The McNab Lab is part of the Radiological Sciences Laboratory division of the Department of Radiology in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. We are based at the Richard M. Lucas Center for Imaging.

Our mission is to develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that probe human brain tissue microstructure. This requires new MRI contrast mechanisms, strategic encoding and reconstruction schemes, physiological monitoring, brain tissue modeling and validation. Applications of these methods include neuronavigation, neurosurgical planning and the development of improved biomarkers for brain development, degeneration, disease and injury. 

Our current research is focused on the development of MRI pulse sequences and analysis strategies for:

  • Multi-dimensional Diffusion Encoding
  • Mapping Cortical Fiber Patterns
  • Integration of MRI and Advanced Histology
  • Mixed-Reality Neuronavigation for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
  • Diffusion Tractography for Neurosurgical Targeting

More details about our research >>

Lab News

09/10/2024: Welcome to Megan Martin, incoming BioE graduate student who will do a rotation with us this Fall. 

08/12/2024: Congratulations to Gustavo Chau on successfully defending his PhD thesis entitled: "Mapping Brain Tissue Microstructure in Epilepsy with Multi-Modal MRI"! 

07/01/2024: Welcome to Dr. S. Shailja, who joins our lab as a psotdoc starting this week! 

05/20/2024: Welcome to Dr. Beatrix Krause-Sorio who joins our lab as a staff scientist starting this week!

05/06/2024: Jennifer is named an ISMRM Fellow at the Annual Meeting of the ISMRM in Singapore. 

05/09/2024: Congratulations to Gustavo on his oral presentation at ISMRM in Singapore which received a Summa Cum Laude award. 

05/09/2024: Congratulations to Erpeng on his oral and poster presentations at ISMRM. 

05/01/2024: Farewell to our clinical coordinator Sarah Kim as she heads off to medical school and welcome to Martin Schneider our new clinical coordinator. 

03/09/2024: Jennifer is elected to the ISMRM Board of Trustees as the Scientist from Within North America. 

11/28/2023: Jennifer is elected to the Council of Distinguished Investigators by the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research.