Priti Balchandani, PhD

Priti Balchandani, PhD, is a Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, Neuroscience and Psychiatry. She is the Director of the Advanced Neuroimaging Research Program (ANRP) and Associate Director of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute (BMEII). Her research has been focused on bridging gap between advanced electrical engineering techniques and medical imaging applications. She applies signals and systems principles to image the human brain in unprecedented detail and with new sources of signal and contrast. She develops novel MRI techniques to visualize detailed anatomy as well as vasculature, neuronal fiber tracts and metabolic characteristics in order to obtain a more complete understanding of the effects of disease on the brain. She has applied these methods to improve epilepsy treatment, guide skull base tumor surgery and study the biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric illness. Her work on overcoming some of the main limitations of operating at high magnetic fields has resulted in several innovative tools with wide applicability for human brain imaging and spectroscopy. These techniques are ultimately applied to improve diagnosis, treatment and surgical planning for a range of neurological diseases and disorders. She is PI on three NIH-funded R01 projects focused on utilizing 7T imaging to help guide diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases. Dr. Balchandani received her BASc in computer engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada and her PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford University.