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Qifa Zhou

Zohrab A. Kaprielian Fellow in Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology

Education

  • 1993, Doctoral Degree, Material Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University



Biography

Qifa Zhou received his Ph. D. degree from the Department of Electronic Materials and Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University, China in 1993. He is currently Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology in the USC Keck School of Medicine as well as the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.

He is also one of the leading principle investigators at the NIH Resource Center on Medical Transducer Technology. Dr. Zhou has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Nature Medicine, Scientific Reports and Progress in Materials Science, and is a fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

He is a member of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, and is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.  He was the co-author of a paper that received the best student paper competition award at the 2010 IEEE IUS conference and the best poster paper in photoacoustics plus ultrasound at the 2015 SPIE Photonics West conference.



Research Summary

Dr. Qifa Zhou has developed high frequency ultrasound composite and single crystal ultrasound transducers and arrays, fabricated by MEMS technology for various biomedical imaging applications. His lab is the first to have developed high sensitivity PMN-PT single crystal transducers for ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging, including intravascular imaging, cancer imaging and ophthalmic imaging. He and his collaborators have been developing a novel imaging tool for characterizing elastic properties of retinal and corneal tissue by acoustic radiation force induced optical coherence electrography. His lab is also investigating high resolution ultrasonic elastographic imaging techniques using high frequency ultrasound. He is also actively exploring ultrasonic mediated therapeutic technology including trans-sclera drug delivery, as well as ultrasound for retinal and brain stimulation.

Awards

  • 2023 International Conference on the Ultrasound Engineering for Biomedical Applications 2023 Best Paper Award
  • 2023 International Association of Advanced Materials IAAM Fellow
  • 2022 University of Southern California Viterbi Senior Research Award
  • 2022 BME Frontier Best Paper
  • 2019 National Academy of Inventors Senior Member
  • 2019 USC Steven Institute Innovation Technology Transfer Award
  • 2018 IEEE UFFC, Kobe, Japan Best Student paper award
  • 2018 SPIE Photonics west, BIOS, San Francisco Seno Medical Best Paper Awards
  • 2018 IEEE IEEE Fellow
  • 2015 SPIE Photonics west, BIOS, San Francisco Seno Medical Best Poster Awards
  • 2015 The UC Irvine ICTS, Irvine Robert Newcomb Interdisciplinary Team Science Award
  • 2014 The international society for optics and photonics, Bellingham, WA SPIE Fellow
  • 2014 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Washington, DC. AIMBE Fellow
Appointments
  • Director of Program, Center or Institute, Director of Translational Research, Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics
  • Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
  • Ophthalmology
Office
  • DRB 130
  • Corwin D. Denney Research Center
  • 1042 Downey Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089
  • USC Mail Code: 1111
Contact Information
  • (213) 821-2649
  • qifazhou@usc.edu
Links