Bio
Shirin Pourashraf was born in Darreh Shahr (دره شهر), Ilam, Iran, in October 1984.
She started her graduate studies with research interests expanded to microelectronics, and very large scale integration (VLSI) design. She worked with Professor Masoud Sayedi at Isfahan University of Technology (IUT), Iran, and Professor Jaime Ramirez-Angulo at New Mexico State University, USA, respectively for her Masters, and Ph.D., focusing on integrated Circuit (IC) design. She designed, fabricated, experimentally tested, and validated the performance of several innovative digital, analog, and mixed-signal building block ICs mainly in 180 nm CMOS Technology. After her Ph.D., she joined Molecular Imaging and Instrumentations Laboratory (MIIL) at Stanford where she is currently a "Physical Science Research Scientist" working under the supervision of Professor Craig Levin, an expert in positron emission tomography (PET).
In MIIL, Shirin Pourashraf has been leading a challenging Medical Imaging hardware project to build a 16-module partial-ring Time of Flight (TOF)-PET Scanner with 100 ps coincidence time resolution (CTR), specifically by designing compact high-speed and low-noise/jitter custom electronic readouts. Upon completion scaling up the system, ~100 ps CTR results in >5-fold signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) improvement in PET scanner, increasing its ability to detect and quantify metastatic malignant lesions (cancer/tumor) or alternatively, can substantially reduce scanning times or injected activity of/to the patience.
Current Role at Stanford
Physical Science Research Scientist, Academic Staff at Rad/Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford
