Postdoctoral Associate (Ultrasonic Imaging Device)

Project Overview

The Wearable Imaging for Transforming Elderly Care (WITEC) interdisciplinary research group (IRG) is committed to creating next-generation wearable imaging technologies tailored for aging populations. By combining expertise in wearable transducers, biomedical imaging, materials science, data analytics, and healthcare innovation, WITEC aims to design solutions that will improve quality of life, support preventative medicine, and reduce healthcare burdens. Specific objectives include the development of wearable ultrasound imaging systems for doing cardiovascular echography, AI-powered diagnostic algorithms, and integration with digital health platforms for real-time monitoring and clinical decision support.

WITEC brings together interdisciplinary researchers from MIT and Singaporean institutions, including hospitals and research agencies. Through deep collaboration with local partners, including clinicians, industry, and policymakers, WITEC will ensure that its technological advancements are innovative, clinically validated, and suitable for industrial scale up.

Key Responsibilities

The WITEC IRG at SMART is seeking a qualified candidate for a Postdoctoral Associate position supervised by professors from MIT and Singapore. This position will entail the following technical responsibilities:

1, Design, synthesis, and fabricate soft materials (hydrogels or elastomers) and metamaterials, to serve as biocompatible skin adhesive couplant for wearable ultrasound transducers. Develop and validate multiphysics models to predict the mechanical and acoustic behaviour of the soft materials and metamaterials.

2, Establish experimental protocols for charactering the mechanical, acoustic properties of the soft materials and metamaterials. The material properties include ultrasonic transmission, reflection and attenuation, and bioadhesive performance on skin.

3. Lead the development of wearable ultrasound devices signal processing for long-term cardiovascular monitoring. Treating ultrasonic RF data from wearable ultrasound devices using advanced beamforming techniques. Develop image reconstruction algorithm and investigate using time series ultrasound image analysis for continuous assessment of human cardiac function.

4, Design and implement AI algorithms for tasks such as transducer optimization, image quality assessment, view recognition, image segmentation and registration, and automated cardiac condition detection and diagnosis.

5. Collaborate closely with clinicians and engineers to integrate soft materials into functional wearable ultrasound systems and participate in protocol development and deployment for pilot human studies.

6. Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

1. Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science or a related discipline.

2. Expertise in hydrogels, elastomers, or other soft polymeric systems and metamaterials development. including polymer synthesis and 3D printing.

3. Demonstrated experience in material mechanical and acoustic properties characterization, including techniques such as polymer mechanics characterization, material acoustic properties characterization.

4. Solid background in medical ultrasound imaging, signal processing, or machine learning. Hands-on experience with ultrasound systems, particularly Verasonics platform is preferred. Familiar with programming languages and environments such as MATLAB, Python, or C++.

5. Experience with advanced ultrasound techniques such as Doppler imaging, harmonic imaging, or quantitative ultrasound is preferred. Experience in echocardiography or cardiovascular image analysis is preferable.

6. The candidate needs to work well in a team with good communication skills.

To apply, please visit our website at: https://portal.smart.mit.edu/careers/career-opportunities

Interested applicants are invited to send in their full CV/resume, cover letter and list of three references (to include reference names and contact information). We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.