ISMRM & ISMRT Annual Meeting & Exhibition 2026 Exhibitor List

Simon Singh, Ph.D., became a TV producer and director working on BBC programs including 'Tomorrow's World' and 'Horizon' before winning a BAFTA for his award-winning documentary, 'Fermat's Last Theorem,' which was followed by his book on the same subject. Singh, one of the world's most popular science and math writers, will lead listeners on a tour through his bestselling books and talk about how he has taken some difficult topics and explained them to a large general audience.

Kim Butts Pauly, Ph.D., is a professor of radiology at Stanford University, where she also serves as the director of the Radiological Sciences Laboratory and interim vice-chair for Research. She earned her Ph.D. in biophysical sciences from the Mayo Graduate School and has since become a leading expert in MRI-guided focused ultrasound, particularly in its applications for cancer, neurosurgical, and psychiatric applications. Her research focuses on the development of non-invasive therapies using real-time MRI guidance, revolutionizing precision medicine. Her current research includes optimizing MRI techniques for brain applications and exploring thermal and mechanical effects of focused ultrasound. She has published extensively in top journals, with influential papers like “MR Thermometry” and “Rapid MR‐ARFI Method for Focal Spot Localization During Focused Ultrasound Therapy.” Her work continues to shape the future of imaging-guided therapies, furthering advances in medical treatments.

Reza Razavi, M.D., is a professor of paediatric cardiovascular science at King’s College London (KCL), a paediatric cardiologist at Guy’s & St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), and CEO of Fraiya Ltd., a startup developing AI-enabled pregnancy ultrasound technologies. Dr. Razavi qualified in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Medical School in 1988. He later trained in paediatrics and paediatric cardiology at GSTT and started a career in research at KCL. His research is focused on cardiovascular imaging, and his team have led a number of innovations including first-in-man MRI-guided cardiac catheterisation procedures and MRI of the foetal cardiovascular system. He has also been the director of two major research centres, the Wellcome Trust and Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council Centre for Medical Engineering (2010-2021) and the Innovate UK Medical Imaging and AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare (2019-2024). He has held several leadership positions at KCL including head of Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering (Jan 2007 – Feb 2017), assistant principal (Research & Innovation, July 2015 – Feb 2017), and vice president (Research, March 2017 – Dec 2022). He is the past chair of the British Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and the Cardiac Study Group of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Maruf Adewole is a medical physicist and the Executive Director at the Medical Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MAI Lab) based in Lagos, Nigeria. He is also a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on advancing AI-driven medical imaging solutions for improved diagnosis in resource-constrained settings. Through initiatives like NeurON, BraTS-Africa, ABreast, Haske, IMAGINE, SWIM, CONNExIN, and SPARK Academy, he promotes global health equity by advancing MR research, curating inclusive datasets, developing AI methods, building infrastructures, and developing local capacity. His research bridges medical imaging, radiomics, oncology, and open science to improve diagnostic accessibility and healthcare outcomes across Africa and resource contained settings across the world.

Richard Bowtell is professor of physics and Director of the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre at the University of Nottingham. After taking a degree in natural sciences in Cambridge, he joined Nottingham in 1984 as a Ph.D. student working under the supervision of Sir Peter Mansfield. He has been a faculty member of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy since 1989 and served as Head of School from 2008 to 2014. His research is focused on the development and application of new techniques and hardware for biomedical imaging. He is a Fellow of the ISMRM and of the UK’s Institute of Physics (IOP), a deputy editor of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and past-president of the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology. He was awarded the IOP’s James Joule Medal and Prize in 2020. The Cape Town meeting will be the 38th Annual Meeting of the ISMRM (or its precursor, the SMRM) that he is happy to have attended.

Kirsty Donald is a professor of paediatric neurology with an interest understanding the determinants of early brain health and development in resource-limited settings, such as South Africa. She has a faculty appointment leading the Division of Developmental Paediatrics in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and serves as Deputy Director of the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town. She is a member of the disability policy team for the South African National Department of Health and Social Development and serves the on the UNICEF expert panel for global standard-setting in early childhood development. Her research interests cover investigating psychosocial and environmental factors influencing brain health and development in early life, including nutrition, infectious exposures, prenatal substance exposures, and maternal mental health, as well as the genetic and phenotypic characterization of neurodevelopmental disorders in the African context. This research is focused on using multiple imaging methods, including structural, functional, and diffusion imaging from infancy to adolescence to facilitate a deeper understanding of the impact of timing of exposures on brain development. As a member of the UNITY network, Dr. Donald has led a range of studies using low field MRI approaches across 6 different countries in Africa and South Asia to improve neuroimaging accessibility in LMICs. She also holds multiyear grants as PI from large funders including the NIH, BGMF, and Wellcome LEAP to support this work. She is the current chair of the Pediatric Association of Pediatric Neurology and Development of South Africa and president of the International Developmental Pediatrics Association.

Andrew Webb graduated from the University of Bristol in chemistry and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. After a postdoc in the Department of Radiology at the University of Florida, he joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was appointed full professor in 2000 and worked for three years in the Department of Physics at the University of Wurzburg with a Wolfgang Paul Prize from the Humboldt Foundation. In 2008, he was appointed to run the newly formed C.J. Gorter Centre in the Department of Radiology at Leiden University Medical Center. His research concentrates on the translation of new engineering concepts into the clinic. This work initially concentrated on high field MRI, supported by an ERC Advanced Grant from 2015-2020, but recently his lab moved more into the area of sustainable open-source low-field MRI for developing countries funded by the Simon Stevin Preis and a second ERC Advanced Grant 2021-2026. He has authored/co-authored five academic textbooks on medical imaging and biomedical instrumentation. In 2020, he was the President of the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology and co-formed the Committee for Advancement of MRI Education and Research in Africa. In 2023, he was elected to the Royal Dutch National Academy of Sciences and received the Huibregtsenprijs for societal scientific research. In 2010, he founded the Nadine Barrie Smith Trust, which has provided financial support for over 150 female undergraduate and graduate students in science and engineering.

Ileana Jelescu, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of radiology at the Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. She graduated with a double degree in physics from École Polytechnique (France) and in medical physics from McGill University (Canada). She obtained a Ph.D. in physics from Université Paris-Saclay (France), working on MR microscopy at single neuron-level in aplysia. She then completed postdoctoral work at the New York University School of Medicine and at the Center for Biomedical Imaging of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where she focused on combining diffusion MRI with biophysical modeling to map brain microstructure in clinical and preclinical applications. In 2021, she joined the Lausanne University Hospital as an assistant professor, funded by an Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation and an ERC Starting Grant. Her vision is to turn the MRI scanner into a quantitative in vivo microscope for tissue structure and function in patients. Her research spans theoretical biophysical modeling, experimental design and validation, and clinical translation to neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. She will share the exciting path of bringing brain microstructure quantification from whiteboard to bedside, as well as new avenues for mapping brain activity using MRI.

Dr. Sean Deoni is an MRI physicist whose work has focused on the development and application of novel neuroimaging techniques for studying the brain structural architecture, organization, and composition. He obtained his Ph.D. in MRI physics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, followed by post-doctoral training at King’s College London and University of Oxford. Over the past 12 years, he has led the pediatric neuroimaging group at Brown University, establishing the largest longitudinal neuroimaging study of fetal, infant, and child neurodevelopment. His most recent work has sought to transcribe these methods to more accessible low-field MRI systems to expand our understanding of early neurodevelopment. At the Foundation, he oversees a portfolio of projects aimed at promoting neurodevelopmental outcomes and identifying novel portable and wearable techniques for neurological measurement.

Shintaro Ichikawa, M.D., Ph.D., is a leading expert in diagnostic radiology, specializing in abdominal imaging and advanced MRI techniques, including MR elastography and IVIM-DWI. He completed his medical training and residency at the University of Yamanashi, followed by clinical fellowships and academic appointments in Japan and the U.S. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, and currently serves as an associate professor at Hamamatsu University. Dr. Ichikawa is an active member of several prestigious radiological societies and has earned numerous awards for his research, including honors from the Radiological Society of North America and the Japanese Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He has published over 85 peer-reviewed papers and continues to contribute to advancements in medical imaging.