Computational Imaging

Computational Imaging jointly designs optics and algorithms. This field of research is inherently interdisciplinary, combining expertise in imaging science, optical engineering, signal processing and machine learning. Computational imaging can overcome physical limitations and achieve novel capabilities, from advancing experimental observation techniques used in biology, to highly novel imaging system methods to atomic force microscopy. Computational Imaging serves a broad range of scientific, defense and security, biomedical, and neuroscience applications.

CISE Hosts 11th Annual Graduate Student Workshop (CGSW 11.0)

Over 100 student and faculty attendees gathered on January 24th, 2025, for the 11th Annual Graduate Student Workshop hosted by the Center of Information and Systems Engineering (CISE). The day-long symposium featured doctoral students from different disciplines across Boston University’s College of Engineering presenting their original research.   “CGSW aims to bring together CISE students, faculty, […]

Cheng & Tian’s Newest Microscopy Advance Published by Nature Communications

Professor Ji-Xin Cheng’s research group has made notable strides in improved chemical  imaging technologies, especially for medical purposes, over the last few years. Their latest, the development of a new type of mid-infrared photothermal (MIP) microscope, was published by Nature Communications in December. The paper, co-authored by collaborator and CISE affiliate Professor Lei Tian, Post-Doctoral Associate […]

Two BU Researchers Receive over $1 Million Each in Funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Imagine being able to watch the smallest units of life—like cells and molecules—working together in real time. Seeing and measuring biological processes, a field called dynamic imaging, can help scientists unlock tremendous knowledge for treating diseases, from cancer to Alzheimer’s. In an effort to take biological imaging to the next level, two Boston University College […]

Metasurface Photodetectors for Computational Imaging

Traditional image sensors used in photography and microscopy can only visualize the intensity distribution of the incident light, whereas all information related to the local direction of light propagation and phase profile is lost in the image acquisition process. To address this limitation, the proposed research will develop a new class of image sensors based […]

Powerful Updates to Novel Computational Imaging Device Featured in Optica

Prof. Lei Tian (ECE, BME) and his team, led by PhD students, Yujia Xue (PhD, ECE, 2022) and Qianwan Yang (PhD student, ECE) published their paper “Deep-learning-augmented Computational Miniature Mesoscope” that describes advances to their Computational Miniature Mesoscope (CM2) project. This paper, published in the prestigious journal Optica, presents the CM2  V2, a more powerful […]

Efficient Two-Photon Voltage Imaging of Neuronal Populations at Behavioral Timescales

Understanding how information is processed in the mammalian neocortex has been a longstanding question in neuroscience. While the action potential is the fundamental bit of information, how these spikes encode representations and drive behavior remains unclear. In order to adequately address this problem, it has become apparent that experiments are needed in which activity from […]

Professor Tian’s Paper on Adaptive 3D Descattering is the Cover Feature in Nature’s Light: Science & Applications

CISE faculty affiliate Lei Tian (ECE, BME) has published a paper entitled Adaptive 3D descattering with a dynamic synthesis network that was featured on the cover of Nature’s Light: Science & Applications.  Tian’s paper focused on training a descattering network for image recovery in scattering media using an adaptive learning framework, termed dynamic synthesis network (DSN). The framework […]

Computational Miniature Mesoscope for Cortex-wide, Cellular resolution Ca2+ Imaging in Freely Behaving Mice

Scale is a fundamental obstacle in linking neural activity to behavior. While perception and cognition arise from interactions between diverse brain areas separated by long distances, neural codes and computations are implemented at the scale of individual neurons. An integrative understanding of brain dynamics thus requires cellular-resolution measurements across sensory, motor, and executive areas spanning […]