Grace A McIlvain, PhD

Dr. Grace McIlvain is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and radiology. She conducts research in quantitative medical imaging techniques and applications.

Dr. McIlvain's laboratory focuses on the development of a technique called magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), which is a noninvasive MRI method for assessing the mechanical properties of soft tissues. MRE has many applications for understanding neurodegenerative disease, traumatic brain injury, and tumor pathology. Dr. McIlvain is known for her contributions in the development of pediatric brain MRE techniques, including developing fast acquisition and motion robust MRE imaging. She uses her techniques to characterize tissue mechanical properties of the developing brain and neurodevelopmental pathology.

The goal of her lab is to advance quantitative brain imaging techniques for studying tissue mechanical properties noninvasively. The lab designs MR compatible hardware, works on MR sequence programing, uses machine learning for image analysis, and conducts mechanical testing of tissue. They apply their techniques in a clinical setting through partnership with the Department of Radiology's MRI Center at the Neurological Institute of New York. They also use their techniques to study brain mechanical development in healthy children in collaboration with Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Behavior Institute.

Dr. McIlvain has an MBA and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Delaware. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, and she is a Junior Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

For a full list of Dr. McIlvain's publications, visit Google Scholar.