Georgia Tourassi facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gina Tourassi
Tourassi at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2017
Born	Georgia D. Tourassi Greece
Alma mater	Duke University (PhD) Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (BSc)
Scientific career
Fields	Biomedical informatics Computer-aided diagnosis Artificial intelligence
Institutions	Duke University Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Thesis	Artificial neural networks for image analysis and diagnosis in nuclear medicine (1993)

Georgia "Gina" D. Tourassi is a leading scientist who helps doctors use computers to understand health information better. She works at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and is also a professor at Duke University. Gina uses artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to improve how we find and treat diseases, especially cancer.

Gina's Early Life and School

Gina Tourassi was born in Greece. She loved science and studied physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, finishing in 1987. After that, she moved to the United States to continue her studies at Duke University. She earned her PhD in 1993.

How Gina Helps Doctors with Technology

Gina Tourassi started working at Duke University in 1988. She became a professor there in 2006. Her research helps doctors use computers to find diseases like cancer early.

Using AI to Understand Health Data

Gina's work often uses something called big health data. This means looking at huge amounts of health information. She uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors understand medical images, like X-rays or scans. This is called computer-aided diagnosis (CAD).

Improving Breast Cancer Screening

One important area of her work is improving breast cancer screening. She creates smart computer systems that can help doctors find signs of cancer in mammograms. These systems are interactive, meaning doctors can work with them. They use special computer methods, like information theory and genetic algorithms, to sort through many images.

Finding Important Information in Images

Her systems can quickly look at hundreds of medical images. They find the most important parts and can flag areas that might show cancer. Gina was even chosen to be on a special committee for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This committee advises on how to use computer-aided diagnosis safely and effectively.

Working at Oak Ridge National Lab

In 2011, Gina Tourassi joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This is a very important science lab in the United States. She is the first director of the Health Data Sciences Institute there. She helps guide how the lab uses medical science and computing to solve health problems.

Using Supercomputers for Health

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a very powerful computer called the Titan supercomputer. Gina uses this supercomputer for something called deep learning. This helps computers learn to read and understand medical reports about cancer. This work is part of a big project called Cancer Moonshot 2020, which aims to speed up cancer research.

Predicting the Future of Health Care

Gina believes that these automated tools will help medical researchers find new ways to fight cancer. They can also help leaders decide where to invest in new health technologies. She also uses artificial intelligence to make sure that doctors interpret mammograms fairly, without any hidden biases.

Creating New Tools for Health Research

Gina has also helped create other useful computer tools:

• iCrawl: This is a special web tool that collects information from the internet for e-health research.
• ORiGAMI: This stands for Oak Ridge Graph Analytics for Medical Innovation. It's a tool that helps with medical diagnosis and research. Gina used ORiGAMI to explore information about genomics, which is the study of our genes.

She was also part of a team that built a "knowledge graph." This graph helps computers find useful information from messy, unstructured data. It works a bit like how Netflix suggests movies you might like, but for medical information. It combines huge amounts of data analysis with machine learning.

Supporting Women in Science

Gina Tourassi is a strong supporter of women and minority groups in science and engineering. She helps with a program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory that mentors women. She is also a member of The Bredesen Centre, which supports scientific research.

Awards and Honours

Gina Tourassi has received many important awards for her work:

• 2015 Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
• 2015 Fellow of American Association of Physicists in Medicine
• 2016 United States Department of Energy Secretary's Appreciation Award
• 2017 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Award
• 2017 Fellow of the SPIE
• 2018 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director's Award
• 2018 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distinguished Researcher award
• 2019 Co-Chair of the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference
• 2020 Chair of the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference