Michelle Borkin

Michelle Borkin’s 3-D imaging work uses tools from astronomy to help doctors visualize patients’ hearts.

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.

She is currently working on the Multiscale Hemodynamics Project focusing on the 3D visualization and analysis of hemodynamic simulation data in conjunction with real medical imaging data, as well as the Astronomical Medicine Project focusing on interdisciplinary 3D visualization techniques and the development of new visualizations to advance both fields.

Michelle was awarded in 2010 a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

She was selected as a TEDGlobal 2009 Fellow by TED, and was profiled as one of SEED Magazine's Revolutionary Minds ("The Re-envisionaries").

In 2008, she began PhD work at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science.

She is a 2009 TED Fellow, and has been granted a National Science Foundation research fellowship.