Researcher & Ph.D. Candidate, Applied Physics
SEAS, Harvard University
Cruft Laboratory, Room 402
29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, USA
michelle_borkin @ harvard.edu
(Mailing address: IIC, Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA)
Current Work
I am a graduate student in Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). I work with Prof. Kaxiras and am a member of the Kaxiras Research Group working on the IIC's Multiscale Hemodynamics Project. I additionally work with Prof. Pfister and his Visual Computing Lab on scientific visualization. I was chosen by TED as a TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow, and profiled by SEED Magazine in their Revolutionary Minds series ("The Re-envisionaries").My main research topics include interdisciplinary scientific imaging, data exploration, and image analysis techniques with a focus on 3D (including stereographic) imaging.
For more information about my research, download my CV.
Where will I be?
Biography
Michelle graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics in 2006. She wrote her undergraduate junior and senior theses on the application of medical imaging programs to astronomical data under the supervision of Alyssa Goodman and Michael Halle. She continued this work as part of the Astronomical Medicine project at the IIC for the next two years. She worked with the developers of visualization tools including 3D Slicer to improve their effectiveness in multiple scientific domains (including astronomy). She also collaborated with the COMPLETE Team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) on star formation research. Her interests included studying outflows from young stars and working on segmentation algorithms. She also has observational experience on the CfA 1.2 m telescope, the Haystack Radio Telescope, the Green Bank Radio Telescope, and the MMT.
Michelle is now a graduate student at the Harvard School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) pursuing a Ph.D. in Applied Physics as a member of the Kaxiras Research Group. She is now working on the Multiscale Hemodynamics Project, an IIC project, focusing on the 3D visualization and analysis of hemodynamic simulation data in conjunction with real medical imaging data. Michelle was selected as a TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow by TED, and was profiled as one of SEED Magazine's Revolutionary Minds ("The Re-envisionaries").
More Info...
I have been working for the past couple years on the Astronomical Medicine (AM) project to develop 3D Slicer to be used not only for medical imaging, but for astronomy imaging (the first step in making it a more general scientific application). This includes adding astronomical coordinate support, expanded file support (including FITS), and better volume rendering capabilities.
On the astronomy side, I am currently writing-up the results of my thesis and subsequent work with Hector Arce on our survey of the velocity features (i.e. shells and outflows) in Perseus. The survey was "conducted" by visualizing molecular line maps of Perseus in RA-DEC-Velocity space and then identifying extreme velocity excursions (traditionally something very tedious now made easy because of 3D visualization!).
I have also been working with Erik Rosolowsky and the COMPLETE team on segmentation algorithms and hierarchical descriptions of molecular clouds. I have extended this work to include working on the application of segmentation algorithms developed for medical imaging, such as EMSegment, to astronomy data (and visa versa).
In addition, I have continued to work with Nick Holliman on the 3D (stereographic) imaging and display of astronomy data. This has included single images, and 3D animations. We are currently working on a joint IIC-DVL 3D movie discussing star formation in Perseus.
On the HCI side, I have continued to collaborate with Chia Shen and Hanspeter Pfister on the Scientists' Discovery Room project on the development of interactive digital environments for scientific collaboration on multidimensional data. I also collaborate with Dr. Taha Ahmed and his ophthalmology group at the Tennent Institute of Ophthalmology (Glasgow, UK) on the 3D visualization and analysis of the human cornea using confocal microscopy data.