Biography | Publications
Mr. Avila received a B.S. and an M.S. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook specializing in 3D biomedical imaging and visualization. He has accumulated over 15 years of experience leading research and development projects in several academic and commercial settings including computing laboratories, basic science laboratories, and corporate research and development facilities. While employed at Howard Hughes Medical Institute he co-developed VolVis, an open source biomedical visualization system for confocal microscopy and medical research. He joined GE Global Research in 1994 and focused on developing visualization and analysis algorithms for clinical applications. He was a contributing author to "The Visualization Toolkit" textbook and co-developed the volume rendering architecture in VTK, a widely adopted open source toolkit for data visualization. He led the development of several key medical technology areas at GE including real-time visualization systems for medical scanners, medical image analysis and segmentation algorithms, and haptic rendering and display methods.

He is a contributing author on over 10 papers, has 10 issued and 6 pending patents, and has taught and organized numerous conference tutorials in the field of medical image analysis and visualization. In 2000, he received the Albert W. Hull Award, the highest award for early technical achievement given at GE Global Research. In 2003, he was selected by the National Academy of Engineering to attend the ninth annual Frontiers of Engineering Symposium as one of the nation’s top young engineers. He started and led the first Computer Aided Detection (CAD) program at GE Global Research from 2001 to 2005 and during this time Mr. Avila became a prominent and often invited speaker on the development of CAD algorithms for lung cancer management and other major diseases.

Mr. Avila joined Kitware in March 2005 as Director of Medical Applications where he is leading the development of open source imaging toolkits and products that significantly improve the effectiveness of healthcare, including image-guided intervention; quantitative disease and therapy assessment; and clinical image interpretation.

Publications

P. Mendonca. R. Bhotika, S. Sirohey, W. Turner, J. Miller, R.S. Avila, Model-based Analysis of Local Shape for Lesion Detection in CT Lung Images, Proceedings of the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2005), October 2005.

C.C. McCulloch, R.A. Kaucic, P.R. Mendonca, D.J. Walter, R.S. Avila, Model-based Detection of Lung Nodules in Computed Tomography Exams, Academic Radiology, (March 2004).

W. Turner, C.C. McCulloch, C. Henschke, E. Kazerooni, J. Leader, R.S. Avila, CAD-Assisted Radiologist Sensitivity Improvement in the Detection of Solid and Subsolid Nodules in Low-dose CT Lung Cancer Screening Exams, RSNA 2004.

C.C. McCulloch, D Yankelevitz, E Kazerooni, C. Henschke, K. Karau, R.S. Avila, Reader Variability and Computer-aided Detection of Solid and Subsolid Nodules in Low-dose CT Lung Cancer Screening Exams, RSNA 2003.

R.A. Kaucic, C.C. McCulloch, P.R. Mendonca, D.J. Walter, R.S. Avila, J.L. Mundy, Model-based Detection of Lung Lesions in CT Exams, CARS 2003.

K. Thomenius, R.S. Avila, B. Mannan, K. Vidya, P. Uday, Computer Aided Diagnosis System for the Characterization of Ultrasound Images of Breast Lesions, RSNA 2002.

R. Mullick, R.S. Avila, J. Knoplioch, Y. Mallya, J. Platt, R. Senzig, Automatic Bone Removal for Abdomen CTA: A Clinical review, RSNA 2002.

H. Cline, C. Coulam, M. Yavuz, G.D. Rubin, P. Edic, T. Pan, Y. Shen, R. Avila, M. Turek, M. Iatrou, A. Loree, N. Ishaque. R. Senzig. Coronary Artery Angiography Using Multislice Computed Tomography Images, Circulation 2000.

W. Schroeder, K. Martin, B. Lorensen, L. Sobierajski, R. Avila, C. Law, The Visualization Toolkit, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 1998.

R.S. Avila and L. M. Sobierajski, A Haptic Interaction Method for Volume Visualization, Visualization `96 Proceedings, pp. 197-204, IEEE CS Press, (October 1996).

R.S. Avila and L. M. Sobierajski, Haptic Interaction Utilizing a Volumetric Representation, The First PHANToM User's Group Workshop, MIT, (September 1996).

L.M. Sobierajski and R.S. Avila, A Hardware Acceleration Method for Volumetric Ray Tracing, Visualization `95 Proceedings, IEEE CS Press, (November 1995).

L.M. Sobierajski, R.S. Avila, D.M. O'Malley, S. Wang, and A.E. Kaufman, Visualization of Calcium Activity in Nerve Cells, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, (July 1995).

R.S. Avila, T. He, L. Hong, A. Kaufman, H. Pfister, C. Silva, L. Sobierajski, and S. Wang, VolVis: A Diversified System for Volume Visualization, Visualization '94 Proceedings, IEEE CS Press, (October 1994).

R.S. Avila, L.M. Sobierajski, and A.E. Kaufman, Visualizing Nerve Cells, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, (September 1994).

B.J. Burbach, R.S. Avila, L.M. Sobierajski, A.E. Kaufman, and P.R. Adams, The Living and the Dead: Interactive Visualization of Nerve Cells, Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 19(November 1993). Abstract 458.9

A. Kaufman, L.M. Sobierajski, R.S. Avila, and T. He, Navigation and Animation in a Volume Visualization System (invited paper), pp. 64-74 in Models and Techniques in Computer Animation, ed. N.M Thalmann and D. Thalmann, Springer-Verlag (1993).

R.S. Avila, L.M. Sobierajski, and A.E. Kaufman, Towards a Comprehensive Volume Visualization System, Visualization '92 Proceedings, pp. 13-20 IEEE CS Press, (October 1992).