Meet Our Team
Meet Our Executive Director
Dr. Peyman Benharash specializes in the treatment of acquired cardiac diseases in adults. His practice encompasses a wide range of procedures, from traditional cardiac surgeries to minimally invasive, hybrid, and catheter-based therapies for heart disease. As the director of the Extracorporeal Life Support (ECMO) Program at UCLA, he has made significant strides in making this technology widely available throughout Southern California. More recently, he has introduced minimal access arrhythmia surgery to UCLA, a method that reduces pain and blood loss while being highly effective in the treatment of atrial fibrillation.
His research interests include health services research using national databases, with a focus on cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Benharash's laboratory is heavily involved in the development of noninvasive physiologic sensors and the design of physics-based models for virtual surgery. Dr. Benharash believes that patients will continue to greatly benefit from innovations that span multiple disciplines.
Peyman Benharash, MD, FACS
Director, UCLA Adult ECMO Program
Association Program Director, UCLA Thoracic Surgery Residency Program
Director, UCLA Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Laboratories
Meet Our Team
Areti Tillou, MD
Director, UCLA CASIT Accredited Education Institute
Assistant Designated Institutional Official, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
[email protected]
Adam A. Abiri, PhD
- Haptic feedback system for minimally invasive surgery
- Computer-assisted robotic surgery
- Wireless implantable medical devices
Yazeed Alhiyari, PhD
- Dynamic optical contrast imaging
- Cancer margin detection
- Translational medicine
- Treatment de-escalation
Wayne Brisbane, MD
@Wayne_Brisbane
[email protected]
- Prostate cancer imaging
- Micro-ultrasound
- MRI
Robert Candler, PhD
- Medical sensors for robotic surgery
- Miniature MRI coils for In vivo imaging
- Medical devices
Greg Carman, PhD
- Understanding the response of ACTIVE/Smart materials for biomedical applications, e.g. covered stents, antennas for pacemakers
- Multiferroic, magnetostrictive, piezoelectric, and shape memory alloys
- Modeling structural response of multiphysics based systems
Rory Geoghegan, PhD
Dr. Geoghegan is a project scientist in the departments of Urology and Surgery. He has a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering (University College Dublin, 2010), a master’s degree in biomedical engineering (Imperial College London, 2011) and a doctorate in bioengineering (University of California, Los Angeles, 2019).
Leonard S. Marks, MD
- Prostate-focused technologies: Video capsules of Ongoing Research Projects
- Image fusion/ultrasound: MRI/US fusion for prostate biopsy; Details of fusion technology
- High-resolution ultrasound: Technology explained; UCLA trial starting (2021)
- Tumor ablation: Focused ultrasound (HIFU); Laser ablation
Shyam Natarajan
Jake Pensa, MS
- High resolution ultrasound imaging for prostate cancer
- Focal therapy treatment planning for prostate cancer
- Haptic feedback for robotic surgery
Alan Priester, PhD
- Minimally invasive prostate cancer therapy: From Targeted Biopsy to Focal Therapy of Prostate Cancer; Journal of Urology article
- Prostate radiologic and pathologic correlation: Journal of Urology article
- Prostate cancer imaging and diagnosis: Targeted Prostate Biopsy Using MRI-Ultrasound Fusion
Anand Santhanam, PhD
Dr. Santhanam's focus is on developing algorithms and techniques that cater to the requirements of medicine. In particular, he worked on the biomechanical modeling of lungs since 2002 for different applications ranging from computer animation, virtual reality, rehabilitation, tissue engineering to radiation oncology.
Maie St. John, MD, PhD
Dr. St. John's research encompasses several areas of translational investigation in head & neck cancer. Dr. St. John's laboratory is interested in understanding the mechanisms of tumor progression and metastasis in head and neck cancer. She and her colleagues are investigating COX-2-dependent gene and protein expression and determining how these modify tumor invasion, angiogenesis, immunity and apoptosis in head & neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
Songping Sun
- Haptic feedback in surgical robots
- Pneumatic Haptic Feedback System for MIS
Chi Quach