Rate My Professor Mini Das

Mini Das serves as the Moores Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Houston, with joint appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She earned her Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her academic career at the University of Houston has progressed from assistant professor to full professor, distinguished by major awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2017, the University of Houston Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship in 2018, the NSF ADVANCE Leadership Fellowship in 2019, Scialog Fellowship from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 2020, SPIE Fellowship in 2022, and Optica Fellowship in 2026. Additional honors comprise the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Breakthrough Award in 2016 and the National Cancer Institute Career Development Award (K25) in 2009.

An applied physicist and engineer, Mini Das leads research at the interface of optical physics, biomedical engineering, image science, and computational methods to advance medical and biological imaging. Her work encompasses design and development of innovative x-ray imaging techniques, including phase contrast, spectral, and photon counting modalities for applications in breast cancer detection and beyond. She develops computational simulation platforms for virtual clinical trials, task-based assessments using 3D virtual patients, and psychophysical studies to optimize image quality and observer performance. Key publications include "Penalized maximum likelihood reconstruction for improved microcalcification detection in breast tomosynthesis" (IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2010), "Evaluation of a variable dose acquisition technique for microcalcification and mass detection in digital breast tomosynthesis" (Medical Physics, 2009), "Visual-search observers for assessing tomographic x-ray image quality" (Medical Physics, 2016), "Single-step absorption and phase retrieval with polychromatic x rays using a spectral detector" (Optics Letters, 2013), "Spectral x-ray phase contrast imaging for single-shot retrieval of absorption, phase, and differential-phase imagery" (Optics Letters, 2014), and "Multi-step material decomposition for spectral computed tomography" (Physics in Medicine & Biology, 2019). Mini Das has served on the Board of Editors for Medical Physics since 2017, co-organized the Medical Image Perception Society Meeting in 2017, and led workshops on virtual clinical trials at SPIE Medical Imaging conferences. Her contributions extend to global health efforts for cancer screening in underserved populations.