People
Heather M. Whitney, PhD
Assistant Professor of Radiology
As PI of the Whitney Lab, I conduct research in computer-aided diagnosis of breast and ovarian cancer, focusing on the modalities of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound. My primary areas of interest are in artificial intelligence and radiomics across the imaging and classification pipeline, from image acquisition to performance evaluation and data harmonization. I also conduct research and collaborate in MIDRC, the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center. Within MIDRC I work on methods of task-based distributions, interoperability between data enclaves, and monitoring and studying the diversity and representativeness of the MIDRC data commons to foster research in AI and health disparities.
Current Trainees
Amal Almansour, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
Amal is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago. She is working on AI/machine learning of computer-aided diagnosis of ovarian cancer on ultrasound imaging. She is co-mentored by Ernst Lengyel, Chair of OB/GYN at UChicago. Dr. Almansour received her PhD in computer science from DePaul University.
Jazmine Vitela
Undergraduate research assistant
Jazmine is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago majoring in biological sciences and in Spanish. She is a student in the UChicago SURFBOARD (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Bioimaging for Oncology and Related Disciplines) program. She is working evaluating measures of differences in radiomic features from colormaps on ultrasound imaging in retrospective datasets and the impact to computer-aided diagnosis.
Sara Chaker
Masters degree student
Sara Chaker is a student in the University of Chicago Master of Science in applied data science program. She is working on developing frameworks for identifying the best task-based bias and fairness metrics for AI outputs from medical imaging.
Everett Miglio
High school volunteer
Everett, a recent high school graduate headed to college in Fall 2025, worked in the Whitney Lab in Summer 2024. He focused on designing neural networks for predicting simulated motion of a point source in PET for biology-guided radiation therapy. He is returning in Summer 2025 to work on projects related to off-label use of AI of medical imaging.
Bruce Abrams
Graduate research assistant
Bruce is a graduate student in physics at the University of Chicago. He is working on a project on isotropic-resolution ultrasound imaging with refractive correction, part of our lab’s collaboration with Shwetadwip Chowdhury at the University of Texas at Austin.
Elena Kang-Chou
High school volunteer
Elena is a high school student who is volunteering in the lab in Summer 2025. She is working on a software platform to support radiomics research in ultrasound imaging.