Faculty and Staff
John D. Hazle, Ph.D.
Core Director
Dr. Hazle is a Professor and Chair of the Department 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. Dr. Hazle got his Ph.D. from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Biophysics and has published over 150 papers. SAIF was established due to Dr. Hazle’s tireless efforts to bring pre-clinical imaging to MD Anderson. He has been Director of the facility since its inception. Dr. 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. Dr. Hazle is responsible for the overall direction of the facility, and he routinely consults with SAIF users and research faculty at MD Anderson, locally and abroad on the use of imaging in cancer research.
James A. Bankson, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Dr. Bankson is a Professor in the Department 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. Dr. Bankson received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M and has authored over 100 publications. Dr. Bankson 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 Roger’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. Dr. 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