Overview
After discovering an interest in biophotonics and medical devices in high school, Hillel began working in Adam Wax's BIOS lab in 2009 at Duke University. Hillel studied Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2010-2015 where he received this Bachelors of Science degree. While an undergraduate student in 2012, Hillel began worked in Amy Oldenburg's Coherence Imaging Lab at UNC. There he focused on image processing and 3D reconstruction of airway geometry from anatomical Optical Coherence Tomography (aOCT) images. After graduating from UNC, Hillel continued on as a Research Specialist in the Coherence Imaging Lab focusing on 3D reconstructing CT and aOCT images of phantoms and in vivo pig airways for computation fluid dynamics simulations of airflow. In 2019 Hillel returned to the BIOS lab as a Research Assistant to work on Dual-Axis OCT, combined Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) and Forrester Resonance Energy Transfer imaging, and High throughput holographic cytometry. In 2021 Hillel began his PhD studies at Duke with a research focus on using low-cost OCT and angle-resolved Low Coherence Interferometry (a/LCI) to detect biomarkers of Alzheimer's Disease in a clinical setting. In his free time Hillel enjoys socializing, cooking, and cheering on UNC Tar Heels.
Recent Publications
Development of next generation low-cost OCT towards improved point-of-care retinal imaging.
Journal Article Biomedical optics express · February 2025 Low-cost optical coherence tomography (OCT) has shown promise in increasing access to noninvasive retinal imaging at the point of care, especially in low-resource environments. A next-generation low-cost OCT system is presented which improves performance o ... Full text CiteMultimodal segmentation of dynamic subcellular features using quantitative phase imaging and FRET-based sensors [Invited].
Journal Article Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision · November 2024 Understanding cellular responses to mechanical environmental stimuli is important for cellular mechanotransduction studies. While fluorescence microscopy has been used for aiding mechanotransduction research due to its molecular sensitivity, the ability of ... Full text CiteDual Spectrometer Alignment, Optimization, and Phantom-based Recalibration Towards Retinal Measurement via Balanced Detection Low-cost Optical Coherence Tomography
Conference Optical Coherence Tomography, OCT 2024 in Proceedings Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024, Translational, Microscopy, OCT, OTS, BRAIN - Part of Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics · January 1, 2024 Low-cost OCT has point-of-care diagnostic potential for retinal measurements related to neurodegenerative diseases in low resource environments. We present methods for improved retinal imaging in low-cost OCT via implementation of balanced detection. ... CiteRecent Grants
Retinal Light Scattering Measurements as a Clinical Biomarker of Alzheimer's Disease
ResearchGraduate Student · Awarded by National Institute on Aging · 2022 - 2027Angle resolved light scattering through a multimode fiber for measuring cell nuclei morphology
ResearchAssociate in Research · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2020 - 2023View All Grants