Announcements
We’re Hiring: Senior Postdoctoral Fellow / Research Associate in Biomedical Optics
The Translational Biophotonics Lab at Western University is seeking a highly motivated researcher with expertise in time-resolved optical spectroscopy.
What you’ll do:
✅ Lead projects using SNSPDs for broadband time-resolved spectroscopy
✅ Develop advanced analysis tools in MATLAB/Python
✅ Publish high-impact research and contribute to grant writing
✅ Help mentor undergraduate and graduate students
What we’re looking for:
✔ Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, Medical Biophysics, Physics, or related field
✔ Strong background in time-resolved spectroscopy
✔ Hands-on experience with SNSPDs or time-correlated single-photon counting
✔ Excellent programming and writing skills
Position Details:
📍 Location: Western University, London, Ontario
💰 Salary: Commensurate with experience + full benefits
📅 Start Date: Immediate
Apply now: Send your CV, cover letter, and references to Dr Mamadou Diop (mdiop@uwo.ca)
Upcoming Events
Come back for new updates soon!
Past Events
December, 2025 - Campus Conversations with Student Leaders
Farah Kamar joined President Alan Shepard along with other student leaders to reflect on their journeys at Western University. Their conversation can be accessed here.
October, 2025 - Halloween
Our team celebrated halloween dressed as the characters of the Super Mario franchise.
October, 2025 - WestNIRS 2025
Mamadou Diop and Farah Kamar presented at WestNIRS 2025, which was hosted at Western University in London, ON, Canada. Farah was awarded best poster presentation.
- Mamadou's public lecture: Beyond fNIRS: The untapped potential of tissue spectroscopy
- Farah's oral talk: Feasibility of using hybrid NIRS/DCS to measure changes in cerebral blood flow and volume pulsatility
- Farah's poster: Feasibility of using hybrid NIRS/DCS to measure changes in cerebral blood flow and volume pulsatility
September, 2025 - Neurocritical Care Society 23rd Annual Meeting
Farah Kamar presented her work at the Neurocritical Care Society 23rd Annual Meeting, which was hosted in Montreal, QC, Canada.
- Farah's poster: Hybrid optical system for noninvasive longitudinal monitoring of dynamic cerebral blood flow, oxygenation, and pulsatility
August, 2025 - 2025 Meeting of the International Society of Oxygen Transport to Tissue
Mamadou Diop and Keith St. Lawrence (mMILAB) presented the work of Rasa Eskandari and Saeed Samaei at the 2025 Meeting of the International Society of Oxygen Transport to Tissue, which was hosted in Thessaloniki, Greece.
- Rasa's oral talk (delivered by Mamadou): Combined use of broadband continuous-wave and discrete-wavelength time-resolved NIRS to quantify cytochrome-c-oxidase
- Saeed's poster (delivered by Mamadou): Wearable and cost-effective near-infrared spectroscopy device for low-resource settings
- Saeed's oral talk (delivered by Keith): Optical monitoring of cerebral perfusion and metabolism during surgery
August, 2025 - Novo Nordisk Visit
Rasa Eskandari spent two weeks in Måløv, Denmark, as a visiting researcher at Novo Nordisk. This work contributes to a collaboration between Novo Nordisk and Western University (Mamadou Diop & Christopher G. Ellis).
June, 2025 - 42nd Annual Symposium of the National Neurotrauma Society
Farah Kamar presented her work at the 42nd Annual Symposium of the National Neurotrauma Society, which was hosted in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Farah's work was selected as a top-20 abstract, and she received a travel award.
- Farah's pitch and poster: Towards non-invasive longitudinal monitoring of cerebral oxygenation, blood flow, and metabolism in the ICU
June, 2025 - London Imaging Discovery Day 2025
Farah Kamar and Natalie Li presented their work at London Imaging Discovery Day 2025, which was hosted at King's University College in London, ON, Canada. Natalie was awarded top oral presentation.
- Farah's oral talk: Towards non-invasive longitudinal monitoring of cerebral oxygenation, blood flow, and metabolism in the ICU
- Natalie's oral talk: Hyperspectral time-resolved compressive sensing spectroscopy for monitoring adult brain tissue health
May, 2025 - 2025 London Health Research Day
Zoë Holliday, Ghali El Hajoui, and Emma Zhang presented their work at the 2025 London Health Research Day, which was hosted at Western University in London, ON, Canada. Emma was awarded top 40 poster presentation.
- Zoe's poster: Assessing the utility of continuous-wave hyperspectral near-infrared spectroscopy for detecting cytochrome-c-oxidase in tissue-mimicking phantoms
- Ghali's poster: Assessing cytochrome-c-oxidase redox state using five-wavelength near-infrared spectroscopy
- Emma's poster: Quantifying optical pathlength in tissue using low-coherence interferometry and NIRS
April, 2025 - Optica Biophotonics Congress
Mamadou Diop gave two talks at the 2025 Optica Biophotonics Congress, which was hosted in Coronado, CA, United States.
- Mamadou's first talk: Advances in non-invasive optical monitoring of cerebral and peripheral microcirculation in translational models of sepsis and high intracranial pressure
- Mamadou's second talk: Time-Resolved near-infrared spectroscopy, diffuse correlation spectroscopy, and multichannel derivative-spectroscopy for cerebral microcirculation monitoring
April, 2025 - CSCI-CITAC Annual Joint Meeting 2025
Rasa Eskandari participated in the 2025 Annual Joint Meeting of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation (CSCI) and the Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada (CITAC), which was hosted in Toronto, ON, Canada. Rasa and other Western MD-PhD students, photographed alongside him above, all presented their graduate research.
- Rasa's e-poster and pitch: Optical biomarkers for early detection of sepsis-related microcirculatory impairment
March, 2025 - Western's Spring Open House
Dr. Diop attended Western's Spring Open House along with Drs. Eugene Wong, Jeff Frisbee, and Ian MacDonald to represent the Medical Biophysics program.
March, 2025 - Medical Biophysics Research Day 2025
Sophie Niculescu, Emma Zhang, Ghali El Hajoui, and Zoë Holliday presented their work at Medical Biophysics Research Day 2025, which was hosted in London, ON, Canada. Zoe was awarded 1st place for her poster presentation, and Sophie was awarded 2nd place for her three-minute thesis (3MT) presentation.
- Sophie's 3MT and poster: Accuracy of hyperspectral near-infrared spectroscopy in measuring tissue water content
- Emma's poster: Quantifying optical pathlength in tissue using low-coherence interferometry and NIRS
- Ghali's poster: Assessing cytochrome-c-oxidase redox state using five-wavelength near-infrared spectroscopy
- Zoë's poster: Assessing the utility of continuous-wave hyperspectral near-infrared spectroscopy for detecting cytochrome c-oxidase in tissue-mimicking phantoms
February, 2025 - Mamadou's Birthday
We took a break from our weekly lab meeting to celebrate Mamadou's birthday with a Mamadou-themed cake!
January, 2025 - SPIE Photonics West 2025
Mamadou Diop, Rasa Eskandari, Natalie Li, Farah Kamar, Saeed Samaei, Sophie Niculescu, and Eileen Oh presented their work at the SPIE Photonics West 2025 conference, which was hosted in San Francisco, CA, United States.
- Mamadou's invited talk: Recent advances in low-cost tissue oximetry: principles, technologies, and applications
- Rasa's invited talk: Optical biomarkers for sepsis-related microcirculatory impairment
- Natalie's oral talk: Compressive illumination architecture for hyperspectral time-resolved near-infrared tissue spectroscopy
- Farah's oral talk: Reproducibility of a hybrid time-resolved NIRS/DCS system: towards daily cerebral metabolism monitoring in the ICU
- Saeed's oral talk: Cost-effective neonatal cerebral oximeter for low-resource settings
- Sophie's oral talk: Effects of epidermal pigmentation on the accuracy of hyperspectral versus commercial near-infrared spectroscopy tissue oximeters
- Eileen's oral talk: Absorption properties of chromophores and light scatterers in tissue-mimicking phantoms
December, 2024 - Early Sepsis Detection
Our latest publication on the development of a non-invasive, point-of-care tool for early detection of microvascular dysfunction in sepsis, which was led by Rasa Eskandari, was featured in Wiley's Research Headlines and several news outlets:
October, 2024 - Halloween
Our team celebrated halloween dressed as the characters of Inside Out 2. We also had an fNIRS themed pumpkin!
October, 2024 - Quantum Biosensor
Our Quantum Biophotonics project was featured in the stories of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). This project leverages technologies previously developed for quantum communication and other quantum physics applications to develop a state-of-the-art bedisde neuromonitoring device. This research is a three-party collaboration between our lab (Dr. Mamadou Diop and Natalie Li), Dr. Duncan England (NRC), and Thomas Jennewein (U. Waterloo).
October, 2024 - Cerebrovascular Research Network 2024
Farah Kamar presented her work at the 2024 annual meeting of the Cerebrovascular Research Network (CARNet 2024), which was hosted at Université Laval in Québec City, QC, Canada.
- Farah's poster: Hybrid optical system for non-invasive monitoring of dynamic cerebral blood flow and metabolism
September, 2024 - fNIRS 2024
Rasa Eskandari, Farah Kamar, Saeed Samaei, and Natalie Li presented their work at the fNIRS 2024 conference, which was hosted at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
- Rasa's poster: Early Detection of Sepsis-Related Microvascular Dysfunction with NIRS
- Farah's poster: Assessing the Reproducibility of a Hybrid Time-Resolved NIRS/DCS System for Daily Hemodynamic ICU Monitoring
- Saeed's poster: Wearable Wireless NIRS Module for Resource-Constrained Settings
- Natalie's poster: Hyperspectral Time-Resolved Near-infrared Spectroscopy Technique for Adult Neuromonitoring
August, 2024 - 2024 Faculty of Engineering Summer Research Symposium
Sophie Niculescu and Redwan Haque presented their recent work at the 2024 Faculty of Engineering Summer Research Symposium, which was hosted at Western University in London, ON, Canada. Sophie was awarded 3rd place for her poster presentation.
- Sophie's poster: Effects of Epidermal Pigmentation on the Accuracy of Hyperspectral vs Commercial Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Tissue Oximeters
- Redwan's poster: Minimum Spectral Resolution for Hyperspectral Continuous-Wave Near-infrared Tissue Spectroscopy
August, 2024 - 2024 Clinician Scientist Trainee Symposium
Rasa Eskandari and Farah Kamar participated in the three-minute thesis (3MT) competition at the Clinician Scientist Trainee Symposium, which was hosted at Western University in London, ON, Canada. Rasa was awarded 1st place for his 3MT presentation.
- Rasa's 3MT: A frugal light-based approach for early sepsis detection
- Farah's 3MT: Can optics enlighten the path to early brain injury?
May, 2024 - 2024 Canadian Association of Physicists Congress
Rasa Eskandari, Farah Kamar, Saeed Samaei, Sophie Niculescu, and Redwan Haque presented their recent work at 2024 Canadian Association of Physicists Congress, which was hosted in London, ON, Canada. Farah was awared best oral presentation in the Division of Physics in Medicine and Biology, while being recognized as top-8 presenter overall.
- Rasa's oral talk: Non-invasive Optical Monitoring of Peripheral and Cerebral Vasomotion in Early Sepsis
- Farah's oral talk: Low-Frequency Oscillations in Cerebral Microvascular Perfusion, Oxygenation, and Metabolism in Mild-Cognitive Impairment Patients
- Saeed's poster: Wearable Light-Based Hemodynamic Monitoring Device for Low Resource Settings
- Sophie's poster: Effects of Epidermal Pigmentation on the Accuracy of Cerebral Oximeters
- Redwan's oral talk: Assessing Indocyanine Green as a Chromophore for Near-infrared Spectroscopy Tissue-Mimicking Phantoms
May, 2024 - 2024 London Health Research Day
Saeed Samaei presented his work at 2024 London Health Research Day, which was hosted in London, ON, Canada.
- Saeed's poster: Developing a Light-Based Technology for Monitoring Cerebral Hemodynamics and Metabolism during Surgery
April, 2024 - Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024
Rasa Eskandari and Farah Kamar presented their recent work at Optica Biophotonic Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024, which was hosted in Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States.
- Rasa's oral talk: Asessing Progressive Microvascular Dysfunction in Early Sepsis with Non-invasive Optical Spectroscopy
- Farah's oral talk: Low-Frequency Oscillations in Cerebral Macro- and Microvascular Perfusion, Oxygenation, and Metabolism in Mild-Cognitive Impairment Patients During Stroop Task
November, 2023 - Critical Care Canada 2023 Forum
Rasa Eskandari and Farah Kamar presented their recent work at Critical Care Canada 2023 Forum, which was hosted in Toronto, ON, Canada.
- Rasa's e-poster and pitch: Continuous Monitoring of Microvascular Function and Perfusin in Early Sepsis with Non-invasive Optical Spectroscopy
- Farah's e-poster and pitch: Effects of Multiple Intravenous Administrations of Phenylephrine on Scalp and Brain Blood Oxygenation: A Pilot Study with a Full-Head Coverage Time-Resolved Near-infrared Spectroscopy Device
October, 2023 - WestNIRS 2023
Saeed Samaei and Farah Kamar presented their recent work at WestNIRS 2023, which was hosted in London, ON, Canada.
- Saeed's invited talk: Emerging Light-Based Techniques for Cerebral Blood Flow Monitoring
- Farah's poster: Assessing the Sensitivity of a High-Density, Time-Resolved Near-infrared Spectroscopy Device to Hemodynamic Challenges
September, 2023 - Sepsis Canada 2023 Scientific Meeting
Rasa Eskandari presented his recent work at Sepsis Canada 2023 Scientific Meeting.
- Rasa's poster: Continuous Monitoring of Microcirculatory Deterioration in Septic Rats with Non-invasive Optical Spectroscopy
September, 2023 - Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesia and Critical Care (SNACC) 2023 Annual Meeting
Farah Kamar presented her recent work at Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesia and Critical Care (SNACC) 2023 Annual Meeting, which was hosted as a virtual meeting.
