Curriculum Vitae

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering (2021-Present)

Stanford University, Stanford, California

Master of Science in Physics (2019-2021)

University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario

Thesis title: “A novel design methodology accounting for ramping and field inhomogeneities in dreMR imaging”

Supervisor: Dr. Blaine Chronik, Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UWO

Bachelor of Science in Physics (2015-2019)

University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario

Thesis title: “Photoconductivity and memristive properties of oxoverdazyl radical memory devices”

Supervisor: Dr. Giovanni Fanchini, Associate Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UWO

Project & Research Experience Highlights

Magnetic Resonance Systems Research Lab (PhD Thesis) – Dr. John Pauly                               June 2022 – Present

Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California

• Designed optimal MRI acquisition methods which decrease system vibration by a factor of 10x (CVXPY/PyTorch)

• Formulated MRI control tasks as convex/nonconvex problems optimized by gradient and gradient-free methods

• Developed Python toolbox to accelerate MRI acquisition while meeting patient safety constraints

• Measured and modeled MRI system impulse response function and applied for prediction and correction of controls

Automatic Polyphonic Music Transcription                                                                                    Apr 2022 – June 2022

CS 229: Machine Learning, Stanford University, Stanford, California

• Applied RNNs to perform automatic music transcription on over 2000 minutes of audio data in PyTorch

• Found evidence of learned musical scales and keys in RNN hidden-to-hidden weights

• Evaluated by precision-recall curves with F1-score of 60.3% able to accurately detect 3 simultaneous notes

Experimenting with Image Priors in Super-Resolution CNNs                                                  Apr 2022 – June 2022

CS 231N: Deep Learning for Computer Vision, Stanford University, Stanford, California

• Implemented deep convolutional neural networks for super-resolution in PyTorch with ~15,000 parameters

• Curated custom dataset of 27,000 low-resolution and high-resolution image pairs

• Experimented with total variation image priors included directly in training loss for accelerated learning

Single-Shot HDR Imaging via Compressed Sensing                                                                    Jan 2022 – March 2022

EE 367: Computational Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, California

• Developed single-shot HDR method using 3 to 5 spatially varying exposures and compressed sensing

• Implemented pixel inpainting via convex optimization (ADMM) with deep denoising network prior

• Recovered HDR scenes with PSNR of 32.11dB

xMR Research Laboratories (MSc Thesis) – Dr. Blaine Chronik                                                    Sept 2019 – Aug 2021

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario

• Designed field-cycling magnetic coils via formulation and solution of optimization problems in MATLAB

• Mathematically modeled and simulated image responses to physics-based coil characteristics

• Implemented design change to speed up magnet manufacturing by a factor of 2x 

Publications

McCready MA, Handler WB, Chronik BA, An improved homogeneity design method for fast field-cycling coils in molecular MRI. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2022;00;000-000. doi:10.1002/mrm.29178

Anghel M, Magnan F, Sara DC, McCready MA, et al, Redox Polymers Incorporating Pendant 6-Oxoverdazyl and Nitronyl Nitroxide Radicals. Journal of Polymer Science, 2020;58(2);309-319. doi:10.002/pol.20190082

International Conference Abstracts

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2025) - Under Review

Hawai'i Convention Centre, Honolulu

“Optimized Gradient Properties Through Timing in K-Space (OPTIKS)”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2025) - Under Review

Hawai'i Convention Centre, Honolulu

“Trirals for Imaging 10% Faster”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2024) - Oral

Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore

“Safe Diffusion Lobes for Diminished Gradient Vibration”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2024) - Power Pitch

Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore

“Safe Spirals for Your Scanner”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2021) - Poster

Made virtual due to COVID-19

“Measuring induced heating of low-field superconducting system during field-cycling pulse sequences”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (May 2021) - Poster

Made virtual due to COVID-19

“Inhomogeneity and ramping effects in field-cycled quantitative molecular MRI”

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (Aug 2020) - Oral

Originally: International Convention Centre Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Made virtual due to COVID-19

“Improving homogeneity in delta relaxation enhanced magnetic resonance using boundary element method”

*Received Magna Cum Laude Merit Award for abstract

Awards and Honours

NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship Doctoral - $63,000 CAD (2021 - 2024)

National. Provides financial support to high-calibre scholars engaged in a doctoral program in the natural sciences or engineering.

Stanford Electrical Engineering Department Fellowship - $77,000 USD (2021 - 2022)

Institutional. Provides funding for tuition and standard living expenses for Autumn, Winter, and Spring 2021-2022. This fellowship allows the flexibility to rotate in different research groups to find a faculty member who will ultimately serve as the dissertation advisor.

NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship - $17,500 CAD (2020 - 2021)

National. To help develop research skills and assist in the training of highly qualified personnel by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of achievement in undergraduate and early graduate studies.

Ontario Graduate Scholarship - $15,000 CAD (2020 - 2021) DECLINED

Provincial. OGS awards are merit-based scholarships available to students in all disciplines of graduate study.

Western Graduate Research Scholarship - $13,000 CAD (2019 - 2021)

Institutional. Awarded to a full-time graduate student for stipend support who has maintained an average of 80% or above. Amount varies each semester.

International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Magna Cum Laude Merit Award (2020)

International. Awarded to Trainee members whose abstracts score in the top 15% within a major subject review category at the ISMRM annual general meeting.

Ontario Graduate Scholarship - $15,000 CAD (2019 - 2020)

Provincial. OGS awards are merit-based scholarships available to students in all disciplines of graduate study.

The Raymond Compton Dearle Gold Medal (2019)

Institutional. Awarded to the student with the highest standing in the UWO Honors Physics program.

The Donald R. Hay Prize - $325 CAD (2019)

Institutional. Awarded to the student with the highest standing in the fourth year UWO Honors Research Project (Physics 4999E) with a minimum mark of 80%.

S.R. Valluri Scholarship in Mathematical/Theoretical Physics - $1,000 CAD (2018)

Institutional. Awarded to an undergraduate student entering Year 4 who has excelled in mathematical/theoretical physics. The scholarship committee in the Faculty of Science selects the recipient based on coursework and research experience.

NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award - $4,500 CAD (2018)

National. Merit based award meant to nurture interest and fully develop potential for a research career in the natural sciences and engineering.

NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award - $4,500 CAD (2017)

National. Merit based award meant to nurture interest and fully develop potential for a research career in the natural sciences and engineering.

Teaching Experience

Introductory Physics II (2021)

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, ON

Marking lab reports and preparing online evaluations.

Waves and Oscillations (2020)

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, ON

Marking assignments, quizzes, and exams.

Senior Physics Laboratory (2020)

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, ON

Supervised and prepared multi-week experiments for senior physics undergraduates and marked lab reports.

Introductory Physics I (2019)

Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, ON

Ran a tutorial of 40 first year engineering students. Short lecturing and example problems. Marking and proctoring.