Hengyong Yu Elected Fellow of the IEEE and AAPM

Prof. Hengyong Yu of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

“I am honored to receive these two prestigious awards,” says Yu. “They are a significant milestone achievement for a researcher in the field of biomedical imaging.” According to Yu, he is the first faculty member at UMass Lowell to be awarded fellowships by both organizations. 

The IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing electrical and electronics technologies for the benefit of humanity. “The IEEE Fellowship is a distinction reserved for select members who have made extraordinary accomplishments in the field. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected annually for this elevation in status,” notes Yu. 

The AAPM is a scientific, educational and professional organization of medical physicists. “Very few AAPM members are elected fellows, and it’s a very competitive process,” says Yu.

The IEEE recognized Yu for his “contribution to tomographic image reconstruction,” while the AAPM cited him for his “distinguished contributions to medical physics.”

Last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Yu two grants totaling $4.7 million to support his research on using artificial intelligence, especially machine learning and algorithms, to improve CT scans.

Yu received $2.3 million to develop a computer program for a new generation of CT scanners based on “photon-counting computed tomography” technology. His project aims to enhance photon-counting CT scans by using the power of AI – particularly, deep-learning algorithms and artificial neural networks – for 3D color CT imaging. His collaborators include researchers from MARS Bioimaging Ltd. in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Yu is also leading a team of researchers from UMass Lowell, Rensselaer and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, to develop technology that aims to greatly improve cardiac CT scans, also known as coronary CT angiography. This imaging test is currently used by doctors to diagnose cardiovascular diseases so that timely, life-saving treatment and preventive measures can be implemented. The project is supported by a four-year grant worth more than $2.4 million from NIH. Yu and the research team are developing a new image-reconstruction algorithm based on AI that would effectively “freeze” the beating of the heart in CT images.

Yu, who joined UMass Lowell in 2014, currently serves as director of the university’s Imaging and Informatics Lab and the UMass Consortium for Research on Imaging and Informatics at the Lowell and Worcester campuses. To date, he has mentored or is mentoring 33 Ph.D. students, 19 postdoctoral fellows and visiting professors and 10 master’s degree students and undergraduate interns. 

Prof. Ge Wang, director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, nominated Yu for the IEEE and AAPM fellowships. Wang first met Yu at a conference in Beijing in 2002. Two years later, Yu joined Wang’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow and later became an independent researcher. 

“He is the best alumnus in my lab and one of my closest collaborators,” says Wang. “I consider him the best tomographic imaging researcher in the middle career stage.”

According to Wang, this is demonstrated by Yu’s 200-plus peer-reviewed journal papers (with over 10,000 Google Scholar citations), as well as more than 20 funded research projects as principal investigator or co-PI, with a total budget of more than $25 million.

“Prof. Yu has been performing first-rate research and teaching and has demonstrated great leadership in the biomedical imaging field,” Wang says.