Dr. Peng Xi is a Boya distinguished professor at College of Future Technology, Peking University, China. His research interest is on the development of optical super-resolution microscopy techniques. He has been awarded the National Distinguished Young Scholar. He is elected as the Fellow of IAAM in 2022. He is the Chief scientist of the Key Research and Development Plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He is on the editorial board of 5 SCI-indexed journals such as Light and Advanced Photonics. He has published over 100 scientific journal papers on peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Methods, etc., and the published articles have been cited for more than 8,000 times. He has been granted three American patents and nineteen Chinese patents, and delivered many plenary talks on international conferences hosted by SPIE and OPTICA (OSA).

To further extend the capability of super-resolution in XYZλθT 6 dimensions, we developed polarized structured illumination microscopy (Polar-SIM), which achieves super-resolution imaging of dipoles by interpreting the dipoles in spatio-angular (XYZθ) hyperspace. Further, the multi-wavelength excitation enables study of the dynamic interactions of subcellular organelles. We demonstrate the application of Polar-SIM on a series of biological filamentous systems, such as cytoskeleton networks and λ-DNA, and report the dynamics of short actin sliding across a myosin-coated surface. With the modulation of the incident angle, we can generate TIRF- or HiLo- illumiation for Polar-SIM. Also, for thick specimen, the structured illumination can be used with lower frequency to generate grid confocal, enabling the optical sectioning capability. Polar-SIM also reveals the side-by-side organization of the actin ring structures in the membrane-associated periodic skeleton of hippocampal neurons, which was not discovered before. To boost the development of 3D-SIM, we also report Open-3DSIM, an open-source 3D-SIM reconstruction tool with rich features.

Dr. Fiolka is an associate Professor in the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Trained as a mechanical engineer in computational fluid dynamics, Dr. Fiolka completed his PhD at the Institute of Nanotechnology at ETH Zurich in the group of Dr. Andreas Stemmer. He conducted post-doctoral research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus under the late Dr. Mats Gustafsson working on 3D structured illumination microscopy and under Dr. Meng Cui on adaptive optics.

At UT Southwestern, the research in his lab aims to extend the current imaging capabilities of optical microscopy such that cancer cell research can be performed in physiologically relevant, 3D environments, ex vivo and in vivo. Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) plays a prominent role in this quest, and in the Fiolka lab, new LSFM methods with improved spatiotemporal resolution are being developed.

Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM), owing to its low photo-toxicity and intrinsic optical sectioning, has become the premier choice for live cell volumetric imaging, at the price of moderate spatial resolution. Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) doubles the spatial resolution of a microscope without requiring high laser power or specialized fluorophores. In its 3D form, SIM illuminates the entire sample, which can lead to increased photo-bleaching and reconstruction artifacts due to out-of-focus blur. Combining LSFM with SIM would allow gentle live cell imaging at doubled resolution. Unfortunately, combining the two is complex, as SIM requires illuminating the sample with three different pattern orientations, which is hard to do in typical LSFM architectures.

Here we augment oblique plane microscopy (OPM), a light-sheet technique that requires only one objective for illumination and fluorescence detection, with structured illumination. Rotation of the structured light-sheet is facilitated via a high-speed image rotator, which also de-rotates the fluorescence light for subsequent detection. This allows us to double the resolution of OPM and image at up to 2Hz volumetric rate. We further show extensions to a recently developed projection technique to increase volumetric acquisition speed, and applications with photo-switchable fluorophores to further increase the spatial resolution.

Dr. Yongdeng Zhang received his bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Central South University in 2008 and completed his Ph.D. in Biophysics at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2013, with joint training at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He joined Yale University School of Medicine as a Postdoctoral Associate in 2014 under the mentorship of Dr. Joerg Bewersdorf. In 2020, he became a Principal Investigator at the School of Life Sciences, Westlake University.

Super-resolution microscopy has revolutionized biological imaging by surpassing the classical optical diffraction limit, enabling in situ visualization and quantitative analysis of biological ultrastructures at the nanoscale. Despite these advancements, two significant challenges persist: (1) achieving molecular-level, three-dimensional imaging with sub-5 nm resolution in fixed cells, and (2) enabling long-term, multicolor, three-dimensional isotropic super-resolution imaging at ~100 nm resolution in living cells. To address these challenges, we have developed a suite of advanced imaging platforms. First, 4Pi-SMS, a single-molecule fluorescence interferometry technique with a dual-objective design, enables three-color, isotropic 3D imaging of entire cells at 10-15 nm resolution, facilitating detailed analyses of organelle assembly and interactions. Second, 4Pi-SIM, a dual-objective structured illumination microscopy platform, achieves real-time, three-dimensional isotropic imaging at 100 nm resolution in living cells, enabling dual-color imaging and continuous tracking over hundreds of time points to capture rapid inter-organelle dynamics. Third, 4Pi-SIMFLUX, which integrates single-molecule interferometry with structured illumination, attains isotropic 2-3 nm three-dimensional localization precision in fixed cells, enabling molecular-level, multicolor imaging across entire cellular architectures. Collectively, these technologies provide powerful tools for investigating subcellular structures and dynamic biological processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution.

Dr. Jeon Woong Kang is a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was trained as a physicist at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). After PhD, He joined Wellman Center for Photomedicine in Massachusetts General Hospital as a research fellow. In 2009, he moved to MIT Laser Biomedical Research Center. With Drs. Michael Feld, Ramachandra Dasari and Peter So, he has taken care of biomedical spectroscopy activities in the center. His research topics include Raman-based CGM, spectroscopy-guided cancer biopsy, intra-operative cancer margin assessment, intra-needle optical sensor for medical needle guidance and label-free monitoring of biological systems.

Developing a less invasive, more accurate, and lower cost technology to monitor blood glucose is critical given the increasing population of diabetics worldwide and the associated medical costs. While fingerstick is the gold standard approach for patients to regulate their own glucose level, the painful lancing process had deterred many people from sampling with sufficient frequency. Recently, minimally invasive continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors have become popular. However, subcutaneous insertion, skin irritation caused by imbedded wire, and adhesive are barriers and can be reasons for device discontinuation. High operating costs and short lifetime also limit the adoption of these devices.

Photonic solutions including Raman and NIR absorption have long been sought as a viable path towards entirely noninvasive continuous glucose monitoring with low-operating cost. However, most approaches have struggled to detect physiological levels or cannot be miniaturized for point-of-care diagnostics and broader use. Based on our previous success on direct observation of glucose signal from in-vivo skin, we introduce band-pass Raman spectroscopy, enabling non-invasive, physiological-level continuous glucose monitoring in a compact optical device. Our method eliminates the expensive bulky spectrometers and achieves system miniaturization while maintaining its sensitivity and specificity. This will enable portable Raman-based CGM devices. Our devices are currently undergoing human trials.

Dr Wang is currently a Professor of Bioengineering and Ophthalmology at the University of Washington, where he also holds the positions of George and Martina Kren Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology Research and WRF/David and Nancy Auth Endowed Innovator of Bioengineering. Among his most notable contributions is the invention of optical microangiography, an OCT technique (commonly known as OCTA) that enables 3D imaging of blood flow within microcirculatory tissue beds in vivo. Dr. Wang’s current research interests span biophotonics and imaging, with a focus on applications in ophthalmology, neuroscience, dermatology, and oncology. He has authored over 600 peer-reviewed journal articles, with an h-index of 93 (according to Google Scholar). He received UW Medicine Inventor of the Year in 2023, James G Fujimoto Award and SPIE Britton Chance Award. Dr. Wang is a Fellow of Optica, SPIE, and AIMBE, and was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. Additionally, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Biomedical Optics Express, an Optica Publishing Group journal, and is a member of the Editorial Board for the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a new medical imaging modality in which the coherent interference of a wide spectrum light source is used to create a high resolution (micron-scale) subsurface image of tissue microstructure. Recently, we have supplemented the microstructural OCT images with additional contrast mechanisms such as blood flow imaging using static and motion contrast, which provide us the ability to perform label-free optical microangiography (OMAG) of microcirculatory tissue beds. The ability to visualize tissue blood flow at the microcirculation level is important in a variety of biomedical applications, some of which (along with the OCT basics and the enabling technologies) will be highlighted in this talk. Examples using OMAG to delineate the dynamic blood perfusion, down to capillary level resolution, within living tissue will be given, including cerebral blood flow in small animals, and retinal blood flow in humans.

The global incidence of melanoma continues to increase over the past decades. Approximately 80% death of skin cancer is due to melanoma. Melanoma has a high frequency of blood-borne metastases. Circulating melanoma cells, the prognosis marker for metastasis, are present in the circulation at the early stage. Thus, quantitative detection of rare circulating melanoma cells is essential for monitoring tumor metastasis and prognosis evaluation. Compared with in vitro assays, in vivo flow cytometry is able to identify circulating tumor cells without drawing blood. Here, we have built in vivo photoacoustic flow cytometry based on the high absorption coefficient and monitoring circulating melanoma cells. Circulating targets in the blood flow are illuminated by high-pulsed repetition rate laser, followed by absorption of photons and generation of ultrasound to surroundings. Then the generated ultrasound could be received by ultrasound transducer. In the near-infrared window, melanin has higher absorption coefficient, which has great difference from hemoglobin, lipids, collagen and water. We have built in vivo photoacoustic flow cytometry (PAFC) system to detect circulating melanoma cells in superficial vessels, which is useful for evaluating cancer stage and monitoring therapeutic effects.

Chengbo Liu is a Professor at Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his Bachelor degree from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2007 and his Ph.D degree from a joint program between Xi'an Jiaotong University and Duke University in 2012. His research interest focuses on multimodality optical and ultrasound imaging instrumentation and translation. His team has published more than 120 journal papers, including Science Advances, Nature Communications and PNAS, with a total citation of more than 6500. He serves as an associate editor of Biophotonics Discovery and an editorial board member of Photoacoustics journal. His research has been funded with more than 30 grants including 12 grants from NSFC and MOST of China.

Advances in brain imaging methodologies have revolutionized our ability to visualize brain activities, offering unprecedented opportunities for neuroscience. In this talk, I will introduce the brain imaging technologies we have developed to map brain activities with light and ultrasound. I will start with a cortex-wide photoacoustic and fluorescence hybrid microscope, which achieves simultaneous neurovascular imaging across a 6 mm×5 mm field of view with subcellular resolution. To record neurovascular dynamics in freely moving mice, we engineered a miniaturized head-mounted microscope weighing only 1.7 g while preserving high-spatiotemporal resolution. To capture rapid hemodynamics, we constructed an ultrafast photoacoustic microscope operating at 120 Hz frame rates with 3-μm resolution, enabling blood flow velocity imaging at the single red blood cell level in the brain. Furthermore, leveraging transparent piezoelectric materials and acoustic layers, we developed a hybrid ultrasound and optical brain imaging system based on transparent ultrasound linear arrays. This innovation bridges the gap between deep brain microvascular hemodynamic changes and neural activities captured by wide-field fluorescence. We successfully applied our technologies across diverse brain imaging experiments, demonstrating their capabilities to decode brain functions and elucidate mechanisms of brain diseases.

Dr. Hsiang-Chieh Lee is currently an Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of Photonics and Optoelectronics and the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU). He received his Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering and Electro-Optical Engineering from NTU in 2004 and 2006, respectively. He then pursued a doctoral degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), focusing on the bioelectronics division, and obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2017. Dr. Lee is a member of the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society of the Republic of China (R.O.C.) and a recipient of both the Young Scholar Fellowship Program and the Career Development Grant awarded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) in Taiwan, respectively. In 2023, he was also honored with the NSTC Ta-You Wu Memorial Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of optics and photonics. Dr. Lee’s current research interests include the development of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and functional OCT imaging for a variety of biomedical applications, such as endoscopy, dentistry, dermatology, oncology, and ophthalmology. Additionally, in collaboration with the laser industry, he is working on the development of novel laser light sources for OCT and nondestructive inspection or testing applications.

Swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) is a high-speed, non-destructive, non-contact imaging technology that provides three-dimensional (3D) architectural information of tissue or samples without requiring exogenous contrast agents. With advantages such as long coherence length, broad spectral range, and high wavelength-sweeping speed, MEMS-tunable vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (MEMS VCSELs) have been increasingly used in SS-OCT imaging, demonstrating superior performance in both imaging range and speed. This facilitates broader applications of OCT imaging, such as OCT angiography and long-range OCT imaging. However, the fabrication of most existing MEMS VCSEL light sources requires wafer bonding techniques, which affect both yield and cost. Additionally, the top mirror of MEMS VCSELs typically uses a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) design, which is thicker and requires a higher driving voltage.
In this talk, we will report the development of high-speed SS-OCT technology using MEMS-tunable high-contrast grating (HCG) VCSELs operating at the 1-μm wavelength regime, suitable for ophthalmologic imaging. In addition to demonstrating SS-OCT imaging of the human retina in vivo with the MEMS-tunable HCG-VCSEL light source, we will present our recent work on developing polarization-sensitive OCT (PS-OCT) imaging based on the same HCG-VCSEL light source. Lastly, due to the long coherence length, real-time full-eye imaging using a model eye sample will be shown. Compared to existing MEMS-tunable VCSEL light sources, the HCG VCSEL exhibits a lower system cost, which may further promote the adoption of SS-OCT technology for broader applications.

Nicolas Pégard is an Associate Professor of Applied Physical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research in computational optics explores new optical microscopy techniques that enable discovery in biology and neuroscience. Dr Pégard is a 2021 Beckman Young Investigator, and a 2023 Sloan Fellow in Neuroscience.

Computational imaging has revolutionized the technological and scientific landscape by expanding imaging capabilities from cell phones to scientific microscopes. Yet, light has applications far beyond imaging and recording pictures. Light can be used to measure and manipulate microscopic structures and functions in biological samples through a rapidly expanding portfolio of photosensitized probes. For instance, it is already possible to observe, and perturb neural activity on demand by focusing light in individual neurons, while minimally disturbing existing neural functions. At UNC Chapel Hill, our research group is interested in microscopy technologies that utilize light not to visualize samples, but to exchange information with it. Our team of engineer-scientists works collaboratively at the interface between optical engineering, computer sciences, and neuroscience, to develop new microscopy systems that perform tasks, to support neuroscience research and enable discovery. In this talk, we will discuss recent publications from our laboratory. We will show new hardware, with microscopes that sample neural activity faster than the nominal camera frame rate, and new software, with deep learning models that can place light in samples at unprecedented speeds.

Dr Haoran Ren is an ARC DECRA Fellow and leads the Structured Nanophotonics Group at the School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University. His research in nanophotonics explores the full potential and multi-dimensional nature of light, focusing on controlled light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. He serves as an Associate Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), Secretary (2025) of the Australian and New Zealand Optical Society, Chair (2024-2026) of the OPTICA Photonic Metamaterials Technical Group. He has received several prestigious awards, including the 2024 Faculty of Science Award for Excellence in Research at Monash University, 2024 SPIE Best Paper Award, 2024/25 ANFF-VIC Technology Fellow Ambassador, 2024 Perkins Collaboration Research Award, 2023 Candidate Award for Rising Stars of Light, 2023 Perkins Early Career Researcher Awards, 2022 Emerging Leaders (Journal of Optics), and 2022 Geoff Opat Early Career Researcher Prize by the Australian & New Zealand Optical Society.

Stereoscopic Optical Palpation (SOP) is a camera-based optical elastography technique that employs stereoscopic imaging with two cameras and a compliant silicone layer of known mechanical properties to visualize surface stress on tissue. While SOP has shown promise in benchtop systems and has been evaluated in a diagnostic feasibility study for breast tumor margin assessment during breast-conserving surgery, its current implementation is bulky and complex. The use of two digital cameras necessitates precise calibration to avoid misalignment, adding to the system’s complexity. In this work, we present a new imaging tool for breast cancer detection, metasurface-enabled stereoscopic optical palpation (MESOP), by combining binocular metalenses with a single digital CMOS sensor to measure and visualize tissue surface stress. We characterized the point spread function and field-of-view of the metalenses and performed stereoscopic optical palpation on silicone phantoms with embedded mechanical contrasts. Additionally, we demonstrated MESOP’s capability to distinguish malignant tumor from benign tissue in freshly excised human breast specimens. This compact, cost-effective system holds promise for routine clinical use in real-time breast cancer detection.

Andreas Tittl is Professor for Experimental Physics at LMU Munich, where he focuses on the design and experimental realization of metasurface concepts with novel nanophotonic functionalities for applications in enhanced light/matter coupling and ultrasensitive biodetection. After receiving his Ph.D in Physics from the University of Stuttgart, he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher and Fellow at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

Photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs) have enabled a new class of spectrally selective metasurfaces, driving breakthroughs in higher-harmonic generation, biodetection, polaritonics, and lasing. BIC-driven systems excel at controlling two of the most general parameters of enhanced light-matter coupling and molecular spectroscopy: (1) the spectral overlap between the resonance and the excitations of the target material and (2) the cavity’s resonance quality factor governing the coupling strength. However, so far, nanophotonic approaches have often only sampled a limited set of data points within this 2D parameter space. Here, I will introduce the concept of dual-gradient metasurfaces, which harness a 2D array of subwavelength nanoresonators with smoothly varying geometry to simultaneously and continuously encode the spectral and quality factor parameter space within a compact spatial area. I will demonstrate how dual-gradient metasurfaces can enable optimal molecular detection regardless of analyte concentration for vibrational spectroscopy, and I will show how this concept can deliver exciting future perspectives for polaritonic coupling.

Professor: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University
Director: BK21 Four R&E Center
Director: Institute of Integrated Biotechnology
Director: Sogang-UPenn Convergence Research Center

Education
2006 - 2008 Post-doctoral Fellow, Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center, UCBerkeley
2001 - 2006 Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
1994 - 2001 B.S in Chemical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Professional Experiences
2025 – Present Director, BK21 Four R&E Center
2023 - Present Director, Sogang-UPenn Convergence Research Center
2019 - Present Director, Institute of Integrated Biotechnology, Sogang University
2015 - Present Editorial Board Member, Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group)
2020 - 2022 Associate Editor, Biochip Journal (Springer)
2017 - 2019 Chair, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University
2014 - 2015 Visiting Professor, University of California at Berkeley
2008 - Present Professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University

Biological gas conversion of carbon monoxide (CO) and methane has been typically monitored by multiple external samplings and subsequent chromatographic analyses. However, the repeated sampling is prone to microbial contamination, leading to failure of the biological gas conversion and the chromatographic analyses suffer from poor sensitivity. In this talk, I would like to show how to achieve label-free selective and sensitive detection of the biological conversion of CO in large-scale gas-liquid reactors by utilizing both multi-functional fluidic devices and machine learning-based plasmonic sensing.

Kai Wang is a group leader at the laboratory of Optical Neuroimaging in the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Completing his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2011, he pursued postdoctoral training in Dr. Eric Betzig’s Lab at Janelia Research Campus, HHMI. In 2015, he transitioned to the Institute of Neuroscience, where his primary research focuses on developing new fluorescent imaging techniques for neuroscience studies.

The immense number of neurons in the brain, combined with their rapid dynamic interactions across intricate networks, presents formidable challenges in neuroscientific researches. To gain a deeper understanding of this complex system, it is essential to record neural activity across large populations and analyze the dynamic connections at higher resolutions. To tackle these challenges, we introduce two advancements in optical imaging techniques. The first is a light field imaging (LFM) technique capable of capturing volumetric dynamics within a single camera snapshot, enabling high-throughput functional neural imaging. In our second study, we developed multiplexed, line-scanning, structured illumination microscopy (MLS-SIM), to track morphological dynamics of neurons in awake and behaving animals. These new optical technologies can be valuable tools to advance the analysis and study of complex neural networks.

Pojeong Park is an Assistant Professor of Brain Sciences at DGIST. He uses protein engineering, fluorescence microscopy, and electrophysiology to develop molecular and optical tools to understand the cellular basis of learning and memory. During his postdoctoral work at Harvard, he pioneered in vivo dendritic voltage imaging, integrating optogenetics, kHz-framerate imaging, and custom analysis pipelines to reveal single-neuron computations. Over the past decade, he has published >10 first-author papers and >30 co-authored papers, including in Nature Methods, Nature Neuroscience, and Nature Communications. His lab combines new fluorescent biosensors (e.g., voltage, Ca2+, cAMP), subcellular in vivo imaging, and virtual-reality behavioral paradigms in mice to understand how synaptic plasticity and dendritic biophysics encode memory engrams and how these circuits change by aging and neurodegeneration.

Neurons convert synaptic inputs arriving onto dendrites into action potentials that propagate outward along axons. Back-propagating action potentials (bAPs) also go from soma into dendrites and interact with synaptic inputs to strengthen or weaken individual synapses, a key process in learning and memory. Our understanding of the molecular and biophysical mechanisms driving dendritic integration and synaptic plasticity remains limited. To bridge this gap, we developed molecular, optical, and computational tools for all-optical electrophysiology in dendrites. Our techniques have enabled to map sub-millisecond voltage dynamics throughout the dendritic trees of CA1 pyramidal neurons in acute brain slices and in live animals. In my talk, I will discuss our recent findings on history-dependent bAP propagation in distal dendrites, driven by locally generated Na+ spikes (dSpikes). We observed that collisions of dSpikes with synaptic inputs can trigger N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-dependent plateau potentials, crucial elements in associative memory. These results, combined with numerical simulations, paint an intuitive picture connecting dendritic biophysics to associative plasticity rules.

Liangcai Cao received his BS/MS and PhD degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University, in 1999/2001 and 2005, respectively. Then he became an assistant professor at the Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University. He is now tenured professor and director of the Institute of Opto-electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He was a visiting scholar at UC Santa Cruz and MIT in 2009 and 2014, respectively. His research interests are holographic imaging and holographic display. He is a Fellow of the Optica and the SPIE.

Phase retrieval serves as a core technique in computational imaging, yet conventional idealized models often yield unsatisfactory reconstruction in practical applications. Critical image features, including edges, textures, and structural patterns, maintain remarkable stability across various image transformations and degradations. We developed Feature-Domain Phase Retrieval (FD-PR), an approach that formulates the wavefront reconstruction loss function based on these stable features rather than spatial pixels. The resolution and quality of the reconstruction are greatly improved in the experiments of coded ptychography, Fourier ptychography, in-line holography, and aberration-correction imaging. The framework can benefit a wide range of computational microscopy techniques, such as X-ray ptychography, diffraction tomography, and wavefront shaping.

TBA

I will introduce our recent research activities in computational imaging, with a particular emphasis on techniques that exploit the randomness of optical phenomena. Specifically, I will highlight our advancements in imaging through complex scattering media and quantitative phase imaging. Computational imaging is a powerful and rapidly evolving framework that integrates advanced optics with
modern information science techniques, such as compressive sensing and deep learning. By jointly designing optical systems and computational algorithms, computational imaging enables the extraction of richer information compared to traditional imaging methods. Recently, numerous innovative computational imaging modalities have been demonstrated and successfully deployed across diverse applications, including biomedical imaging and remote sensing. In this presentation, I will introduce our recent research on computational imaging utilizing random optical phenomena, such as imaging through complex scattering media and quantitative phase imaging.

Iksung Kang, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Physics and Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, where he works with Professors Na Ji and Stella Yu. He received his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Seoul National University in 2017 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020 and 2022, respectively, under the supervision of Professor George Barbastathis. His research integrates imaging systems, physics, and machine learning to develop computational imaging solutions for scientific and engineering applications.

This talk introduces physics-informed, machine learning–based adaptive optics for in vivo widefield and two-photon fluorescence microscopy. This approach enables high-resolution imaging of subcellular structures in the mouse brain with minimal hardware, even using commercial microscopes, and addresses challenges in deep brain imaging, including tissue-induced aberrations and low signal-to-noise ratios.

Xing Sheng is a professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and the IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Tsinghua University, China. He received his bachelor degree from Tsinghua University in 2007 and PhD degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2012 to 2015. His current interests are primarily in the exploration of implantable micro- and nano-scale optical and electronic devices for neural signal sensing and modulation. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals like Nature Photonics, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Science Advances, PNAS, etc. He is a senior member of IEEE, a life member of SPIE, and a fellow of Optica.

Bio-integrated high performance inorganic optoelectronic devices will provide new insights on interactions between light and bio-systems. Here we present unconventional strategies to design and fabricate microscale, thin-film optoelectronics devices including micro-LEDs and photodetectors that can be formed via epitaxial liftoff and transfer printing techniques. These microscale devices can be heterogeneously integrated on flexible and stretchable substrates and interact with biological systems for biomedical applications. In particular, we produce multifunctional neural probes that can be directly implanted into the deep brain of freely moving animals, modulating and detecting neural activities in vivo. These photonic implants interrogate the nervous systems, providing insights for fundamental neuroscience studies and promises for medical applications.

Bastien Arnal is a CNRS senior researcher at Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique (LIPhy), in Grenoble, France. His research focuses in optical and ultrasonic wave physics applied to biomedical imaging and therapy, including photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging. He received his engineering degree from Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de Paris (ESPCI Paris) in 2009 and holds a Ph.D from Paris Diderot University. As a postdoc, he worked at the University of Washington (2013-2014), at Institut Langevin (Paris, 2014-2016) and at LiPhy (2016-2018) in fields ranging from photoacoustic imaging to cardiac ultrasonic therapies.

Photoacoustic imaging has the ability to provide quantitative chromophores information in its spectroscopic regime. Achieving quantitative reconstructions in photoacoustic imaging is a double challenge. First, high fidelity acoustic reconstructions at all absorbers scales require tomographic wideband receivers. The reconstructed images quantifies the absorbed energy density consisting in the product fluence x absorption. Because of the spectral coloring, quantitative analysis are accurate only after fluence compensation that can be performed using inverse models that recover µs and µa maps.

We will describe in this talk how ultrasound (US) Doppler can be helpful for quantitative photoacoustic imaging. After some basics about ultrasound imaging, we will first show how the analogous of US Power Doppler, Photoacoustic fluctuation imaging can remove visibility artefacts and will discuss its spectroscopic mode. Then we will address quantitative photoacoustic imaging problems in two ways using a combination with Ultrasound Power Doppler. We will show how this combination can achieve direct fluence imaging at the isobestic wavelength. Finally, we will use Ultrasound Power Doppler information as a prior for a quantitative inverse problem. Using a single wavelength and illumination, the added information mitigates the non-uniqueness issue.