Biography

I studied physics at Manchester University, did a post-baccalaureate teaching certificate at Leeds University, taught at a community college and then completed a PhD on DNA-drug interactions at Keele University. This was followed by a post-doc stint investigating closed-circular DNA at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.
I taught at the Science University of Malaysia; did research on DNA-drug binding using electron spin resonance at Monash University, Australia; and taught at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji and Oxford Brookes University. After that I moved to Kuwait as Professor of Radiologic Sciences (1992-2002). I moved to California in 2002, where I’m currently Professor of Applied Physics and Medical Imaging.
My research interests are integrative and interdisciplinary. I apply image analysis and pattern recognition techniques to medical images from a variety of modalities in an effort to extract the maximum quantifiable diagnostic and prognostic information from them. This has led me into work on osteoporosis, scoliosis, retinal diseases, breast cancer, arteriosclerosis, hepatocellular cancer, and even the removal of tattoos and unwanted hair by laser light. I have also written papers on CT, SPECT and MRI imaging.
I was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2009/10 at Queensland University of Technology (Q.U.T.) in Brisbane, Australia investigating early signs of osteoarthritis and Alzheimer’s disease using functional MRI images. During this time, I collaborated with research groups at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), Brisbane. I was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the Image and Vision Computing New Zealand (IVCNZ ’09) 24th International Conference in Wellington, New Zealand and presented seminars to research groups at the Universities of Waikato and Christchurch. I also presented my work at Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).
I was appointed a Fulbright Specialist in Engineering Education (2013-2018) and a TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences) Visiting Expert (2014). In 2014/15 I reviewed and upgraded courses and initiated research in imaging at the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. I was involved in collaborative research with groups at ITB, Diponegoro University (Java) and Kyushu University (Japan), which resulted in a number of published papers. In Spring 2018, I visited Diponegoro University (Semarang) and Airlangga University and conducted workshops and training sessions on image processing. I subsequently facilitated Memoranda of Agreement with these two universities.
In 2022 I visited both universities again (and Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya) as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to deliver seminars and workshops. My Fulbright experiences have resulted in many new ongoing collaborations, including work on the automated measurement of CT dose, improved noise reduction and filtering strategies, and the automated classification of covid-19 images. these have resulted in a number of published papers.
My Fulbright experiences have been highlighted at https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/CSU-Top-Producer-of-Fulbright-Scholars-2021-22.aspx and at
https://www.csuci.edu/news/releases/2021-fulbright-scholar-dougherty.htm.