Eilat Vardi-Gonen, Ph.D.

E-mail:

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PhD Thesis:

• Title: Column by Column Image-Signal Enhancement
• Advisor: Distinguished Professor Gabor T. Herman
• Department: Computer Science
• Institution: The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY

Research:

• I implemented an algorithm which uses the Metropolis Algorithm with Gibbs priors to stochastically reconstruct two-dimensional binary images from only three projection directions [Carvalho, 1999], [Matej, 1999].
• I worked on speeding up that stochastic reconstruction algorithm for cardiac cross-section images, acheiving a more than 44-fold speedup [Vardi, 2001].
• I implemented a stochastic algorithm using the Metropolis Algorithm with Gibbs priors for the segmentation of trabecular bone from two-dimensional magnetic resonance (M.R.) images taken in-vivo [Vardi, 2001]. Such images are relatively low resolution, which is the reason that traditional methods fail.
• I did some work on correcting M.R. image inhomogeneities [Gomberg, 2002].
• My thesis involved the "real-time" enhancement of noisy speech signals with applicability to the improvement of speech recongnition of noisy speech signals for hearing aids. The steps we performed in our methodology, column by column, are:
  1. We transformed a segment of noisy speech signal to a noisy grayscale column. This was done using the Short-Time Fourier Transform, STFT, which is a commonly used transform in many signal processing applications.
  2. We estimated a corresponding binary column using the Metropolis Algorithm with an annealing schedule.
  3. Using both the noisy grayscale column and the binary column, we "fuzzified" the binary column. We used the "fuzzy" column as a mask on the noisy grayscale column in order to estimate a clean grayscale column (corresponding to the unknown clean speech segment).
  4. Several clean estimated grayscale columns are used to estimate a segment of the unknown clean speech signal.
  Preliminary work and results appeared in [Vardi-Gonen, 2004], [Vardi-Gonen, 2005], [Vardi-Gonen, 2005].

Principal Investigator:

• Individual Fellowship titled Column by Column Image-Signal Interpretation from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 1F37LM008611-01A1, 2005-2007.

Awards:

• Third place at the 7th Summer School on Image Processing student competition, 1999
• Science Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2002-2003
• Tuition Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2003-2004
• Science Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2003-2004
• Travel Award, 31st Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference, 2005
• University Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2007-2008

Software:

• I was involved in the development of SNARK05.

Education:

Dates Attended	Degree Received	Advisor	Department	University	City	State	Country
9/1994-5/1995				Bryn Mawr College	Bryn Mawr	PA	USA
10/1995-2/1999	B.A.		Department of Mathematics	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	Haifa		Israel
1/2000-8/2000		Gabor T. Herman	Bioengineering Department	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
9/2000-12/2000		Gabor T. Herman	Department of Mathematics	Temple University	Philadelphia	PA	USA
1/2001-5/2002	M.S.E.	Gabor T. Herman and Felix W. Wehrli	Bioengineering Department	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
6/2002-7/2004	M.Phil.	Gabor T. Herman	Computer Science Department	The Graduate Center, CUNY	New York	NY	USA
8/2004-9/2008	Ph.D.	Gabor T. Herman	Computer Science Department	The Graduate Center, CUNY	New York	NY	USA

Experience:

Dates	Position	Group	University	City	State	Country
summer 1995	Participated in "Inquiry Based Science and Math in Middle School" Program		Haverford College	Haverford	PA	USA
summer 1995	Summer Student	Laboratory of Retinal Microcircuitry	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
8/1998-10/1998	Research Assistant	Medical Image Processing Group	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
3/1999-7/1999	Teaching Assistant	Department of Mathematics	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	Haifa		Israel
1/2000-8/2000	Research Assistant	Medical Image Processing Group	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
9/2000-12/2000	Teaching Assistant	Department of Mathematics	Temple University	Philadelphia	PA	USA
1/2001-4/2002	Research Assistant	Laboratory for Structural NMR Imaging	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	USA
5/2002-9/2008	Research Assistant	Discrete Imaging and Graphics Group	The Graduate Center, CUNY	New York	NY	USA

Conferences:

• 7th Summer School on Image Processing, Szeged, Hungary, July, 1999. (See student project here.)
• Workshop on Discrete Tomography: Algorithms and Applications, Siena, Italy, October, 2000.
• 8th International Workshop on Combinatorial Image Analysis, Philadelphia, PA, USA, August, 2001.
• Workshop on Digital Topology, New York, NY, USA, March, 2002.
• 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging, Arlington, VA, USA, April, 2004.
• IEEE 31st Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference, Hoboken, NJ, USA, April, 2005.
• NLM Informatics Training Conference, Bethesda, MD, USA, July, 2005.
• 7th IEEE EMBS International Summer School on Biomedical Imaging, Berder, France, June, 2006.
• NLM Informatics Training Conference, Nashville, TN, USA, June, 2006.
• IEEE Signal Processing Society - 12th Digital Signal Processing Workshop; 4th Signal Processing Education Workshop, Grand Teton National Park, WY, USA, September, 2006.
  
• NLM Informatics Training Conference, Palo Alto, CA, USA, June, 2007.

Publications:

[1]  H. von Gersdorff, E. Vardi, G. Matthews and P. Sterling.  Evidence that Vesicles on the Synaptic Ribbon of Retinal Bipolar Neurons Can be Rapidly Released. Neuron, volume 16(6):  pages 1221-1227, 1996. 

[2]  B. M. Carvalho, G. T. Herman, S. Matej, C. Salzberg and E. Vardi.  Binary Tomography for Triplane Cardiography.  In A. Kuba, M. Samal and A. Todd-Pokropek, (eds.): Information Processing in Medical Imaging , volume 1613:  pages 29-41.  Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1999.

[3]  S. Matej, A. Vardi, G. T. Herman and E. Vardi.  Binary Tomography Using Gibbs Priors.  In G. T. Herman and A. Kuba (eds.):  Discrete Tomography: Foundations, Algorithms and Applications, pages 191-212.  Birkhauser, Boston, 1999.

[4]  E. Vardi, G. T. Herman, and T. Y. Kong.  Speeding Up Stochastic Reconstructions of Binary Images from Limited Projection Directions, Linear Algebra and its Applications: Special Issue on Discrete Tomography, volume 339: pages 75-89.  Elsevier, 2001.

[5]  E. Vardi and G. T. Herman. Stochastic Segmentation Using Gibbs Priors, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, volume 46: pages 381-392. Elsevier, 2001.

[6]  B. R. Gomberg, M. Fernandez-Seara, B. S. Zemel, P. K. Saha, E. Vardi, L. Loh, L. Hilaire, and F. W. Wehrli.  Measurement of Trabecular Bone Volume Fraction in the Proximal Femur. Proceedings of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2002.

[7]  E. Vardi-Gonen and G. T. Herman.  Sequential vs. Simultaneous Stochastic Segmentation. IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging, pages 1327-1330, 2004.  IEEE Catalog Number: 04EX821C, ISBN: 0-7803-8389-3.

[8]  E. Vardi-Gonen and G. T. Herman.  Sequential Binary Image Estimation. IEEE 31st Annual Northeast Biomedical Conference, pages 127-128, 2005.  IEEE Catalog Number: 05CH3764C, ISBN: 0-7803-9106-3.

[9]  E. Vardi-Gonen and G. T. Herman.  Sequential Binary Image Estimation Algorithms. IEEE Signal Processing Society - 12th Digital Signal Processing Workshop; 4th Signal Processing Education Workshop, pages 494-499, 2006.  IEEE Catalog Number: 06EX1488C, ISBN: 1-4244-0535-1.

Last Updated: 10/4/08