Math Professor receives $100,000 for Medical Imaging Research

Morgantown, WV, July 26, 2006:  Dr. K. Chris Ciesielski, professor of Mathematics in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, has received a grant of $100,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

NSF’s Interdisciplinary Grants in the Mathematical Sciences allows mathematicians to apply their knowledge in another discipline. Dr. Ciesielski will continue his previous research with the Medical Image Processing Group (MIPG) in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

“I have worked in pure mathematics in the areas of mathematical logic, set theory, topology and real analysis,” explained Dr. Ciesielski. “For the past few years I started to turn my interests to the applied part of mathematics. My applied math interests started to crystallize on medical image processing.”

All modern medical imaging acquisition devices, like ultrasound, CT, PET, MRI and x-ray machines, are computer-assisted. Sensors on the devices collect crude data which are transformed into images and then interpreted by a professional. To analyze an image using one of these devices, the appropriate algorithm must be chosen and implemented as a computer program. Then the medical professionals can see the image, peel the image’s layers and identify any abnormalities. Any step between collecting medical image data and its display to the medical professional is a part of image processing. The research in this area is the reason Dr. Ciesielski will continue his work with the MIPG.

“From the perspective of a theoretical mathematician, which I was for the past 20 years, the importance of any research in the field of medicine is hard to describe. But anything that leads to better diagnostics, and my research is going in this direction, is of great value to society,” he stated.

Dr. Ciesielski earned his PhD in Mathematics from Warsaw University, Poland in 1985 and joined the faculty of WVU in the fall of 1989. During those seventeen years of dedicated teaching, he has authored or coauthored three books and nearly 100 research papers. Dr. Ciesielski has also been a contributing editor for the math journal, Real Analysis Exchange, since 1993.

In addition to the maximum grant amount from NSF, he will receive support from the Eberly Family Faculty Development Fund to further his research in medical image processing.

For more information, please contact Dr. K. Chris Ciesielski at kcies@math.wvu.edu.

W-V-U