Researcher biography

    Dr Kieran O'Brien is a Senior Scientist at Siemens Healthcare Pty Ltd and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Imaging. He completed his Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering (1st class Honours) from the University of Auckland in 2004 and completed his PhD in Bioengineering at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute in 2009. After being awarded his PhD, Kieran worked in postdoctoral positions at Centre d'Imagerie BioMédicale, Switzerland before joining Siemens Australia as a Senior Scientist in 2013.

    Kieran has developed expertise as a sequence and image reconstruction software programmer for Siemens MR Scanners; developing, implementing and validating new advanced image acquisition and reconstruction techniques that overcome clinical and physical problems into commercial products. He has been responsible for leading the management of sequence projects to translate basic research from the lab on to Siemens scanners as software products that can be distributed to researchers worldwide. Of particular note is his involvement in the upgrade and development of the software for the new 7T MAGNETOM TERRA clinical ultra high filed system; designing of adiabatic RF pulses to enable QISS: non-contrast angiography at 3T; and, the development of or contribution to prototype MRI sequences such as 3DEPI, MP2RAGE, PETRA or pTx SPACE.

    His research interests are focused on translating research ideas into commercial products and is currently working on projects in:

    • RF pulses at high field (≥3T) to overcome imaging inhomogeneity and B1 limitations for Neuro and MSK applications
    • Cardiac 4D flow and PC-UTE flow imaging
    • Quantitative susceptibility mapping and phase imaging.