Jakob Asslaender, PhD

My research sits at the interface of MRI physics and engineering. Trained in physics, I now develop quantitative MRI methods that are grounded in the physical mechanisms generating contrast in biological tissue. What distinguishes my lab is the co-design of MRI acquisition strategies and biophysical models: we tailor each to the other and to the clinical or scientific question at hand, enhancing sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility.

We study contrast mechanisms as they manifest under clinical imaging conditions—not in controlled phantoms or isolated systems—because acquisition dictates which biophysical models adequately describe the signal, and, in turn, those models inform how we acquire data. This interdependence is what we exploit: it allows us to build effective models that are simultaneously principled and practical, enabling the reproducible measurements that large-scale studies and AI-driven analyses demand.

Our primary focus is neuroimaging, with active projects in multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, mild traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, stroke, and maternal brain plasticity. We also work beyond the brain, including musculoskeletal applications in osteoarthritis. Our work spans pulse sequence development, biophysical modeling, image reconstruction, and clinical translation.