Alumni

Personal Statement

I am an Assistant Professor in Radiology deeply committed to improving neurodevelopmental outcomes in children by leveraging the information-rich domain of neuroimaging. My focus thus far has been the development of tools for quantitative analysis of neonatal neurodevelopment and its correlates to cognitive development outcome. I have experience in creating novel software and processing pipelines for the analysis of fetal and neonatal development, both in preterm born infants and infants with congenital heart defects. Under the mentorship of Dr. Ashok Panigrahy, I have used multi-modal imaging, with a particular focus on diffusion tensor and structural imaging, to characterize white matter structure in several at risk populations, including fetal, neonatal, and adolescent cohorts. My current work has expanded into applying cutting edge machine learning methods to create automated early diagnostic tools across the lifespan. Our most recent work uses interpretable machine learning to identify promising cerebral-spinal fluid and paralimbic early biomarkers of executive dysfunction in adolescents with CHD, as well as using neonatal imaging trajectories and maternal intelligence to predict longitudinal neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Additionally, serving as Director of Informatics, Pediatric Research, I built and currently administer the research infrastructure in the Pediatric Imaging Research Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. In a modern, multi-modal and multi-centered research environment, the efficient use of technology to facilitate and enhance collaboration and data throughput is indispensable. Our infrastructure includes automated de-identification of imaging, real-time MRS quantification, and secure, HIPAA compliant image transfer across multiple institutions. Our center provides invaluable services to facilitate several on-going prospective and retrospective research projects involving dozens of investigators, including multiple NIH-funded multi-site studies.

1. Wallace J, Ceschin R, Lee VK, Beluk NH, Burns C, Beers S, Lo C, Panigrahy A, Badaly D. Psychometric properties of the NIH Toolbox Cognition and Emotion Batteries among children and adolescents with congenital heart defects. Child Neuropsychol. 2024 Jan 22; PubMed PMID: 38247350.
2. Schmithorst V, Ceschin R, Lee V, Wallace J, Sahel A, Chenevert TL, Parmar H, Berman JI, Vossough A, Qiu D, Kadom N, Grant PE, Gagoski B, LaViolette PS, Maheshwari M, Sleeper LA, Bellinger DC, Ilardi D, O’Neil S, Miller TA, Detterich J, Hill KD, Atz AM, Richmond ME, Cnota J, Mahle WT, Ghanayem NS, Gaynor JW, Goldberg CS, Newburger JW, Panigrahy A. Single Ventricle Reconstruction III: Brain Connectome and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes: Design, Recruitment, and Technical Challenges of a Multicenter, Observational Neuroimaging Study. Diagnostics (Basel). 2023 Apr 30;13(9) PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10178603.
3. Votava-Smith JK, Gaesser J, Harbison AL, Lee V, Tran N, Rajagopalan V, Del Castillo S, Kumar SR, Herrup E, Baust T, Johnson JA, Gabriel GC, Reynolds WT 3rd, Wallace J, Meyers B, Ceschin R, Lo CW, Schmithorst VJ, Panigrahy A. Clinical factors associated with microstructural connectome related brain dysmaturation in term neonates with congenital heart disease. Front Neurosci. 2022;16:952355. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9717392.
4. Meyers B, Lee VK, Dennis L, Wallace J, Schmithorst V, Votava-Smith JK, Rajagopalan V, Herrup E, Baust T, Tran NN, Hunter J, Licht DJ, Gaynor JW, Andropoulos DB, Panigrahy A, Ceschin R. Harmonization of Multi-Center Diffusion Tensor Tractography in Neonates with Congenital Heart Disease: Optimizing Post-Processing and Application of ComBat. Neuroimage Rep. 2022 Sep;2(3) PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9575513.

Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/collections/63820282/