Yi Xue Receives NSF CAREER Award to Advance Biomedical Imaging Research

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Yi Xue has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her innovative biomedical imaging research. 

Among the NSF's most esteemed honors, CAREER Awards support early-career faculty who demonstrate potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. 

"I am deeply honored to receive one of the most prestigious and competitive grants for early-career faculty," Xue said. "This award represents recognition of my research and educational leadership." 

Over the next five years, the award will directly support Xue's efforts to develop COSMOS, a novel, multimodal microscopy system to better understand the complex relationship between neurons and blood vessels. Disruptions between these can lead to severe neurological diseases, like Alzheimer's disease and strokes, but the reasons why are not well known due to the inability of current imaging systems to capture neurovascular interactions.

"The proposed multimodal microscopy will be a groundbreaking tool for in vivo imaging of neurovascular coupling, paving the way toward a deeper understanding of the pathologies of Alzheimer's disease and stroke," Xue said.

The award will also help Xue develop educational and professional training activities aimed at strengthening the biophotonics workforce. 

"The CAREER award will serve as a foundation to advance my career as an interdisciplinary researcher and educator, enabling me to help create a transformative field in fluorescence-phase multimodal imaging and to train the next generation of biophotonics scientists."