Dr. Kai E. Thomenius, PhD of Massachusetts General & Brigham Hospital

Development of ultrasound technology began in the early 1950s and has continued at a fast pace to the present day. In this talk I will review some of this process with the goal of setting up the stage for consideration of the next stages. I have opted to split ultrasound development chronology into separate stages by the nature of the electronics (analog, digital, or software) and, to a lesser degree, by the design of arrays (single element, linear arrays, curved arrays, two dimensional arrays). This talk will consider possible near term futures gained from extrapolation from present experience particularly with newer areas such as software beamformation. One hopefully interesting recommendation that arises from this is aimed at research on improved understanding of sound/tissue interactions and how these may introduce an upper limit on performance of ultrasound scanners. This type of research may include work on understanding of limits to further improvements of spatial or contrast resolution and on the extension of clinical applications.

Biography:

Dr. Thomenius received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and physiology from Rutgers University, New Brunswic, New Jersey in 1968, 1970, and 1978, respectively. 

His background includes teaching and research at Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and MIT.  He has held industry positions in medical ultrasound since 1976 for several ultrasound companies, most recently GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY, where he was a Chief Technologist in the Imaging Technologies.  Currently Dr. Thomenius is a consultant for CURT at Massachusetts General & Brigham.  His work has centered on ultrasound systems design, beam formation, miniaturization of ultrasound scanners, and ultrasound bioeffects.  

Dr. Thomenius is a Fellow of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM).  He is a member of the editorial board of the Ultrasconic Imaging and has served as a reviewer of grant proposals for the NIH and DoD, and of articles for several ultrasound journals.  He serves in the Technical Program Committees for several symposia.    He is the 2018 winner of AIUM's Joseph H. Holmes Pioneer Award and has been designated as the Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE UFFC Society for 2022-2023.

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