Research Scientist, Biomedical Optics, Levi Lab

Research Scientist, Biomedical Optics, SWIR Imaging, and Burn-Wound Assessment, Levi Lab WHY UT SOUTHWESTERN?

With over 75 years of excellence in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, UT Southwestern is committed to excellence, innovation, teamwork, and compassion. As a world-renowned medical and research center, we strive to provide the best possible care, resources, and benefits for our valued employees. Ranked as the number 1 hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth according to U.S. News & World Report, we invest in you with opportunities for career growth and development to align with your future goals.

Our highly competitive benefits package offers healthcare, PTO and paid holidays, on-site childcare, wage, merit increases and so much more. We invite you to be a part of the UT Southwestern team where you'll discover a culture of teamwork, professionalism, and a rewarding career!

Plans, coordinates, directs, and participates in work of smaller research project or major unit of large research project in field of specialization for which incumbent is particularly qualified in terms of extensive training and/or experience.

The Levi Laboratory seeks a Research Scientist to lead the development and translational application of optical imaging technologies for objective assessment of skin viability, burn-wound depth, tissue composition, and healing. The laboratory integrates visible, near-infrared (NIR), and short-wave infrared (SWIR) imaging with porcine injury models, human clinical studies, quantitative histology, biostatistics, and machine learning.

The successful candidate will design, build, calibrate, operate, and refine multispectral imaging systems; acquire high-quality images in laboratory, animal, operating-room, and clinical environments; develop reproducible image-processing and classification pipelines; and correlate optical measurements with histopathology and clinical assessments. The position requires the ability to bridge optical engineering, tissue optics, image analysis, experimental biology, and clinical translation. A commitment of at least two years is preferred.

• Multispectral SWIR reflectance imaging of burn wounds using the laboratory's SWIR assessment platform and bands centered near 1200, 1650, 1940, and 2250 nm for sensitivity to water, lipids, collagen, and tissue scattering.
• Objective differentiation of superficial, deep partial-thickness, and full-thickness burns, including identification of wounds likely to require operative debridement or grafting.
• Translation of a SWIR assessment platform from tissue phantoms and porcine burn models to imaging of human patients in the operating room.
• Co-registration of visible, multispectral optical, histologic, and clinical data to establish reliable biological and clinical ground truth.
• Development of reflectance indices, quantitative optical-property maps, statistical classifiers, and machine-learning models for tissue viability and burn-depth prediction.
• Expansion toward hyperspectral imaging, spatial frequency domain imaging, tissue spectroscopy, fluorescence imaging, and other emerging SWIR biomedical technologies when scientifically appropriate.

• Design, assemble, align, and maintain visible, NIR, multispectral SWIR, or hyperspectral imaging systems using broadband or wavelength-specific sources, diffusers, collimators, dichroic optics, bandpass filters, filter wheels, lenses, apertures, spectrometers, and silicon, germanium, or In Ga As  detectors.
• Select wavelengths, optical components, acquisition geometry, exposure or integration times, gain, working distance, field of view, spatial resolution, and illumination parameters based on tissue optical properties and the intended biological measurement.
• Calibrate imaging systems using reflectance standards, dark and white references, tissue-simulating phantoms, and wavelength-appropriate correction procedures; characterize illumination uniformity, detector response, noise, repeatability, drift, and signal-to-noise ratio.
• Develop and execute standardized imaging protocols for tissue phantoms, ex vivo samples, in vivo porcine burn models, and human burn patients, including operating-room workflows that maintain safety, sterility, patient privacy, and minimal disruption to clinical care.
• Acquire synchronized visible and SWIR images or videos and accurately document image settings, subject positioning, anatomical location, burn timing, treatment status, calibration data, and relevant environmental variables.
• Perform image preprocessing, including bad-pixel and dark-current correction, flat-field or reference normalization, frame averaging, denoising, motion correction, distortion correction, image registration, segmentation, and quality-control review.
• Define and track anatomically matched regions of interest across visible images, SWIR wavelength bands, serial time points, surgical markings, biopsies, and histologic sections.
• Quantify wavelength-specific and normalized reflectance,…