Eric Tkaczyk

Research Focus

Dr. Tkaczyk is a physician-scientist with research interests in biophotonics for diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases. He is a graduate of the MD/PhD at the University of Michigan, with PhD in electrical engineering from the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS). At CUOS, he overlapped with his academic grandfather Gerard Mourou, the 2018 Nobel Laureate who founded the lab.  Dr. Tkaczyk's post-doctoral training in medical device design at the University of Tartu was supported by Fulbright and Whitaker awards. This work culminated with a prize awarded by the US Ambassador to Estonia and the Estonian Speaker of Parliament at the 2011 Estonian-American Innovation Award ceremony. In 2016, he completed dermatology residency training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he is Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Biomedical Engineering.  He is also an attending dermatologist at the VA Medical Center. He is board-certified to practice dermatology both in the USA and in Europe. As Founding Director of the Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic , he lectures internationally on dermatologic imaging technologies, which is his research focus.

Projects

• Noninvasive skin biopsies with reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM)
• Noninvasive imaging of human leukocyte dynamics
• 3D, colorimetric, and hyperspectral imaging of rashes
• Artificial intelligence and crowd sourcing for photo analysis 
• Skin biomechanical measurements in sclerosing disease

Post-Doctoral Scholars

	Name	Email	Research
	Inga Saknite, PhD	inga.saknite	Confocal imaging of human leukocyte dynamics Hyperspectral imaging of skin rashes

Research Assistants

	Name	Email	Research
	Fuyao Chen (Joanna)	fuyao.chen	3D, colorimetric, and hyperspectral imaging of rashes Skin biomechanical measurements in sclerosing disease

Graduate Students

	Name	Email	Research
	Jianing Wang, M.S.	jianing.wang	Medical image processing, machine learning, computer-aided detection

Undergraduate Students

	Name	Email	Research
	Kathy Zhang	kathy.zhang	Reproducibility of the Myoton device, measuring skin stiffness in patients with sclerosis   Hyperspectral imaging of patients with chronic GVHD and hyperpigmentation
	Zain Khera	zain.khera

Medical Students

	Name	Email	Research
	Jocelyn Gandelman	jocelyn.gandelman	Computational biology and machine learning tools to study graft vs. host disease and skin diseases
	Laura Wang	laura.x.wang	Measuring skin sclerosis in GVHD patients effects of ECP on skin biomechanical properties
	Laura Dellalana	laura.e.dellalana

Openings

The following positions are all open. Where possible, additional projects can be created for exceptional candidates. Individuals interested to join the VCIC should email their CV/resume and most recent educational transcripts to:
VCICrecruit@gmail.com.