Research Interests
Biomedical ultrasound, diagnostic imaging, medical image quality, ultrasound system design, signal and image processing
Assistant Professor Nick Bottenus' research is focused on developing system-level solutions to problems in diagnostic ultrasound imaging. Ultrasound imaging is used in wide-ranging clinical settings from screening to intervention and follow-up, but the image quality often falls short of doctors' needs for numerous reasons. The human body is a complex acoustic environment that distorts the sound from the ultrasound transducer, producing operator- and patient-dependent image artifacts that can confound diagnosis. His lab develops complementary transducer sampling, acoustic signal processing, and image interpretation methods to more robustly provide doctors with useful information across varied patient populations and applications.
Societal Impact
Modern healthcare depends on high-quality, reliable and accessible medical imaging technologies to inform clinical decision making, both by expert clinicians and computer algorithms.
Select Publications
- Bottenus, N.; "Recovery of the complete data set from focused transmit beams" IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 30-38. Jan. 2018
- Bottenus, N.; Long, W.; Morgan, M; Trahey, G.; "Evaluation of large aperture imaging through the ex vivo human abdominal wall". Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 687-701. Mar. 2018
- Bottenus, N.; Long, W.; Zhang, H.K.; Jakovljevic, M.; Bradway, D.P.; Boctor, E.M.; Trahey, G.E.; "Feasibility of Swept Synthetic Aperture Imaging". IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging vol. 35, no. 7, Jul. 2016
- Bottenus, N.; Ustuner, K.F.; "Acoustic reciprocity of spatial coherence in ultrasound imaging". IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, vol. 62, no. 5, pp.852-861, May 2015
- Bottenus, N.; Byram, B.C.; Dahl, J.J.; Trahey, G.E.; "Synthetic aperture focusing for short-lag spatial coherence imaging". IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, vol. 60, no. 9, pp.1816-1826, Sep. 2013
Select Awards
- 2017 Duke BME Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation
- 2015 SPIE Medical Imaging Robert F. Wagner Best Student Paper Award Finalist
- 2015 SPIE Medical Imaging Cum Laude Poster Award
- 2013 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program - Honorable Mention
- 2011 James B. Duke Graduate Fellowship (Duke University)
