Imran Avci received her PhD degree from the Integrated Optical Microsytems Group at the University of Twente, The Netherlands in 2012. During her PhD research, she applied her strong integrated optics knowledge into an emerging imaging modality, i.e. optical coherence tomogprahy (OCT) to reduce the cost and size of these bulky systems. Between 2013-2015 she was a postdoctoral researcher at Prof. Yun’s research lab at Harvard Medical School.
She worked on a novel functional imaging system called OCT vibrography for assessing corneal biomechanical properties. In 2015, she received VENI grant and came back to the Netherlands as a post-doctoral researcher at the Academic Medical Center (AMC). In 2016, she received Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship. She is a tenured associate professor at the VU University Amsterdam, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Biophotonics and Medical Imaging Group.
Imran Avci | Biophotonics & Medical Imaging section | Department of Physics and Astronomy
Research Description
Her group develops integrated photonic circuits for optical and biomedical applications, including a new low-loss optical waveguide technology with a small footprint. This technology is applied mainly in optical biosensing, where inexpensive disposable point-of-care sensors are developed to detect tumor biomarkers in blood as part of the COMB-O Project, and in optical imaging, where components for Optical Coherence Tomography and fluorescence imaging are created. The group also studies cell and tissue mechanics using techniques such as confocal microscopy, optical interferometry, and acoustic resonance spectroscopy. Ongoing work further improves waveguide technology for applications in neuromorphic computation and neuroscience.
