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  2. Meet Our Graduate Students

Meet Our Graduate Students

photo of BME graduate studen, Emelina Vienneau Emelina Vienneau

Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Engineering


"I chose to be a Vanderbilt engineer for the unparalleled collaboration between the engineering school and the medical center and the opportunities to gain clinical exposure and participate in translational research."

I am a biomedical engineering PhD student who is passionate about imaging, medical devices, translational research and healthcare. I got my start at Duke University where I did research on improving resolution in photoacoustic microscopy. Now, in the BEAM Lab of Professor Brett Byram (biomedical engineering) as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, I apply advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques to enable transcranial functional ultrasound imaging for the first time in humans.

Life at Vandy

Working directly with clinicians and gaining firsthand exposure to unmet needs in healthcare has always been a primary goal of mine, as I ultimately strive for clinical translation.  As a T32 Trainee in the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering, I have been able to take advantage of the co-location of engineering and medicine by shadowing a functional neurosurgeon, an interventional radiologist and a urologist. I have spent well over 100 hours in the operating room, interventional suite, clinic and clinical conferences.

For fun

When I am not in the lab or the clinic, I enjoy swimming at the rec center as well as hiking and biking around the Nashville area. 

Awards: 

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

NIH Predoctoral Trainee

Vanderbilt University Provost Graduate Fellowship

Emelina Vienneau during poster sessionSelected Publications 

1.      Vienneau, E., Vu, T.,  Yao, J. “Photoacoustic Imaging of Skin,” in Imaging Technologies and Transdermal Delivery in Skin Disorders. C. Xu, X. Wang, M. Pramanik, Ed. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley, 2020, pp. 411-442. 

2.      Vienneau, E., Luchies, A., Byram, B. “An improved training scheme for deep neural network ultrasound beamforming,” 2019 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), Glasgow, 2019, pp. 1-3

3.      Vienneau, E., Yao, J., Liu, W. “Dual-view acoustic-resolution photoacoustic microscopy with enhanced resolution isotropy,” Optics Letters 43(18), pp. 4413-4416, (2018). 

4.      Liu, W., Zhou, Y., Wang, M.,  Li, L.,  Vienneau, E., Chen, R.  Luo, J., Xu, C., Zhou, Ql, Wang, L.V., Yao, J.  “Correcting the limited view in optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy,” Journal of Biophotonics 11(2), (2017).    

Learn more about our Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. program.