Richard Thompson, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

magnetic resonance imaging MRI physics cardiac fat exercise

About

Dr. Richard Thompson is currently appointed as Professor in the Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and cross-appointed as Professor in the  Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Education: BSc in Engineering Physics from the University of Alberta (1989-1993), PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Alberta (1994-1999) and a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA - 2000-2003). 

Research

See Google Scholar for a full list of publications (https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=zjtJ11EAAAAJ&hl=en)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a highly programmable non-invasive imaging technology that plays a critical role in routine clinical practice with a large vibrant research field that constantly brings new contrast mechanisms and innovations (rapid imaging, artificial intelligence, ...) to the medical imaging landscape.   My lab develops new imaging methods, from first principles, with applications in cardiac imaging, imaging of tissue fibrosis, imaging of the lungs, imaging of blood flow, imaging of fat, imaging with exercise challenge and a host of other targeted areas.  We apply these methods with clinical and basic science collaborators for the study of heart failure, diabetes, obesity, aging, cancer therapy toxicity, long COVID and other diseases to aid in the understanding of disease mechanisms, improve diagnosis and to aid the design of new therapies.          

Teaching

BME 564 Fundamentals of MRI (co-instructor with Dr. Christian Beaulieu)

MRI graduate student (MSc/PhD) projects are suitable for a wide range of multi-disciplinary backgrounds including past students with undergraduate degrees in engineering (e.g. biomedical, electrical, computer), physics (including medical physics), biology, medicine, computing science, physiology, etc. The MRI projects can be on developing and/or optimizing new pulse sequences and methods (i.e. MRI physics and programming), image processing and analysis (e.g. big data), and/or human clinical and healthy development/aging studies using existing methods/protocols. If you are interested and would like to learn more about being a summer student, graduate student or postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Thompson's lab, please email him. Learn more about the power and diversity of MRI from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (www.ismrm.org).

BME 564 - Fundamentals of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI

Designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students requiring a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of imaging by means of nuclear magnetic resonance, NMR. Topics include the principles of NMR as applied to imaging, image processing, imaging techniques for achieving specific types of contrast, image artefacts, and typical applications. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

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