Current Members
Prof. Mamadou Diop
Medical Biophysics Undergraduate Chair and Associate ProfessorResearch Interests / Specializations: Time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy, diffuse correlation spectroscopy and multichannel derivative-spectroscopy
Biography: Dr Mamadou Diop is the Medical Biophysics Undergraduate Chair and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering. He leads the Translational Biophotonics Lab and is also a Principal Investigator in the Imaging Division of the Lawson Health Research Institute at St. Joseph’s Healthcare London. Dr. Diop received a BSc in Physics from Dakar University (Senegal) and a PhD in Physics from Laval University (Quebec) for his work on colloidal photonic crystals. He subsequently completed a two-year postdoctoral training at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, working on optical trapping of living cells before joining Lawson. Dr Diop’s current research focuses on the development of optical techniques for noninvasive point-of-care neuromonitoring and early detection of sepsis.
Dr. Saeed Samaei
Postdoctoral AssociateResearch Interests / Specializations: Time-resolve near-infrared spectroscopy and diffuse correlation spectroscopy, wearable near-infrared spectroscopy, interferometry
Biography: Saeed Samaei is a Postdoctoral Associate at Western University. His primary research interest lies in the development of non-invasive, light-based instruments and methodologies for assessing human brain functionality. This includes techniques such as diffuse correlation spectroscopy, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and interferometry. At the Translational Biophotonics Lab, Saeed is currently working on developing a wearable wireless NIRS module aimed at neonatal brain monitoring.
Dr. Solaiman Ahmed
Postdoctoral AssociateResearch Interests / Specializations: Time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy, Compress Sensing, Machine learning, signal processing for wearable devices in healthcare monitoring
Biography: Solaiman Ahmed is a Postdoctoral Associate at Western University. His primary research interest lies in developing machine learning and deep learning models for the reconstruction of near-infrared spectroscopy images with compress sensing. At the Translational Biophotonics Lab, Solaiman is currently developing deep learning-based optimization techniques with compress sensing for optical image reconstruction.
Rasa Eskandari
MD-PhD StudentResearch Interests / Specializations: Diffuse optics, neuromonitoring, skeletal muscle
Biography: Rasa Eskandari is an MD-PhD student at Western University. At the Translational Biophotonics Lab, he is currently investigating non-invasive, point-of-care optical approaches for quantifying microcirculatory and mitochondrial function. Rasa is specialized in hyperspectral near-infrared and diffuse correlation spectroscopy for continuous in vivo monitoring of cerebral and peripheral tissues.
Farah Kamar
MD-PhD StudentResearch Interests / Specializations: Critical care, stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), time-resolved NIRS, neuromonitoring
Biography: Farah Kamar is a second-year MD-PhD student at Western University. She is passionate about the clinical translation of new technologies. Farah completed her MSc at Western University using biomedical optics for intraoperative monitoring. She is currently investigating using optical monitoring (namely time-resolved NIRS and diffuse correlation spectroscopy) for monitoring cerebral perfusion, oxygenation, and metabolism in the intensive care unit.
Mohammad Hossein Namazi
MESc StudentResearch Interests / Specializations: Biomedical optics, hyperspectral NIRS, optical modeling, embedded systems, wearable devices, AI in healthcare
Biography: Mohammad Hossein Namazi is a Master's student in Biomedical Engineering at Western University, co-supervised by Dr. Mamadou Diop and Dr. Lauren Flynn. With a multidisciplinary background spanning biomedical signal processing, AI-based health technologies, and medical device development, he is currently developing advanced optical imaging tools integrating hyperspectral NIRS and diffuse correlation spectroscopy to study tissue oxygenation, blood flow, and vascular regeneration. His work bridges biomedical optics with tissue engineering to advance non-invasive assessment methods in regenerative medicine.
Aria Riahi
MSc StudentResearch Interests / Specializations: Computational radiation transport methods, uncertainty quantification, statistical inference, high-performance computing, time-resolved Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.
Biography: Aria is a Master's student in Medical Biophysics at Western University working under Dr. Mamadou Diop in time-resolved diffuse optics. He is currently working on noise models for parameter estimation, high-performance numerical methods for simulating photon transport, and quantification of cerebral oxygen saturation for adults using time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy.
Emma Zhang
MSc StudentResearch Interests / Specializations: Continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy, Time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy, non-invasive imaging
Biography: Emma is a first-year MSc student in the Department of Medical Biophysics at Western University. She is working on using biomedical optics for skeletal muscle monitoring.
