Overview
Dr. McNabb is an engineer by training with a research focus on combining optical coherence tomography (OCT) and robots for use in the ophthalmology clinic. He recently joined the Department of Ophthalmology faculty after post-doctoral training and serving as a lead Research Scientist under Dr. Anthony Kuo at the Duke Eye Center.
He enjoys working closely with clinicians to combine technology and medicine. He is the principal investigator on an NIH R21 grant for “Assistive Robotically Aligning OCT and Laser Photocoagulation Therapy of the Retinal Periphery” in collaboration with Dr. Cynthia Toth. This grant will develop robotically aligned OCT to locate suspected retinal breaks in a patient’s peripheral retina before they can become vision threating detachments.
McNabb earned his B.S. from North Carolina State University in Electrical Engineering and completed his doctoral training at Duke University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering under the mentorship of Prof. Joseph Izatt.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Deep compressed multichannel adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope.
Journal Article Sci Adv · May 9, 2025 Adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscopy (AOSLO) reveals individual retinal cells and their function, microvasculature, and micropathologies in vivo. As compared to the single-channel offset pinhole and two-channel split-detector nonconfocal AOSLO des ... Full text Link to item CiteMobile Robotic Optical Coherence Tomography System for Ophthalmic Imaging in Clinical Environments.
Journal Article Int Symp Med Robot · May 2025 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an indispensable imaging modality for the diagnosis and management of many common eye diseases. We previously presented a fixed-base robotic OCT system to enable automated imaging and alleviate the necessity for restri ... Full text Link to item CiteSensor-driven digital motion correction of robotically-aligned optical coherence tomography retinal volumes.
Journal Article Biomed Opt Express · April 1, 2025 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has revolutionized diagnostics in retinal ophthalmology. Traditional OCT requires minimal relative motion between the subject and scanner, which is difficult to achieve with handheld devices and/or non-stabilized subjects ... Full text Link to item CiteRecent Grants
Academic/Industry Partnership for Next-Generation Robotically Guided Intraoperative Ophthalmic OCT
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2025 - 2029Swept Source (SS-) OCT system for Ex-Vivo Imaging, and specialized human postmortem full tissue sample package preparation
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by Janssen Research & Development, LLC · 2024 - 2028Compact Auto-Aligning Multi-Modality Eye Imager to Diagnose Traumatic Eye Injury
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by United States Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity · 2024 - 2028View All Grants