CNI – A new team

Hi Everyone,

About three weeks ago Bob Dougherty let the CNI board know that he was considering taking a position in an interesting new company, Mindstrong Health, a startup in health management. We tried to change Bob’s mind, but it is strong; we were not successful. Bob’s last official day at the CNI is March 31st, though he will remain with us as a visitor for one additional month. We wish him well in his new adventure!

I write to explain our plan for the future CNI organization.

First, I am glad to say that Laima, Hua and I will still be here and helping as usual. You can still go to Laima for safety training, scheduling, and general help with scanning as before. Hua will take on some additional responsibilities to help users; she will particularly help with scanner issues such as helping you decide on your sequences and also helping with scanner issues during the times when Laima is not at her desk.

Two people, Adam Kerr and Michael Perry, will join the staff of the CNI. Adam will oversee the MR system, including pulse sequence development and big hardware.  Michael Perry will take responsibility for data management and processing. They will share responsibilities for managing the various physical devices that are used for experiments (button boxes, displays, physiological data, sound, etc.).

Adam has worked with us at the CNI for several years. His main appointment is in the EE department. Adam, along with Kangrong, Hua and Bob, was a key developer of the SMS sequences that are widely deployed at the CNI and that are the basis for the GE SMS product that will ship in the next few months. In addition to a general help with your protocols, Adam will have primary responsibility for managing the big hardware including overseeing the planned system upgrades. These tasks were about half of Bob’s time, and Adam will be a 50% time staff of the CNI.

Michael has worked with Bob at the CNI supporting the computer infrastructure, including hardware maintenance and data management for several years. He is increasing his commitment to 50% to cover the data management parts of Bob’s job (recon failures, data download issues).  Michael will be overseeing the upgrade of the data management system, including both new hardware and software, that will take place over the next few months.

We will announce some CNI social events shortly so that you can visit with all of us and share your ideas about the new organization and to meet any of the people you do not yet know. We will be glad to tell you what we are thinking and to hear back from you.  Next week we will send out some messages about specific times.

It has been a real pleasure for me to work with Bob for nearly twenty years, the last five at the CNI.  He will be missed.  Laima, Hua, Adam, Michael, and I are committed to continuing to support your work and we will try to live up to the standards of the past five years.

Regards,

Brian Wandell