Dr Sydney Williams
- Lecturer (Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging)
telephone:
01414516836
email:
Sydney.Williams@glasgow.ac.uk
M-F 9:00-17:00
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9979-6245Research interests
I am currently a Lecturer working in the MRI Physics Group at the Imaging Centre of Excellence (ICE) in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. I received my PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from the University Michigan, and my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. More info about me is found on my personal site: https://sydneynw.github.io/ .
My research interests lie mostly in MRI physics, particularly RF pulse design. The ICE building is home to a CE-labeled 7 tesla ultra-high field scanner which offers the capacity for exceptional image resolution but also increased technical challenges that I am eager to help address. One example of a technical challenge for 7 tesla MRI is the inhomogeneity of the RF transmit field, which can affect image uniformity. The MRI physics team at ICE hope to combat this problem with parallel transmit (pTx) RF pulses, which offer a greater degree of freedom with RF excitation and the opportunity to correct inhomogeneities. My research for pTx pulse design involves mathematical optimization, MR simulations, and programming the MRI scanner. In the long term, I hope to incorporate pTx into 7 tesla scanning for clinical purposes, improving the diagnostic quality of imaging and healthcare of patients.
Publications
2023
Herrler, J. et al. (2023) The effects of RF coils and SAR supervision strategies for clinically applicable nonselective parallel-transmit pulses at 7 T. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 89(5), pp. 1888-1900. (doi: 10.1002/mrm.29569) (PMID:36622945)
Williams, S. N. , McElhinney, P. and Gunamony, S. (2023) Ultra-high field MRI: parallel-transmit arrays and RF pulse design. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 68(2), 02TR02. (doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/aca4b7)
2022
Williams, S. N. , Ding, B., Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) First Evaluation of External Development Sequences for 7 T Parallel-Transmit MRI in a Self-Built RF Coil. 14th Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence Annual Scientific Meeting (SINAPSE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 13-14 June 2022.
Williams, S. , Dragonu, I., Ding, B., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. (2022) Parallel Transmission for Improved Multishot Diffusion Weighted Imaging at 7T. Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM 2022), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 19-23 June 2022.
Liebig, P. et al. (2022) Generalized Framework for Homogeneous Ultra-High-Field Brain Imaging. Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB & ISMRT 31st Annual Meeting, London, United Kingdom, 7-12 May 2022.
Williams, S. N. , Dragonu, I., Ding, B., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) Simultaneous Multislice pTx for Readout-Segmented Diffusion Imaging at 7 T. Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB & ISMRT 31st Annual Meeting, London, United Kingdom, 7-12 May 2022.
Ding, B., Williams, S. N. , Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) Parallel transmission for 7T multi-shot diffusion-weighted imaging. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Workshop on High Field Study (ISMRM 2022), Lisbon, Portugal, 19-22 March 2022.
2021
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Paterson, G., Herrler, J., Liebig, P., Nagel, A. M., Foster, J. E., Porter, D. A. and Gunamony, S. (2021) A nested eight-channel transmit array with open-face concept for human brain imaging at 7 tesla. Frontiers in Physics, 9, 701330. (doi: 10.3389/fphy.2021.701330)
Gunamony, S. , Müller, R., McElhinney, P. , Williams, S. , Groß-Weege, N., Weiskopf, N., Möller, H. E. and Feinberg, D. (2021) A 16-Channel Transmit 96-Channel Receive Head Coil for NexGen 7T Scanner. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Herrler, J., Liebig, P., Gumbrecht, R., Williams, S. , Meixner, C., Maier, A., Dörfler, A. and Nagel, A. M. (2021) Improved B0 Mapping with Universal Parallel Transmit Pulses at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Herrler, J., Williams, S. , Liebig, P., Gunamony, S. , Meixner, C., Maier, A., Dörfler, A., Porter, D. and Nagel, A. M. (2021) Evaluating Universal and Fast Online Customized Pulses for Parallel Transmission Using Two Different RF Coils. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S.N. , Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D.A. (2021) Multi-Slice 2D pTx Readout-Segmented Diffusion-Weighted Imaging Using Slice-by-Slice B1+ Shimming. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J. E., Gunamony, S. and Porter, D. A. (2021) Validation of SAR Management Procedure for Dynamic pTx RF Waveforms Using a Self- Built Coil at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Herrler, J., Liebig, P., McElhinney, P. , Gunamony, S. , Nagel, A. M. and Porter, D. A. (2021) SAR Management in pTx Sequence Design: The Impact of Electromagnetic-Field-Derived Virtual Observation Points. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Herrler, J., Liebig, P., McElhinney, P. , Allwood-Spiers, S., Foster, J. E., Gunamony, S. , Nagel, A. M. and Porter, D. A. (2021) Comparing Specific Absorption Rate (Tissue Heating) Management Methods for Parallel Transmit MRI at 7 Tesla. 13th Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence Annual Scientific Meeting (SINAPSE), Virtual, 16-17 September 2021.
2020
Williams, S. N. , McElhinney, P. , Porter, D. and Gunamony, S. (2020) Comparing the Practical Effects of VOP Compressions for SAR Monitoring at 7 T. Minnesota Workshop on High and Ultra-high Field Imaging 2019, Minneapolis, MN, USA, 12-16 November 2019. (Unpublished)
Williams, S. N. (2020) Applications of RF Pulse Designs: Inner Volume Imaging, SMS, B1 Shimming & pTx. ISMRM & SMRT Virtual Conference & Exhibition, 8-14 August 2020.
Williams, S. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J. E., Porter, D. A. and Gunamony, S. (2020) Validation and Safety Approval of a Dual-Mode Head Coil for pTx Applications In Vivo at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Virtual Conference & Exhibition, 8-14 August 2020.
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J., Porter, D. and Gunamony, S. (2020) First In Vivo Images from an InHouse Parallel Transmit (pTx) Coil for MRI at 7 Tesla. 12th Annual SINAPSE Meeting, 19th June 2020.
2019
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2019) A Simple Method for Constrained Optimal Control RF Pulse Design. In: ISMRM 27th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 11-16 May 2019,
2018
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2018) Slab-Selective Spectral and Spectral-Spatial Prewinding RF Pulses. In: ISMRM-ESMRMB Joint Annual Meeting, Paris, France, 16-21 June 2020,
2017
Williams, S. N. , Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2017) Minimum Out-of-Slice Error SMS RF Pulse Design with Direct Peak, Power, and In-Slice Error Constraints. 34th Annual Scientific Meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB 2017), Barcelona, Spain, 19-21 Oct 2017.
Williams, S. N. , Noll, D. C. and Fessler, J. A. (2017) Improved Simultaneous Multislice Pulse Design Directly Constraining Peak RF Amplitude. In: 25th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Honolulu, HI, USA, 22-27 April 2017,
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2017) Design of spectral-spatial phase prewinding pulses and their use in small-tip fast recovery steady-state imaging. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 79, pp. 1377-1386. 26794. (doi: 10.1002/mrm.26794) (PMID:28671320) (PMCID:PMC5752636)
2015
Williams, S. N. , Sun, H., Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2015) A Spectral-Spatial Pulse for Improved Signal Recovery in the Small-Tip Fast Recovery (STFR) Sequence. 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 30 May - 05 June 2015.
2013
Williams, S. , Harris, M., Furst, J. and Raicu, D. (2013) Area Under the Distance Threshold Curve as an Evaluation Measure for Probabilistic Classifiers. In: 9th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition, New York, NY, USA, 19-25 July 2013, pp. 644-657. ISBN 9783642397127 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-39712-7_49)
Articles
Herrler, J. et al. (2023) The effects of RF coils and SAR supervision strategies for clinically applicable nonselective parallel-transmit pulses at 7 T. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 89(5), pp. 1888-1900. (doi: 10.1002/mrm.29569) (PMID:36622945)
Williams, S. N. , McElhinney, P. and Gunamony, S. (2023) Ultra-high field MRI: parallel-transmit arrays and RF pulse design. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 68(2), 02TR02. (doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/aca4b7)
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Paterson, G., Herrler, J., Liebig, P., Nagel, A. M., Foster, J. E., Porter, D. A. and Gunamony, S. (2021) A nested eight-channel transmit array with open-face concept for human brain imaging at 7 tesla. Frontiers in Physics, 9, 701330. (doi: 10.3389/fphy.2021.701330)
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2017) Design of spectral-spatial phase prewinding pulses and their use in small-tip fast recovery steady-state imaging. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 79, pp. 1377-1386. 26794. (doi: 10.1002/mrm.26794) (PMID:28671320) (PMCID:PMC5752636)
Conference or Workshop Item
Williams, S. N. , Ding, B., Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) First Evaluation of External Development Sequences for 7 T Parallel-Transmit MRI in a Self-Built RF Coil. 14th Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence Annual Scientific Meeting (SINAPSE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 13-14 June 2022.
Williams, S. , Dragonu, I., Ding, B., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. (2022) Parallel Transmission for Improved Multishot Diffusion Weighted Imaging at 7T. Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM 2022), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 19-23 June 2022.
Liebig, P. et al. (2022) Generalized Framework for Homogeneous Ultra-High-Field Brain Imaging. Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB & ISMRT 31st Annual Meeting, London, United Kingdom, 7-12 May 2022.
Williams, S. N. , Dragonu, I., Ding, B., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) Simultaneous Multislice pTx for Readout-Segmented Diffusion Imaging at 7 T. Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB & ISMRT 31st Annual Meeting, London, United Kingdom, 7-12 May 2022.
Ding, B., Williams, S. N. , Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D. A. (2022) Parallel transmission for 7T multi-shot diffusion-weighted imaging. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Workshop on High Field Study (ISMRM 2022), Lisbon, Portugal, 19-22 March 2022.
Gunamony, S. , Müller, R., McElhinney, P. , Williams, S. , Groß-Weege, N., Weiskopf, N., Möller, H. E. and Feinberg, D. (2021) A 16-Channel Transmit 96-Channel Receive Head Coil for NexGen 7T Scanner. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Herrler, J., Liebig, P., Gumbrecht, R., Williams, S. , Meixner, C., Maier, A., Dörfler, A. and Nagel, A. M. (2021) Improved B0 Mapping with Universal Parallel Transmit Pulses at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Herrler, J., Williams, S. , Liebig, P., Gunamony, S. , Meixner, C., Maier, A., Dörfler, A., Porter, D. and Nagel, A. M. (2021) Evaluating Universal and Fast Online Customized Pulses for Parallel Transmission Using Two Different RF Coils. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S.N. , Dragonu, I., Liebig, P. and Porter, D.A. (2021) Multi-Slice 2D pTx Readout-Segmented Diffusion-Weighted Imaging Using Slice-by-Slice B1+ Shimming. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J. E., Gunamony, S. and Porter, D. A. (2021) Validation of SAR Management Procedure for Dynamic pTx RF Waveforms Using a Self- Built Coil at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Herrler, J., Liebig, P., McElhinney, P. , Gunamony, S. , Nagel, A. M. and Porter, D. A. (2021) SAR Management in pTx Sequence Design: The Impact of Electromagnetic-Field-Derived Virtual Observation Points. ISMRM & SMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 15-20 May 2021. (Accepted for Publication)
Williams, S. N. , Herrler, J., Liebig, P., McElhinney, P. , Allwood-Spiers, S., Foster, J. E., Gunamony, S. , Nagel, A. M. and Porter, D. A. (2021) Comparing Specific Absorption Rate (Tissue Heating) Management Methods for Parallel Transmit MRI at 7 Tesla. 13th Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence Annual Scientific Meeting (SINAPSE), Virtual, 16-17 September 2021.
Williams, S. N. , McElhinney, P. , Porter, D. and Gunamony, S. (2020) Comparing the Practical Effects of VOP Compressions for SAR Monitoring at 7 T. Minnesota Workshop on High and Ultra-high Field Imaging 2019, Minneapolis, MN, USA, 12-16 November 2019. (Unpublished)
Williams, S. N. (2020) Applications of RF Pulse Designs: Inner Volume Imaging, SMS, B1 Shimming & pTx. ISMRM & SMRT Virtual Conference & Exhibition, 8-14 August 2020.
Williams, S. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J. E., Porter, D. A. and Gunamony, S. (2020) Validation and Safety Approval of a Dual-Mode Head Coil for pTx Applications In Vivo at 7 Tesla. ISMRM & SMRT Virtual Conference & Exhibition, 8-14 August 2020.
Williams, S. N. , Allwood-Spiers, S., McElhinney, P. , Tao, Y., Foster, J., Porter, D. and Gunamony, S. (2020) First In Vivo Images from an InHouse Parallel Transmit (pTx) Coil for MRI at 7 Tesla. 12th Annual SINAPSE Meeting, 19th June 2020.
Williams, S. N. , Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2017) Minimum Out-of-Slice Error SMS RF Pulse Design with Direct Peak, Power, and In-Slice Error Constraints. 34th Annual Scientific Meeting of the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB 2017), Barcelona, Spain, 19-21 Oct 2017.
Williams, S. N. , Sun, H., Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2015) A Spectral-Spatial Pulse for Improved Signal Recovery in the Small-Tip Fast Recovery (STFR) Sequence. 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 30 May - 05 June 2015.
Conference Proceedings
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2019) A Simple Method for Constrained Optimal Control RF Pulse Design. In: ISMRM 27th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 11-16 May 2019,
Williams, S. N. , Nielsen, J.-F., Fessler, J. A. and Noll, D. C. (2018) Slab-Selective Spectral and Spectral-Spatial Prewinding RF Pulses. In: ISMRM-ESMRMB Joint Annual Meeting, Paris, France, 16-21 June 2020,
Williams, S. N. , Noll, D. C. and Fessler, J. A. (2017) Improved Simultaneous Multislice Pulse Design Directly Constraining Peak RF Amplitude. In: 25th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Honolulu, HI, USA, 22-27 April 2017,
Williams, S. , Harris, M., Furst, J. and Raicu, D. (2013) Area Under the Distance Threshold Curve as an Evaluation Measure for Probabilistic Classifiers. In: 9th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition, New York, NY, USA, 19-25 July 2013, pp. 644-657. ISBN 9783642397127 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-39712-7_49)
Grants
Grants and Awards listed are those received whilst working with the University of Glasgow.
- Parallel Transmission (pTx) on A NextGen 7T Scanner
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
2022 - 2023
