Principal Investigator
Fanny Chapelin is a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Radiology at University of California, San Diego. Fanny received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from University of California, San Diego in 2019. She then became the first woman faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Kentucky where she developed her research program for four years. She has been developing non-invasive imaging techniques to visualize cellular therapies and inflammation in cancer and other immune disorders. Her research findings have led to several publications, and their impact was recognized through numerous awards, including France’s Engineer of the Year Award for Science. Her research aims to provide scientists and clinicians with ways to visualize cell distribution, fate and efficacy to improve clinical practice and patient care. She is the Radiology T32 Clinician-Scientist Residency Program Co-Director.
Email: fachapelin@ucsd.edu
Graduate Students
Yu is a graduate student in the Bioengineering Department at UC San Diego. He earned his B.S. with a major in Biology and a minor in Chemistry from University of Utah. He is interested in the field of solid organ transplantation (SOT) to address the significant challenge of allograft rejection while using novel bioimaging techniques. Outside of the lab, he enjoys exploring new restaurants, hiking and snowboarding.
Email: yuping@ucsd.edu
Interested in using MR imaging to both diagnose cancer and track tumor shrinkage after administering immunotherapy.
Email: emqi@ucsd.edu
Aseel is a Chemical Engineering Masters student at UCSD. She previously completed her B.S. in Chemical & Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado - Boulder. She is interested in developing click-chemistry-based MRI probes designed to enable non-invasive disease detection and immune cell tracking.
Email: amalallah@ucsd.edu
M.S. Bioengineering student, completed B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at The Ohio State University. Interested in applying machine learning to medical image analysis, particularly in automating tumor segmentation from MRI data
Email: emw025@ucsd.edu
Katherine completed her B.S in Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine, and is now a Bioengineering graduate student at UC San Diego. Her interests include using MR imaging for non-invasive cancer diagnosis and for analyzing how radiation therapy and other treatment methods influence tumor response and recurrence.
Email: ksikorski@ucsd.edu
Undergraduate Students
3rd Year Human Biology major. Interested in using MR imaging to advance diabetes imaging and therapy research
Email: lyc004@ucsd.edu
Jacob is an undergraduate in Bioengineering: Biotechnology with interests in nanomedicine and cell-based immunotherapy. As a member of the senior design team, he focuses on advancing in situ nanoparticle delivery to improve the translational potential of immune cell-tracking technologies. Outside the lab, he enjoys playing piano and spending time outdoors, whether hiking or at the beach.
Email: jhoenig@ucsd.edu
Tim is an undergraduate Bioengineering major interested in using MR imaging to analyze tumor microenvironment and incorporating MR imaging techniques with other modalities to improve accuracy in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Email: tkhall@ucsd.edu
Developing click chemistry-based MR imaging probes for non-invasive imaging and cell detection
Email: n1vo@ucsd.edu
Alumni
Past Graduate Students
1. Brock Howerton (PhD) May 2022-July 2025
2. Ajaatshatru Sisodia (MS) Oct 2023- June 2025
3. Kalyani Verma (MS) Oct 2023-June 2024
4. Logan Brown (MS) May 2021-June 2023
5. Ricardo Carbajal (MS) Aug 2021-June 2023
6. Zachary Sweeney, M3 Apr 2021-June 2022
7. Leslie W. Nelson, DO, Radiology PGY3 Apr 2020-June 2023
High-School and Undergraduate Lab Alumni
1. Mario Elias Quicana – REU program May 2025-Aug 2025
2. Amy Madin - ENLACE Program Jun 2025-Aug 2025
3. Guri Yael Zuluaga- ENLACE Program Jun 2025-Aug 2025
4. Harrison Yang, UK BSBME ’25 Apr 2022-July 2025
5. Kellie Poquiz, UCSD BIOE ’27 Jan 2024-July 2024
6. Wenhao Ren, UCSD BIOE ’27 Jan 2024- July 2024
7. Abby Phillips, UK BSBME ’26 Feb 2023- May 2023
8. George Loughrin, UK BSBME ’23 Aug 2022-May 2023
9. Megan Bordner, UK BSBME ’25 Nov 2021-May 2023
10. Andres Phillips, UK BSBME ’25 Nov 2021-May 2023
11. Liza Gossett, UK BSBME ’25 Jan 2021- Aug 2022
12. Songyue Han, UTC MS ’24 Feb 2022-Aug 2022
13. Lauren Ozier, UK BSBME ’24 Nov 2021-June 2022
14. Lara Larson, UK BSME ’24 Jan 2020- Sept 2020
15. Katrina Eterovich, UK BSME ’24 Jan 2020-Jun 2020
16. Jessica Baden, UK BSME ’24 Jan 2020-Jun 2020
17. Danielle Dutton, UK BSME ’24 Jan 2020-Jan 2021
18. Alyssa Gebhardt, Frederick Douglass High School ’20 Jan 2020 - June 2020