2nd and completed his Doctoral program! Congratulations!

Nick Hao joins the lab

Nick Hao has joined the lab. Welcome!

Arnav departs the lab

After staying on as a Staff Research Associate following the completion of his Master's degree, Arnav has now departed the lab. Best of luck and stay in touch!

Dr. Contijoch receives NIH paternity supplement

Dr. Contijoch received a paternity administrative supplement from the NIH NHLBI to support his R01 research program.

Nick Lyu presents at ISHLT 2025

Undergraduate researcher Nick Lyu presented his work on whole vessel automated segmentation of IVUS images for evaluation of cardiac allograft vasculopathy at the ISHLT 45th Annual Meeting in Boston, MA.

Arnav completes his Master's degree

Arnav Kulkarni has successfully completed his Master's degree. Congratulations! He will be staying on in the lab as a Staff Research Associate.

Amanda defends her PhD

Amanda Craine successfully defended her doctoral thesis on March 7th. Congratulations Dr. Craine! Amanda will be staying on in the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Publication in Medical Physics

Work led by Amanda Craine has been published in Medical Physics.

Lab collaborators present at SCMR 2025

Collaborators presented work on prenatal fetal CMR at the 27th Annual Meeting of SCMR in Washington, DC. Work by Joni Blood, Ana Rodriguez-Soto, and colleagues on prenatal fetal CMR for fetal cardiac mass in a twin gestation was selected as an oral presentation.

2024

Publication in PLOS Computational Biology

Work led by Amanda Craine and collaborators has been published in PLOS Computational Biology.

Nick Lyu presents at BMES 2024

Undergraduate researcher Nick Lyu presented his work on quantitative evaluation of IVUS image segmentations at the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD.

Amanda presents at PICS 2024

PhD candidate Amanda Craine gave an oral presentation on CT-derived regional RV function metrics in patients undergoing transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement at the PICS Symposium in San Diego, CA.

Lab members present at CT Meeting 2024

Lab members Gurnoor Khurana and Jinyuxuan (Rick) Guo presented two abstracts on physics-informed neural networks for estimating fluid flow from CT sinograms at the 8th International Conference on Image Formation in X-ray CT in Bamberg, Germany.

Arnav joins the lab

Arnav Kulkarni, a Master's student, has joined the lab for the summer. Welcome!

Marko receives NIH diversity supplement

Marko has received a diversity administrative supplement from the NIH NHLBI to support his research as part of Dr. Contijoch's R01. Congratulations!

Lab members present at ISMRM 2024

Lab members Niraj Mahajan, Ana Rodriguez-Soto, Nuri Chung, and Marko Buckup each presented abstracts at the ISMRM Annual Meeting in Singapore. Work covered temporally-aware neural networks for cine MRI reconstruction, ex-vivo placenta MRI, real-time multi-shot imaging for iCMR, and automated image quality assessment during scanning.

Publication in Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance.

Publication in ASAIO

Work led by Anderson Scott has been published in ASAIO.

2023

Publication in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging

Work led by Liz Bird has been published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.

Amanda Craine receives NIH F31 fellowship

Amanda has received an NIH NRSA fellowship to support the rest of her PhD work focusing on using CT imaging to better evaluate RV performance.

Dr. Contijoch promoted to Associate Professor (with Tenure)!

Thanks to all of the mentors, collaborators, and most of all - trainees that have made the lab what it is today!

Sicong and Sia graduate

Sicong and Sia have graduated from their respective programs. Best of luck and stay in touch!

Nuri and Ana present at ISMRM 2023

Project Scientist Ana Rodriguez-Soto gave an invited oral presentationon improving 4D flow imaging and PhD student Nuri Chung presented a poster on her work on improving iCMR at the annual meeting of ISMRM (in Toronto)!

Nick joins the lab

Nick Lyu, an undergraduate Data Science student, has joined the lab. Welcome!

Publication in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging

Work led by Zhenning Chen has been published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.

Liz defends her thesis and graduates

Liz Bird succesfuly presented her thesis work "Development of quantitative phenotyping tools to improve PTE risk-benefit assessment in CTEPH patients" and completed her Docotral program! Congratulations!

Publication in Medical Physics

Work led by Kunal Gupta has been published in Medical Physics.

Publication in ASAIO

Work led by Anderson Scott has been published in ASAIO (and selected as the "article of the month")!

Publication in Nature Biomedical Engineering

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Isabelle joins the lab

Isabelle Lam, a Master's student in Bioengineering, has joined the lab. Welcome!

Nuri and Ana present at SCMR 2023

PhD student Nuri Chung gave an invited oral presentation on her work on improving iCMR and Project Scientist Ana Rodriguez-Soto presented an abstract on improving 4D flow imaging at the annual meeting of SCMR (held here in San Diego)!

Publication in ASAIO

Work led by Anderson Scott has been published in ASAIO with an accompanying editorial.

Sia joins the lab

Sia Xu, a Master's student in Computer Science, has joined the lab. Welcome!

2022

Publication in Frontiers Cardiovascular Medicine

Work led by Master's student Hui Li has been published in Frontiers Cardiovascular Medicine.

Rick advances to PhD candidacy

Rick successfully presented his senate thesis proposal and has advanced to PhD candidacy! Congratulations!

Anderson defends his thesis and graduates

Anderson succesfuly presented her thesis work "Advanced Right Ventricular Functional Analysis in End-Stage Heart Failure with CT" and completed his Docotral program! Congratulations!

Niraj joins the lab

Niraj Mahajan, a Master's student in Computer Science, has joined the lab. Welcome!

Amanda Craine advances to PhD candidacy

Congratulations Amanda on a great thesis proposal presentation! On to PhD candidacy!

Hui defends her thesis and graduates

Hui succesfuly presented her thesis work "Fully-automated, Fast Evaluation of CineCT for Detection of Wall Motion Abnormality using both Global and Regional Metrics of Function" and completed her Master's program! Congratulations!

Nuri successfully presents her first-year qualifying exam

Nuri passed her qualifying exam. Well done!

Anderson Scott receives NIH F31 fellowship

Anderson has received an NIH predoctoral fellowship which funds the remainder of his PhD work focusing on predicting RV failure after LVAD implantation using CT.

Amanda Craine receives NIH funding

Amanda has received NIH support for her PhD work focusing on using CT imaging to better evaluate RV performance.

Publication in Frontiers Cardiovascular Medicine

Work led by Dr. Zhennong Chen has been published in Frontiers Cardiovascular Medicine.

Anderson, Amanda and Hui present at SCCT 2022

Graduate students Amanda Craine, Hui Li, and Anderson Scott presented their abstracts at SCCT. You can see Amanda's abstract, Hui's abstract, and Anderson's abstract.

Liz presents at PVRI 2022

MD/PhD student Liz Bird traveled to Athens, Greece to present her abstract at PVRI.

Amanda presents at 2022 Annual International Symposium on ACHD

PhD student Amanda Craine traveled to Cincinnati to present her abstract on how we can use CT to estimate regional myocardial work.

Dr. Contijoch receives NIH R01 grant to improve pediatric imaging.

Dr. Contijoch and his collaborators received NIH support for a 5-year project to improve pediatric imaging during cardiac catheterization. Stay tuned for more in this space!

Sofia and Damian join the lab for the summer

As part of the ENLACE program, Sofia Acuña Luévano and Damian Ko have have joined the lab. Welcome!

Zhennong presents at the 2022 CT meeting

Dr. Chen presented his work pushing cardiac CT forward in Baltimore!

Sri and Jiping join the lab

Srirangan Madhavan and Jiping Lin, Master's students in Computer Science, have joined the lab. Welcome!

Zhennong defends his thesis and graduates

Zhennong succesfuly presented her thesis work "Analysis of Left Ventricular Function using Cardiac CT and Deep Learning" and completed his Docotral program! Congratulations!

Publication in Structural Heart

Work led by Dr. Marzia Rigolli has been published in Structural Heart.

Publication in Medical Physics

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Medical Physics.

Dr. Contijoch named as a Fellow of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Dr. Contijoch was recognized for his contributions to the field and inducted as part of the March 2022 class.

Zhennong named a finalist for best student paper award at SPIE 2022

Doctoral candidate Zhennong Chen was recognized for his work using cardiac CT to detect wall motion abnormalities!

Liz Bird receives NIH F30 Fellowship

Liz has received NIH support for the remainder of her PhD work based on her grant submission "Quantitative Framework to Predict CTEPH Surgical Outcome from Imaging."

Dr. Contijoch recognized for contributions to the Journal of Cardiovascular Magentic Resonance

Dr. Contijoch was recognized for his sustained contributions to the journal.

2021

Publication in Placenta

Work led by Dr. Ana Rodriguez-Soto has been published in Placenta.

Dr. Contijoch recognized for contributions to the Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging journal

Dr. Contijoch received the 2021 Editor's Recognition award for the quality of his manuscript reviews.

Publication in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence

Work led by Kuna Gupta has been published in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence.

Nuri and Hui join the lab

Nuri Chung and Hui Li, Master's students in Bioengineering, have joined the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Contijoch named a finalist for Postdoctoral Mentorship Award

Dr. Contijoch was named as a finalist for the UCSD Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Scholar Mentoring!

Dr. Contijoch receives Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine Grant

Dr. Contijoch received the award to develop a new CT-based approach to estimate cardiovascular flows. More information can be found at the UCSD GEM Project page.

Publication in Medical Physics

Work led by Dr. Brendan Colvert has been published in Medical Physics.

Brendan awarded fellowship

Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Brendan Colvert has been awarded a Biomedical Research Fellowship from the Hartwell Foundation for his work. Congratulations!

Publication in Structural Heart

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Structural Heart.

Anderson presents at ISHLT 2021

Graduate student Anderson Scott presented his abstract at ISHLT. You can see Anderson's ISHLT abstract.

Publication in European Heart Journal Digital health

Work led by Zhennong Chen has been published in European Heart Journal Digital Health.

Dr. Contijoch presents at UCLA's Bioengineering Seminar

Dr. Contijoch presented the lab's recent CT work at UCLA's Bioengineering Seminar.

Publication in Annals of the American Thoracic Society

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Publication in JACC Imaging

Work by Dr. Rigolli, Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in JACC Imaging.

Publication in JACC Imaging

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in JACC Imaging.

2020

Publication in PLOS ONE

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in PLOS ONE.

Dr. Contijoch recognized for contributions to the Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging journal

Dr. Contijoch received the 2020 Editor's Recognition award for the quality of his manuscript reviews.

Dr. Contijoch presents on CT and MRI Imaging

Dr. Contijoch was the keynote speaker at Universidad Anahuac's Jornadas de Ingenieria Biomedica 2020 and presented a talk on novel CT and MRI techniques for cardiovascular disease assessments

Graduate studuents Amanda Craine awarded fellowships

Amanda Craine has been awarded a San Diego Fellowship for her studies. Congratulations!

Shradha defends her thesis and graduates

Shradha succesfuly presented her thesis work "Predicting Post-Operative Outcomes in CTEPH patients" and completed her Master's program! Congratulations!

Anderson advances to PhD candidacy

Congratulations Anderson on a great thesis proposal presentation! On to PhD candidacy!

Amanda successfully presents her first-year qualifying exam

Amanda successfully presented her qualifying exam and received high marks on both engineering and life science topics. Well done!

Liz advances to PhD candidacy

Liz successfully presented her senate thesis proposal and has advanced to PhD candidacy! Congratulations on a job well done!

Kunal graduates

Kunal graduated from his CS program. We're lucky to have him continue to work in the lab as a research associate.

Amanda, Brendon,and Zhennong present at SCCT 2020

Virtual abstracts were presented due to COVID-19 which you can find: Amanda's abstract, Brendon's abstract, and Zhennong's abstract.

Marzia presents at ACC/World Congress of Cardiology 2020

Postdoc Marzia Rigolli has an abstract accepted for presentation at ACC/World Congress of Cardiology. While the conference was virtual due to COVID-19, you can see Marzia's JACC abstract.

Liz and Anderson have work accepted for presentation at ISHLT 2020

Graduate students Liz Bird and Anderson Scott had abstracts accepted for presentation at ISHLT. While the conference was cancelled due to COVID-19, you can see Liz's ISHLT abstract and Anderson's ISHLT abstract.

Publication in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.

Dr. Contijoch presents on Fast CMR at the SCMR Annual Meeting

Dr. Contijoch presented an invited talk focused on fast CMR for interventional applications at the annual meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance in Orland, Florida.

Dr. Contijoch recognized for contributions to the Journal of Cardiovascular Magentic Resonance

Dr. Contijoch received the 2019 Gold Star award for the quality of his manuscript reviews.

Ana joins the lab

Ana Rodriguez-Soto has joined the lab. She received her Ph.D from UC San Diego and prior to returning to UCSD was a post-doc at Penn. Welcome!

2019

Eric receives Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) Undergraduate Research Scholarship

Eric received the year-long scholarship to work on a data science research projects of interest. His proposal focuses on how to improve curation and preparation of medical data for machine learning.

Publication in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.

Publication in Journal of Medical Imaging

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Medical Imaging.

Publication in Journal of Medical Imaging

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Medical Imaging.

Liz presents her work at the UCSD CTEPH Symposium - 2019

Graduate student Liz Bird presented an abstract focused on correlations between imaging findings and clinical outcomes at the biannual symposium hosted by UCSD.

Publication in Journal of Thoracic Disease

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Thoracic Disease.

Dr. Contijoch receives Undergraduate Teaching Award

Dr. Contijoch was recognized with the Best Teacher award for the 2018-2019 academic year for his work teaching BENG 125 Modeling and Computation in Bioengineering and BENG 189 Physiological Systems Engineering.

Publication in Medical Physics

Work by Zhennong Chen, Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Medical Physics.

Dr. Contijoch receives Bayer Research Grant

Dr. Contijoch has received a Pulmonary Hypertension Accelerated Bayer (PHAB) Award to study the use of imaging to predict surgical disease level in CTEPH patients.

Amanda re-joins the lab

Amanda, a prior summer student, has joined the lab and UCSD BE PhD Program. Welcome back!

Graduate studuents Liz and Anderson awarded fellowships

Liz and Anderson have been awarded graduate fellowships through the NHLBI-funded training program for their studies.

Brendan awarded Young Investigator Prize at SCCT

Post-doc Brendan Colvert won the prize for his work titled "Local Field-of-View Tomography Enables Dose Reduction in Cardiac CT"

Presentation at SCCT Annual Meeting

Anderson Scott presented "Computed Tomography-derived Measurement of Stroke Work Index for Patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices" at the Society for Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD.

Summer Research Students Join the Lab

Sinan Kamil, Maria Fernanda Celaya, and Jason Shang have joined the lab through the UCSD STARS, ENLACE, and BE-SHIP programs, respectively.

Nitesh and Adhithi graduate

Nitesh and Adhithi have graduated from their respective programs. Best of luck and stay in touch!

Publication in JCCT

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography.

Presentation at ISHLT Annual Meeting

Anderson Scott presented "Cardiac CT Provides Complementary Parameters of Right Ventricle Function in LVAD Patients" at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. More details can be found in Anderson's ISHLT presentation.

Marzia joins the lab

Marzia Rigolli has joined the lab. She received her D.Phil in Cardiovascular Imaging from Oxford University. Welcome!

Liz joins the lab

Liz Bird, an MD-PhD student in the Bioengineering department has joined the lab. Welcome!

Presentation at SCMR Annual Meeting

Dr. Contijoch presented "Flow vorticity may impair flow quantification in patients with aortic aneurysm" at the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance in Bellevuee, WA. More details can be found here.

Dr. Contijoch recognized for contributions to the Journal of Cardiovascular Magentic Resonance

Dr. Contijoch received the 2018 Gold Star award for the quality of his manuscript reviews.

Eric joins the lab

Eric Yu, an undergraduate student studying data science, has joined the lab. Welcome!

2018

Brendan joins the lab

Brendan Colvert has joined the lab. He received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California. Welcome!

Amanda and Diana present their summer projects

Undergraduate students Amanda Craine and Diana Hernandez Hernandez each presented their sumemr projects at UC San Diego's Summer Research Confernece. Congratulations on the excellent talks and thank you for all your hard work!

Dr. Contijoch Receives NIH Research Grant

Dr. Contijoch has received a Career Development Award grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the NIH to pursue imaging of the right ventricle in patients with heart failure.

Summer Research Students Join the Lab

Amanda Craine, Diana Hernandez Hernandez, and Priscila Guerrero have joined the lab through the UCSD STARS, SRP and ENLACE programs, respectively.

Graduate Students Join the Lab

Nitesh Sekhar (a CSE Master's student) and Anderson Scott (a BE PhD Student) have joined the lab.

Publication in JCCT

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography.

Presentation at ISHLT Annual Meeting

Dr. Contijoch presented "Pre-PTE Pulmonary Artery Elastance, Right Ventricular Elastance, and RV-PA Coupling Predict Post-Operative Length of Stay and Hemodynamics" at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) Annual Meeting in Nice, France. More details can be found in the ISHLT presentation abstract.

Publication in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

Work by Dr. Contijoch and collaborators has been published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

2017

Presentation at RSNA Annual Meeting

Dr. Contijoch presented "Precise Regional RV Function Measurement in the Adult Congenital Heart with Low Radiation Dose CT and SQUEEZ Processing" at the Radiological Society of North American (RSNA) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, USA

Publication and accompanying editorial in International Journal of Cardiology

Work by the group has been published in International Journal of Cardiology with an accompanying editorial.. More information can be found in the International Journal of Cardiology publication.

Presentation at ISMRM Workshop

Dr. Contijoch presented "Real-Time MRI of the Heart Using Smart & Autonomous Radial Sampling" at the ISMRM Workshop on Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Cardiac Function NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City, NY, USA

Publication in Medical Physics

The group has published a manuscript in Medical Physics.

The Contijoch Research Lab has launched!

The Laboratory is hosted in the Departments of Bioengineering and Radiology at UC San Diego and is located in the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute building.