Lab Members

Linda Azab graduated from George Mason University with a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering. Throughout her senior year at Mason, she developed an interest in the magnetic resonance imaging research field.

Junzhou Chen, PhD, is a postdoctoral scientist in the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He holds a PhD in bioengineering from UCLA and a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering with distinction from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He develops machine learning and computational methods for medical imaging, designs efficient MRI reconstruction algorithms and contributes to image processing and analysis for translational research studies. He also collaborates across multidisciplinary teams to improve imaging methodologies and support clinical innovation.

Zengtian Deng received his BS in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2018 and his MS in biomedical engineering from Duke University in 2020. He is currently a PhD candidate in bioengineering at UCLA and a visiting graduate student at Cedars-Sinai. His research focuses on medical imaging and AI, with an emphasis on deep learning and radiomics for abdominal aging and disease prediction.

Garima Diwan is a Clinical Research Data Specialist I in the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai. She holds a master of science in magnetic resonance in medicine from the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Sciences Graduate School and a bachelor of science in radio-imaging technology from SGT University, India. In her role, she supports imaging-based clinical research by managing clinical data, maintaining research databases and ensuring data quality and integrity. She also works with medical imaging data and contributes to image processing and post-processing for research studies.

Chang Gao is a older person research scientist at Siemens and is currently on-site in the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute (BIRI) at Cedars-Sinai, where she supports collaborative research with the team. Her work focuses on advanced diffusion imaging and deep learning-based reconstruction methods for body MRI, with an emphasis on accelerating clinical translation. She earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from Tsinghua University and completed her PhD in physics and biology in medicine at UCLA.

Yifan Gao is an MD candidate at Tsinghua University and a visiting scholar in the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute (BIRI). His research focuses on AI-driven medical image reconstruction and MRI-based modeling of human lifespan trajectories.

Yimeng He is a Research Associate I at the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute. He holds a master of science in applied mathematics and statistics from Johns Hopkins University. His current research focuses on developing clinically useful AI methods that extract quantitative, decision-relevant information from medical images to support diagnosis, prognosis and treatment planning.

Hsu-Lei Lee, PhD, received her doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. She has been working on MRI pulse sequence design and image analysis for cardiovascular imaging, resting-state functional MRI and rodent brain imaging. Lee is currently an MR physicist at the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, where she focuses on technical development for human and small animal MRI. 

Min is a project scientist specializing in diagnostic imaging and image analysis. She earned her MD in China and practiced as a radiologist for seven years. She has worked in neuroscience research since 2012 in fields including functional MRI and pediatric brain imaging. Her current research focuses on using advanced imaging techniques to predict cancer risks and outcomes. She also explores the application of AI in oncology.

Milos Vukadinovic received his bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science at American University in Bulgaria in 2022. He is currently a PhD student in bioengineering at UCLA. His current research focuses on AI for echocardiography, self-supervised learning and video generation methods.

Kexin Wang is a postdoctoral scientist in Dr. Li's lab specializing in noninvasive metabolic MRI. She holds a PhD in biomedical engineering and an MHS in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University, as well as a BS in physics from Fudan University. Her research focuses on developing CEST imaging sequences and applying deep learning to improve metabolic signal quantification.

Yufeng Wang received his bachelor’s degree from Shandong University and his master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2023. He is currently a PhD student at Cedars-Sinai, where his research focuses on abdominal imaging and aging-related studies.

Lujing Xing received her bachelor’s degree from Peking University and is currently a PhD student in bioengineering at UCLA. Her current research interests include quantitative cardiac BOLD MRI and AI-driven medical imaging.

Lisha Zeng received her bachelor’s degrees from University of California, Irvine (UCI) in 2020 and her MS in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2023. She is currently a PhD candidate in bioengineering at UCLA, where her research focuses on AI-driven medical imaging, with particular emphasis on carotid and intracranial vessel wall MRI.

Yi Zheng received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University and is currently pursuing a PhD in bioengineering at UCLA. His research interests include abdominal diffusion MRI, carotid plaque imaging and deep learning-based image reconstruction and postprocessing.

Yunfan Zou earned her bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and food engineering at Technion in 2022 and her master's degree in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2024. She is currently a PhD student in bioengineering at UCLA, where her research focuses on CEST MRI.