Jeff Fessler named William L. Root Distinguished University Professor of EECS

Jeff Fessler has been recognized as the William L. Root Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in recognition of his exceptional scholarly achievements, his international reputations for academic excellence, and superior record of teaching, mentoring and service.

“Jeff’s impact transcends academia, extending to the practical applications of his methods in thousands of clinical imaging devices worldwide,” said Douglas Noll, the Ann and Lurie H. Professor of Biomedical Engineering and long time collaborator. 

Prof. Fessler and his group have had a far-reaching impact on the medical image reconstruction field by combining advanced methods from signal processing with accurate physical and statistical models for these imaging systems. He has advanced the fields of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT), and radionuclide imaging (PET/SPECT) by making these technologies faster, safer and more cost effective, without sacrificing image quality. 

Fessler’s groups’s methods have been used to reduce X-ray dose in CT systems made by  General Electric and introduced at the University of Michigan hospital in 2012 [read more]. His method for improving SPECT imaging used in cardiac stress tests in the late 1990’s was subsequently used by thousands of patients at U-M hospital. And his method to speed up the time needed to generate a CT scan, which is done about 80 million times per year in the U.S. alone, has made these scans safer for all patients. 

He currently has 13 U.S. patents, but that doesn’t tell the whole story as he is also a pioneer and strong advocate for open research. For example, his Michigan Image Reconstruction Toolbox (MIRT) is a collection of open source algorithms for image reconstruction and related imaging problems. MIRT has been downloaded thousands of times.

Fessler has received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his research, including the U-M Distinguished Faculty Award, CoE Steven Attwood Award, IEEE EMBS Technical Achievement Award, Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award, and he is an IEEE Fellow. His students have similarly earned many honors and paper awards for their research.

For his impact on the education of students, he received the U-M Henry Russel Award, U-M Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, CoE Education Excellence Award, Teaching Excellence Award from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and he is a three time recipient of the HKN Professor of the Year award, voted on by students. He is a rare educator for developing and teaching the 1st year course suitable for all engineering students, called Music Signal Processing, as well as developing new courses at the senior undergraduate and graduate levels, while also teaching established courses in image processing and more recently, Matrix Methods for Signal Processing, Data Analysis and Machine Learning.

He recently co-authored the textbook Linear Algebra for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Signal Processing. 

Fessler is currently serving as interim chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition to his home appointment in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, he is a professor of biomedical engineering and of radiology. 

He is also the William L. Root Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (see the link for his professorship talk). Fessler never worked directly with Prof. Root, but he was aware of Root’s signal processing work even before coming to Michigan. “It is an honor for me to be associated with his name,” said Fessler.

Prof. Fessler will give a talk to the university community about his research and career during a coming academic year.