I am a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, with a secondary appointment in Dermatology, and additional affiliations with Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), Pediatrics, Neurosurgery and University of Illinois Cancer Center. My multidisciplinary training has been in electrical engineering, optics, advanced data processing, and optical imaging instrumentation (trained by Adrian Podoleanu (OCT) and Lihong Wang (photoacoustics)). I am the director of Optical & Photoacoustic Imaging Research and Analysis (OPIRA) lab that designs and translates advanced imaging systems—photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT), photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), thermoacoustic imaging, ultrasound, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and microwave imaging—for neonatal brain applications and skin imaging in melanoma and hidradenitis suppurativa. My team brings deep medical and biomedical instrumentation expertise, paired with end‑to‑end strength in biomedical signal and image processing and analysis. Our AI work spans classification, segmentation, and signal/image enhancement, leveraging machine learning, deep learning, transfer learning, Vision Transformers, and Agentic AI with orchestration for robust, deployable solutions. I have authored 120+ peer‑reviewed papers in high‑caliber journals. I am a Senior Member in IEEE, OPTICA, and SPIE; I have chair roles at SPIE Photonics West and SPIE Medical Imaging; and serving as a standing member of the NIH ITD Study Section and the NIH SBIR Study Section, alongside frequent reviews for national and international funding programs. Editorially, I serve as Associate Editor for the Journal of Biomedical Optics Express, Frontiers in Neuroscience (Brain Imaging section), and Scientific Reports. Notable awards include: at Wayne State University—Outstanding Faculty Award (2016, 2017, 2019), Research Excellence Award (2019), Excellence in Teaching Award (2019), and the Academy of Scholars Award (2020); and at UIC—the Departmental Rising Star Award (2023) and the College of Engineering Teaching Award (2024). Backed by sustained NIH and foundation funding, I actively welcome collaborations and consultancy with clinical, academic, and industry partners.