Tuesday 6th May 2025, 7pm, Sibson Lecture Theatre 3
Danielle Harper (University of Cambridge)
Polarised sunglasses are essential for skiers, as they reduce the glare caused by sunlight reflecting off the snow, enhancing visibility and comfort. By understanding how these glasses improve contrast in everyday vision, we can draw parallels to the application of polarisation in surgery. Similar principles are being employed in advanced imaging systems to improve tissue differentiation during surgical procedures, providing real-time, high-contrast images that can guide surgeons as they operate. This presentation will discuss the technology behind these imaging systems, describing how they can be used to improve surgical outcomes.
About the speaker
Danielle received her MPhys degree in Physics from the University of St Andrews, and her PhD in Medical Physics at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria in the field of high-resolution Optical Coherence Tomography.
In 2020, she joined the lab of Benjamin J. Vakoc at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine (Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2020-2023), and later Instructor (2023-2024), where she worked on both laser and system development for a range of clinical applications including cartilage disruption detection, retinal imaging, and neurosurgical guidance.
The talk is free and open to all. Doors open about half an hour before the talk begins.
For directions to the lecture theatre, see here.