Yasaman Ardeshirpour, a doctoral candidate in the Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, was awarded a $1,000 scholarship by the Society of Women Engineers at UConn. Dr. Jun-Hong Cui, Assistant Dean for Graduate Education & Diversity, and Mr. Marty Wood, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education & Diversity, presented Ms. Ardeshirpour the award.

Ms. Ardeshirpour’s thesis involves diffuse optical tomography using near infrared (NIR) light, which, she says, “provides a unique approach for functional and molecularly-based diagnostic imaging of breast cancers and monitoring chemotherapy response. In our clinical studies, we encounter a subset of patients whose chest-wall causes distortion of NIR light reflectance measurements, which in turn distorts the image. I am modeling an irregular interface between breast tissue and chest-wall and incorporate it into our 3D optical imaging reconstruction.”

Ms. Ardeshirpour’s advisor, Dr. Quing Zhu, praised her, saying “Yasaman is talented in both computation and experimental research and is willing to work hard. She has been working on a tough problem of improving near infrared (NIR) light imaging quality for a group of patients who have a small amount of breast tissue, which causes their chest wall to distort the NIR waves. As a result of her hard work, she authored and co-authored three peer-reviewed journal papers and is in the process of submitting the fourth one to the Journal of Biomedical Optics. Yasaman is highly motivated and has a great desire to pursue a career in academia. I am very proud of her accomplishments.”

She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Tehran, Iran. Ms. Ardeshirpour previously received a Predoctoral Fellowship Award (2009), two Summer Research Fellowship Awards (2008 and 2009), and travel grants to attend summer research programs. She serves as Treasurer of the SPIE Student Chapter at UConn.