Algorithm development for direct image reconstruction is Dr. Patch's area of
expertise. Her current research focus is thermoacoustic tomography (TCT), a
hybrid imaging technique. Her long-term goal is to quantify the robustness of
TCT across different sizes, depths, and types of cancer (lobular, ductal
carcinoma, etc.). Ideally, TCT deposits RF energy impulsively in time and
uniformly throughout the imaging object, causing thermal expansion. Cancerous
masses preferentially absorb RF energy, heat and expand faster than neighboring
healthy tissue, creating a pressure wave, which is detected by ultrasound
transducers at the edge of the object. Dr. Patch has developed an inversion
formula for idealized TCT data and now works to account for physical and
experimental effects upon TCT data. Other areas of research include cone beam
reconstruction of xray CT data and motion correction for Propeller MRI. Early
work in diffuse tomography was motivated by optical/NIR imaging.
