Molly Rossow

I am a PhD student in biomedical engineering. I attended Rice University in Houston, Texas, where I earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2003. From 2003 to 2004 I worked as a lab technician in Neal Waxham's lab at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston where I studied focal volume characterization for fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. In 2004, I entered the bioengineering graduate program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics with Enrico Gratton as my advisor. I earned a Master of Science degree from UIUC before moving with the lab to the University of California at Irvine where I am continuing my PhD research.

Currently I am developing a novel technique that will serve as the basis for a surgical instrument that measures blood flow in exposed blood vessels. Surgeons measure blood flow during surgery, especially neurosurgery, to avoid life-threatening complications. My technique, near-infrared spatial-temporal image correlation spectroscopy (NIR-STICS) draws on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and spatial-temporal image correlation spectroscopy (STICS) to provide a quantitative map of fluid velocity in arterioles over an area. NIR-STICS is non-invasive within the context of surgery and has the potential to be adapted into existing surgical microscopes.