People
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Alan Liu, Ph.D. | |
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Dr. Liu is the Director of the Virtual Medical Environments Laboratory at the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center (SimCen). He is involved in defining the SimCen's strategic research goals, and directing the development of the SimCen's computer-based medical training systems. Dr. Liu is the principal developer of the center's pericardiocentesis and diagnostic peritoneal lavage simulators. They are the world's first computer-based trainers for these procedures. These simulators were used in the nation's first Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course conducted without animals or cadavers. Dr. Liu is also the principal architect for the center's cricothyroidotomy simulator. Dr. Liu has conducted numerous tutorials and workshops on medical simulation, including tutorials and workshops at MICCAI 2003, HICSS 2003, IEEE CBMS 2006, and MMVR 2002-2007. He was an invited speaker at the 2002 United States Medicine Institute for Health Studies forum on Computers, Robots, and Cyberspace in Washington D.C. Dr. Liu's current research focus includes the development of the SimCen's WAVE, a 1000 sq. ft. total immersion virtual environment for mass casualty training, with applications in military medical readiness, and homeland defense.
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Eric Acosta, Ph.D. | |
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Dr. Acosta is a Computer Research Scientist at the VME Lab. Dr. Acosta is involved in the research and development of several Virtual Reality-based surgical simulators that include haptic, visual, and audio feedback. His current research focus is on the development of SimCen's cricothyroidotomy, pulmonary artery catheterization, and intracranial hematoma simulators. Dr. Acosta received his PhD from Texas Tech University with his dissertation topic focused on establishing a software development platform for stable haptic Virtual Reality applications. His background experience also includes the development of haptic laparoscopic surgical simulations.
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Jennifer Sieck , BFA (Medical Illustration) | |
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Ms. Jennifer Sieck is VME Lab's 3D Medical Animator, specializing in medical simulation and visualization. A multi skilled graphics artisan, Jennifer has served as Technical Director for Comedy Central (1998-2001); was responsible for 3D model and animation development for 3 seasons of the TV show South Park, the film release of “Bigger, Longer, and Uncut”, and a number of simulation game titles including EA’s NCAA College Football ’98 and ‘99. Ms. Sieck has a B.F.A. in Medical Illustration from Rochester Institute of Technology and postgraduate training in human anatomy from the University Of Rochester School Of Medicine. Her work has been showcased on the NBC Today Show with Dr. Bob Arnot (1994), CBS Evening News (1995), The 1999 Emmy’s, The 2000 Academy Awards, and Comedy Central (1998-2001).
Combined with award winning computer graphics experience in film, computer games, medical virtual reality, and multimedia and traditional art applications. Her professional career spans nearly two decades. As the Senior Medical illustrator for Cine-Med (1994-1995), she specialized in human modeling and simulation developing 3D/2D artwork for their Virtual Heart and Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy Surgical Trainer. For the years 2002-2006, she had been the Creative Director for Laerdal Medical Corporation defining their Virtual Reality medical task trainer products; focusing on combining photo-realistic 3D models with force feedback capabilities in their fully interactive self-directed learning system for training intravenous catheterization. She developed the original DARPA models for their Virtual Soldier Project (2002). Ms Sieck’s medical illustration credits also include “Immune Attack” (Federation of American Scientists), the Virtual Patient Roadmap (Laerdal Medical Corporation, Learning Federation, and Microsoft).
Personal website: www.anatomicalmedia.com
Alumni
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Christoph Kaufmann, MD, MPH, FACS, COL, MC, USA | |
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Dr. Kaufmann was the first director of the Surgical Simulation Laboratory (SSL). He is also a Professor of Surgery, and Chief, Division of Trauma and Combat Surgery. Dr. Kaufmann was instrumental in the development of simulator-based training curriculum for trauma at the university. He is board certified in both general surgery and surgical critical care. He served as Chair, American College of Surgeons Military Region Committee on Trauma, with responsibility for all Advanced Trauma Life Support® courses taught in the U.S. military. Dr. Kaufmann has previously served as the Director, Division of Trauma and Emergency Medical Systems, US Public Health Service.
Dr. Kaufmann is a founding member of the NCA Medical Simulation Center.
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Thomas Ritchie | |
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Mr. Ritchie was the course coordinator for the SSL from December 1999 to June 2002. He was responsible for the logistics and management of courses conducted at the SSL and related facilities. Mr. Ritchie was also responsible for programming and operating the OR mannequins according to course requirements. He was the Uniformed Services University Program Coordinator for Advanced Trauma Life Support. Mr. Ritchie was an affiliate faculty member of the Military Training Network. He was responsible for developing a new 911 program for the Emergency Medical Services department at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Mr. Ritchie is a founding member of the NCA Medical Simulation Center.
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Daigo Tanaka | |
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Daigo Tanaka was a visiting research scholar at the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center and Imaging Science and Information Systems Center at Georgetown University from October 2000 to October 2001. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Media and Governance Research from Keio University at Kanagawa, Japan in 1998 and 2000 respectively. Daigo is currently working toward a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University.
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Yogendra Bhasin, MSEE | |
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Yogendra Bhasin was a Research Engineer at National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center’s SSL. He was involved in the research and development of virtual reality based medical simulators. Mr. Bhasin was the original developer of the SimCen's cricothyroidotomy simulator. He did his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas and Bachelor’s in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. His master’s thesis focused on real-time collision detection for virtual surgery environment.
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Chang Ha Lee, Ph.D. | |
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Dr. Lee is a Computer Research Scientist at the VME Lab. His current projects include the development of the SimCen's Wide Area Virtual Environment (WAVE) for training medical teams in biochemical and medical scenarios. Dr. Lee is also conducting a study of locomotion paradigms to evaluate their usability in navigating a virtual environments. His did his PhD dissertation on methods to enhance 3D graphics rendering using low-level human perceptual cues. This includes a mesh saliency for estimating regional importance of 3D meshes and a lighting design for better elucidating geometric details of 3D objects. Dr. Lee received his BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea in 1995 and 1997, and his PhD from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2005.
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Victor M. Vergara, Ph.D. | |
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Dr. Vergara is a Computer Research Scientist at the VME Lab. His current projects include the development of Virtual Sonic Environments for the Wide Area Virtual Environment (WAVE) system for training medical teams in biochemical and medical scenarios. Dr. Vergara is also the lead researcher on the SimCen's Pulmonary Artery Catheterization (PAC) project to create a realistic simulator for this procedure. He did his Ph.D. dissertation on methods to optimize sound localization clustering using spherical Haar wavelets. Dr. Vergara received his BS in Electrical Engineering for the University of Panama in 1997, the MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2003 and 2006 respectively.