In October 2018, Mathias Unberath, a graduate of the Elite Graduate Program “Advanced Optical Technologies” at FAU, was appointed to an Assistant Research Professorship at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins University. Working at the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics and the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, he researches new methods in the fields of imaging, machine learning, and augmented reality.
Minimally invasive and percutaneous procedures are now established as the clinical standard across a variety of disciplines. While these interventions benefit patients in a number of ways, they also mean that surgeons no longer have a direct view of their surgical instruments or the affected area of the patient’s body. Instead, the progress and success of the procedure must be determined on the basis of video or X-ray images, which have been shown to hinder hand-eye coordination, compromise ergonomics and increase frustration among surgeons. Computer-assistance systems can help alleviate these challenges. In collaboration with colleagues at the John Hopkins Hospital, Professor Unberath and his colleagues are working on novel methods using computer vision tools to quantitatively analyse interventional images and intuitively display this additional information so as to simplify and enhance decision-making during surgery.
Professor Unberath graduated from the Elite Graduate Program “Advanced Optical Technologies” in 2014. His master’s thesis on dynamic and statistical modelling of the heart was recognized with the SPIE Outstanding Thesis Award. Prior to graduating he spent a year as an Erasmus Scholar at the University of Eastern Finland. In his doctoral research as part of the SAOT Graduate School at FAU, he studied three-dimensional reconstructions of coronary vessels from conventional angiography images. Unberath received the BVM Award (for medical image computing) and the STAEDTLER Prize for his dissertation. At this time, he spent extended research periods at John Hopkins University and at Stanford University, with funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). After completing his doctoral studies (summa cum laude) in 2017, he first spent a year as a postdoc at John
Johns Hopkins University is a top US higher education institution and a global leader in the fields of medicine and health sciences in particular. Throughout its almost 150-year history, Johns Hopkins has produced 37 Nobel Prize winners, and is regularly rated as one of the ten best universities in the world in international rankings.
