Rohit Singla
Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD)
Research Topic
Intelligent Ultrasound for Kidney Disease and Transplant
Christopher Nguan
Associate Professor
Research Classification
Research Interests
kidney transplantation
patient reported outcomes
medical apps for mobile health
machine learning analytics of medical imaging
machine learning analytics of complex medical data outcomes
Robotics
quality in healthcare
environmental impact of healthcare
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs
Affiliations to Research Centres, Institutes & Clusters
Research Options
I am available and interested in collaborations (e.g. clusters, grants).
I am interested in and conduct interdisciplinary research.
I am interested in working with undergraduate students on research projects.
Research Methodology
daVinci Si surgical system
wetlab - in vitro, small animal, large animal
clinical / administrative databases
ultrasound
ex vivo organ perfusion
clinical interface with patients
Recruitment
Master's students
Doctoral students
Postdoctoral Fellows
Any time / year round
Complete these steps before you reach out to a faculty member!
Check requirements
- Familiarize yourself with program requirements. You want to learn as much as possible from the information available to you before you reach out to a faculty member. Be sure to visit the graduate degree program listing and program-specific websites.
- Check whether the program requires you to seek commitment from a supervisor prior to submitting an application. For some programs this is an essential step while others match successful applicants with faculty members within the first year of study. This is either indicated in the program profile under "Admission Information & Requirements" - "Prepare Application" - "Supervision" or on the program website.
Focus your search
- Identify specific faculty members who are conducting research in your specific area of interest.
- Establish that your research interests align with the faculty member’s research interests.
- Read up on the faculty members in the program and the research being conducted in the department.
- Familiarize yourself with their work, read their recent publications and past theses/dissertations that they supervised. Be certain that their research is indeed what you are hoping to study.
Make a good impression
- Compose an error-free and grammatically correct email addressed to your specifically targeted faculty member, and remember to use their correct titles.
- Do not send non-specific, mass emails to everyone in the department hoping for a match.
- Address the faculty members by name. Your contact should be genuine rather than generic.
- Include a brief outline of your academic background, why you are interested in working with the faculty member, and what experience you could bring to the department. The supervision enquiry form guides you with targeted questions. Ensure to craft compelling answers to these questions.
- Highlight your achievements and why you are a top student. Faculty members receive dozens of requests from prospective students and you may have less than 30 seconds to pique someone’s interest.
- Demonstrate that you are familiar with their research:
- Convey the specific ways you are a good fit for the program.
- Convey the specific ways the program/lab/faculty member is a good fit for the research you are interested in/already conducting.
- Be enthusiastic, but don’t overdo it.
Attend an information session
G+PS regularly provides virtual sessions that focus on admission requirements and procedures and tips how to improve your application.
ADVICE AND INSIGHTS FROM UBC FACULTY ON REACHING OUT TO SUPERVISORS
These videos contain some general advice from faculty across UBC on finding and reaching out to a potential thesis supervisor.
Supervision Enquiry
If you have reviewed some of this faculty member's publications, understand their research interests and have reviewed the admission requirements, you may submit a contact request to this supervisor.
Graduate Student Supervision
Doctoral Student Supervision
Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.
Developing surgical navigation tools for minimally invasive surgery using ultrasound, structured light, tissue tracking and augmented reality. (2020)
Surgeons and their patients would benefit if, during an operation, a surgeon could inexpensively, safely and non-invasively peer beneath the surface of the organ s/he was operating on. Peering below the surface would allow the surgeon to see blood vessels, tumours and other important structures. Furthermore, it would allow them to better plan their surgery and avoid damaging important structures with their tools. Giving surgeons the ability to peer beneath the surface and better formulate their surgical plan is the goal of image guided surgery research and the focus of this thesis. In this thesis accurate 3D models of cancer tumour phantoms are generated and displayed to the surgeon. This is achieved via the development of: an ultrasound calibration technique (Chapter 2); the augmented reality ultrasound navigation system (ARUNS) (Chapter 3); a miniature projector for surgery called the Pico Lantern (Chapter 4); and the Projector-based Augmented Reality Intracorporeal System (PARIS)(Chapter 5). The ultimate goal is to improve surgical navigation which will help surgeons be more accurate and reduce the amount of healthy tissue they excise during operations.The ultrasound calibration technique improved ultrasound-based pinhead point reconstruction accuracy from 3.1mm to 1.3mm. The Pico Lantern and the PARIS were developed to improve surface reconstruction and to improve the realism of the augmented reality in surgery. The Pico Lantern is a miniature projector for surface reconstruction, augmented reality and guidance in laparoscopic surgery. The PARIS was tested by two surgeons in a user study of 32 simulated kidney cancer surgeries. Compared to using a laparoscopic ultrasound transducer alone, when using the PARIS, surgeons found the surgical navigation more intuitive and they had a better spatial understanding of the underlying anatomy. Furthermore, positive margin rates decreased and there was a statistically significant reduction in the amount of healthy tissue excised. Key conclusions are that wide baseline ultrasound calibration is effective, simple guidance cues are important in augmented reality in surgery and that projected light in surgery is a viable strategy for surface reconstruction and augmented reality.
View record
Current Students & Alumni
This is a small sample of students and/or alumni that have been supervised by this researcher. It is not meant as a comprehensive list.
Membership Status
Member of G+PS
View explanation of statuses
Location
Vancouver General Hospital
Program Affiliations
Academic Unit(s)
If this is your researcher profile you can log in to the Faculty & Staff portal to update your details and provide recruitment preferences.
