Mazdak Abulnaga

PhD Candidate at MIT CSAIL
Stata Center 32-D474
abulnaga AT mit DOT edu
Mazdak Abulnaga

I am a final-year PhD student at MIT CSAIL, advised by Prof. Polina Golland and Prof. Justin Solomon. I am part of the Medical Vision Group and the Geometric Data Processing Group. My research interests are in geometry processing, machine learning, computer vision, and computer graphics applied to medical images. I am excited about developing computational tools to improve healthcare. I collaborate closely with physicians and researchers at the Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital to study the placenta in MRI.

I have been lucky to spend one summer working at Philips Research North America. Prior to joining MIT, I received my Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia (UBC). During my undergraduate studies, I did research in biomedical signal processing and childhood exercise psychology with Guy Dumont (UBC), particle physics with Ruediger Picker (TRIUMF), and medical image analysis with Jerry Prince (JHU).

Outside of research, I am a communication advisor with the MIT EECS Communication Lab, where I provide coaching on technical communication. From 2017-2019, I was a co-president of the EECS Graduate Students Association, where I worked with the department administration and graduate students to foster an inclusive academic and social environment.

I am grateful to be supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the NSERC PGS D, the MathWorks Fellowship, and the Siebel Fellowship.

In my spare time, I enjoy playing basketball and golf.

I am currently on the job market! If you are hiring for research scientist or postdoctoral positions, please reach out.

News

  • Jan 2023: I gave a talk at the Sabuncu Lab, at Cornell Tech.
  • Dec 2022: I successfully defended my thesis!
  • Nov 2022: Our work on symmetric volume mapping is accepted to the ACM Transactions on Graphics journal.
  • Sep 2022: I gave a talk on volumetric mapping problems in geometry processing and medical imaging at the Laboratoire d'Informatique, École Polytechnique.
  • Aug 2022: Our work on automatic segmentation of the placenta in MRI has been accepted to the MICCAI PIPPI workshop.
  • May 2022: I gave a talk on the development of algorithms to study placental health in MRI at the West Africa Conference on AI in Healthcare.

Resources

I am passionate about improving technical communication in science and I am an advocate of improving mentorship of undergraduate students. Below are a few resources on these topics that I've written or co-written.

Mentorship
  • White paper: Best Practices for Undergraduate Mentorship in EECS
Technical Communication
  • Planning your Journal or Conference Paper
  • A Paper Writing Checklist
  • Paper Writing: Results
  • How to Communicate in Grad School
  • Why You Should Be a Professor and How to Become One (a summary from a panel of MIT EECS professors)
  • A Guide to the MIT EECS Qualifying Exam

Research

Symmetric Volume Maps
Symmetric Volume Maps: Order-Invariant Volumetric Mesh Correspondence with Free Boundary
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Oded Stein, Polina Golland, Justin Solomon
arXiv:2202.02568; ACM Transactions on Graphics (to appear), 2023
Paper | Code | BibTeX 
@article{abulnaga2022symmetric,
  title={Symmetric Volume Maps: Order-Invariant Volumetric Mesh Correspondence with Free Boundary},
  author={Abulnaga, S Mazdak and Stein, Oded and Golland, Polina and Solomon, Justin},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.02568},
  year={2022}}
Automatic Segmentation of the Placenta in BOLD MRI Time Series
Automatic Segmentation of the Placenta in BOLD MRI Time Series
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Sean I. Young, Katherine Hobgood, Eileen Pan, Clinton J. Wang, P. Ellen Grant, Esra Abaci Turk, Polina Golland
MICCAI Workshop on Perinatal, Preterm, and Pediatric Image Analysis, 2022.
Paper | Code | BibTeX 
@article{abulnaga2022automatic,
    title={Automatic Segmentation of the Placenta in BOLD MRI Time Series},
    author={Abulnaga, S Mazdak and Young, Sean I and Hobgood, Katherine and Pan, Eileen and Wang, Clinton J and Grant, P Ellen and Turk, Esra Abaci and Golland, Polina},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.02895},
    year={2022}
    }
Volumetric Parameterization of the Placenta to a Flattened Template
Volumetric Parameterization of the Placenta to a Flattened Template
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Esra Abaci Turk, Mikhail Bessmeltsev, P. Ellen Grant, Justin Solomon, Polina Golland
IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 41.4, 2022
Paper | Code | BibTeX 
@article{abulnaga2022volumetric,
    title={Volumetric Parameterization of the Placenta to a Flattened Template},
    author={Abulnaga, S. Mazdak and Abaci Turk, Esra and Bessmeltsev, Mikhail and Grant, P. Ellen and Solomon, Justin and Golland, Polina},
    journal={IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging}, 
    year={2022},
    volume={41},
    number={4},
    pages={925-936}}
Interactive All-Hex Meshing via Cuboid Decomposition
Interactive All-Hex Meshing via Cuboid Decomposition
Lingxiao Li, Paul Zhang, Dmitriy Smirnov, S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Justin Solomon
SIGGRAPH Asia, 2021, Tokyo
Paper | Code | BibTeX 
@article{li2021hex,
  title={Interactive All-Hex Meshing via Cuboid Decomposition},
  author={Li, Lingxiao and Zhang, Paul and Smirnov, Dmitriy and Abulnaga, Mazdak and and Solomon, Justin},
  month={December},
  year={2021},
  journal={ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  publisher={ACM},
  volume={40},
  number={6},
  pages={256:1--256:17}
}
Placental MRI: Effect of maternal position and uterine contractions on placental BOLD MRI measurements
Placental MRI: Effect of maternal position and uterine contractions on placental BOLD MRI measurements
Esra Abaci Turk, S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Jie Luo, Jeffrey N. Stout, Henry A. Feldman, Ata Turk, Borjan Gagoski, Lawrence L. Wald, Elfar Adalsteinsson, Drucilla J. Roberts, Carolina Bibbo, Julian N. Robinson, Polina Golland, P. Ellen Grant, William H. Barth
Placenta, 95, 2020
Paper | BibTeX 
@article{abaciturk2020placental,
  title={Placental {MRI}: Effect of maternal position and uterine contractions on placental {BOLD MRI} measurements},
  author = {Esra {Abaci Turk} and S. Mazdak Abulnaga and Jie Luo and Jeffrey N. Stout and Henry A. Feldman and Ata Turk and Borjan Gagoski and Lawrence L. Wald and Elfar Adalsteinsson and Drucilla J. Roberts and Carolina Bibbo and Julian N. Robinson and Polina Golland and P. Ellen Grant and William H. Barth},
  journal = {Placenta},
  volume = {95},
  pages = {69-77},
  year = {2020}
}
Placental Flattening via Volumetric Parameterization
Placental Flattening via Volumetric Parameterization
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Esra Abaci Turk, Mikhail Bessmeltsev, P. Ellen Grant, Justin Solomon, Polina Golland
International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2019, Shenzhen
Paper | Code | Poster | BibTeX 
@inproceedings{abulnaga2019placental,    
    title={Placental Flattening via Volumetric Parameterization},
    author={Abulnaga, S. Mazdak and Abaci Turk, Esra and Bessmeltsev, Mikhail and Grant, P. Ellen and Solomon, Justin and Golland, Polina},
    booktitle={Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention -- MICCAI 2019},
    year={2019},
    publisher={Springer International Publishing},
    address={Cham},
    pages={39--47}
}
CT-To-MR Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks for Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation
CT-To-MR Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks for Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation
Jonathan Rubin, S. Mazdak Abulnaga
IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2019, Xi'an
Paper | BibTeX 
@inproceedings{rubin2019ct,
    author={Rubin, Jonathan and Abulnaga, S. Mazdak},
    booktitle={2019 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)}, 
    title={CT-To-MR Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks for Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation}, 
    year={2019},
    volume={},
    number={},
    pages={1-7},
    doi={10.1109/ICHI.2019.8904574}
}
Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation in CT Perfusion Scans Using Pyramid Pooling and Focal Loss
Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation in CT Perfusion Scans Using Pyramid Pooling and Focal Loss
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Jonathan Rubin
International MICCAI Brainlesion Workshop, 2018, Granada
Paper | Poster | BibTeX 
@inproceedings{abulnaga2019ischemic,
  author={Abulnaga S. Mazdak, Rubin, Jonathan},
  title={Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation in CT Perfusion Scans Using Pyramid Pooling and Focal Loss},
    booktitle={Brainlesion: Glioma, Multiple Sclerosis, Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injuries},
    year={2019},
    publisher={Springer International Publishing},
    address={Cham},
    pages={352--363}  
}
A toolbox to visually explore cerebellar shape changes in cerebellar disease and dysfunction
A toolbox to visually explore cerebellar shape changes in cerebellar disease and dysfunction
S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Zhen Yang, Aaron Carass, Kalyani Kansal, Bruno M Jedynak, Chiadi U Onyike, Sarah H Ying, Jerry L Prince
SPIE: Medical Imaging, 2016, San Diego
Paper | BibTeX 
@inproceedings{abulnaga2016toolbox,
        title={A toolbox to visually explore cerebellar shape changes in cerebellar disease and dysfunction},
        author={Abulnaga, S Mazdak and Yang, Zhen and Carass, Aaron and Kansal, Kalyani and Jedynak, Bruno M and Onyike, Chiadi U and Ying, Sarah H and Prince, Jerry L},
        booktitle={Medical Imaging 2016: Computer-Aided Diagnosis},
        volume={9785},
        pages={97852P},
        year={2016},
        organization={International Society for Optics and Photonics}
    }
Landmark based shape analysis for cerebellar ataxia classification and cerebellar atrophy pattern visualization
Landmark based shape analysis for cerebellar ataxia classification and cerebellar atrophy pattern visualization
Zhen Yang, S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Aaron Carass, Kalyani Kansal, Bruno M Jedynak, Chiadi U Onyike, Sarah H Ying, Jerry L Prince
SPIE: Medical Imaging, 2016, San Diego
Paper | BibTeX 
@inproceedings{yang2016landmark,
        title={Landmark based shape analysis for cerebellar ataxia classification and cerebellar atrophy pattern visualization},
        author={Yang, Zhen and Abulnaga, S Mazdak and Carass, Aaron and Kansal, Kalyani and Jedynak, Bruno M and Onyike, Chiadi and Ying, Sarah H and Prince, Jerry L},
        booktitle={Medical Imaging 2016: Image Processing},
        volume={9784},
        pages={97840P},
        year={2016},
        organization={International Society for Optics and Photonics}
    }
Assessment of a mobile game (“MobileKids Monster Manor”) to promote physical activity among children
Evaluation of a Novel Mobile Exergame in a School-Based Environment
Ainara Garde, Aryannah Umedaly, S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Anne Junker, Jean Pierre Chanoine, Mika Johnson, J. Mark Ansermino, Guy Dumont
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2016, 19.3
Assessment of a mobile game (“MobileKids Monster Manor”) to promote physical activity among children
Ainara Garde, Aryannah Umedaly, S. Mazdak Abulnaga, Leah Robertson, Anne Junker, Jean Pierre Chanoine, J. Mark Ansermino, Guy Dumont
Games for Health Journal, 4.2, 2015
Paper