2023-05-30 Announcement: New Scientific Director of the MRRC

May 30, 2023


Department of Radiology



Dear All,

The MR Research Center (MRRC) at the University of Pittsburgh is dedicated to the development and application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for medical and biological research and is forging new paths in the use of functional MRI to study cognitive, sensory, and motor function in the brain. It operates as a University service center with over $2M in annual revenue and in excess of 100 individual faculty users.

Following the departure of the Director of the MRRC, Hoby Hetherington, the Department of Radiology created a search committee which worked in conjunction with the Deans from the School of Medicine and School of Engineering to conduct a nationwide search for Dr. Hetherington’s replacement. We are pleased to announce the appointment of an internal candidate, Dr. Bea Luna, as the new Scientific Director of the MRRC. Dr. Luna has served as leader of the MRRC Advisory Council for 5+ years and is a world-renowned developmental neuroscientist known for conducting neuroimaging research.

Dr. Luna is the director of the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development (LNCD), the founder and acting past president of the Flux Society for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (DCN), and Editor in Chief of the Journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. She is also a MPI of the Pittsburgh ABCD and NCANDA sites. The aims of her research are to characterize the neural basis of cognitive development focusing on the transition from adolescence to adulthood in normative populations and those with or at risk for mental illness. Dr. Luna uses multimodal imaging approaches (fMRI, rsfMRI, DTI, MEG, EEG, sEEG, PET, MTR, R2’, and 7T-MRSI) and neurocognitive tasks to elucidate brain maturational systems that are undergoing specialization in adolescence and thus may be vulnerable to impairment in mental illness but also to their improvement. Her investigations on normative and atypical development have resulted in more than 200 empirical peer reviewed papers and reviews.

In addition to supervising the MRRC operations coordinator, she will also direct scheduling policies and billing. Dr. Luna will also continue to interact with the MR Advisory Council which comprises representative users who support the optimization of center operations. She will be developing a Neuroimaging Processing and Analytical Core that will use advanced analytics and processing of large data imaging sets. Additionally, she will interact with MR imaging translational research activities at CMU, Children’s Hospital, University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute, Hillman Cancer Institute, and Magee-Womens Hospital to support collaborative approaches and facilitate the overall development of MRI in the Pittsburgh research community.

Please join us in congratulating Bea in this new role!

Warmly,

Jules

Jules H. Sumkin, DO, FACR, FSBI
Professor and Chair of Radiology
UPMC Endowed Chair for Women’s Imaging