Faculty and Staff
John D. Hazle, Ph.D.
Core Director
John Hazle is professor and chair of Imaging Physics and holds the Bernard W. Biedenharn Chair in Cancer Research. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Radiology. Hazle earned his Ph.D. from the The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in biophysics and has published more than 150 papers. SAIF was established due to Hazle’s tireless efforts to bring pre-clinical imaging to UT MD Anderson. He has been director of the facility since its inception. Hazle has been awarded a number of research grants, including the Small Animal Imaging Resource Program grant that established our Experimental Cancer Imaging Research Program (ECIRP: U24-CA126577) in 2007 to provide additional resources for the development of preclinical imaging technologies and their deployment as routine tools for biomedical research. Hazle is responsible for the overall direction of the facility, and he routinely consults with SAIF users and research faculty at UT MD Anderson, locally and abroad on the use of imaging in cancer research.
James A. Bankson, Ph.D.
Co-Director
James Bankson is a professor of Imaging Physics and serves as the co-director of SAIF and PI of the Magnetic Resonance Systems Laboratory. He is an electrical engineer by training, with specialization in magnetic resonance instrumentation and engineering, signal and image processing, RF engineering, and electromagnetic field theory. Bankson received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M and has authored more than 100 publications. He helped establish SAIF and was closely involved with the Magnetic Resonance Core since the arrival of the 4.7 T system in 2001. He succeeded Dr. Roger Price as co-director of SAIF, following Price's retirement in 2005. His academic focus is on quantitative imaging methods, most recently including the development of new infrastructure and methods for imaging hyperpolarized substrates. Bankson leads the SAIF MR Service, oversees routine operations, and coordinates with SAIF users and core leaders to ensure appropriate planning, execution, analysis, interpretation and description of imaging experiments in grants and publications.
Kiersten Maldonado
Laboratory Coordinator
Vivien Van
Sr Imaging Research Technician
Jennifer Meyer
Sr Imaging Research Technician
Emily Newsom
Imaging Research Technician
Mark Cabrera
Imaging Research Technician