Health care in the 21st century has the promise of leveraging the most advanced technologies ever developed. Advances in biotechnology, biosensors, medical informatics, and other fields are based upon fundamental advances in computer-based simulation, networking, visualization, microminiturization and other technologies that have largely been produced within the past decade. As this pace of innovation continues and increases, even more biomedical applications of these technologies will be realized. By extrapolating current technological trends into the future, we can see a world where communications barriers are absent, computational limits are unbounded, and sensing devices become unrestrictive, prolific, and ultimately unnoticable.
One of these innovative areas, computer-based surgical simulation, is a product of the latest wave of these technical advances. Computer-based surgical simulation offers the promise of broader training through the presentation of anatomical variations (gender, age, obesity), pathological conditions (diseases, trauma), and operating environments (OR, ER, battlefield, microgravity), objective quantification of surgical performance (simulation of results, certification), and accelerated acquisition of baseline surgical skills, all without risk to real patients. These benefits are built upon advances in computer simulation, numerical methods, graphics, algorithms, user interface design, networking, and mechanical engineering, many of which have only been possible within the past few years.
This talk will focus on the recent technical innovations in this area and discuss related research projects underway across the world and at Stanford University.
Kevin Montgomery is the Engineering Director of the National Center for Space Biological Technologies (NCSBT) at Stanford University. This Center is a collaboration between NASA and Stanford University to develop advanced technologies for biological research and human physiological monitoring. Earlier, as the Technical Director of the National Biocomputation Center at Stanford, his team developed systems for computer-based surgical planning, intraoperative assistance systems, surgical simulators, anatomical atlases, as well as wireless telemedicine and telemetry.
Before joining Stanford, he led teams at the NASA Ames Research Center to develop systems for image processing, 3D reconstruction, visualization, and simulation of biomedical imaging data for space-related research. Based on this work, his team won the Contractor's Council Award, an FDA Group Recognition Award, the Sterling Software Excellence Award three times, and was a runner-up to the NASA Software of the Year Award. While working full-time at NASA, he also completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from the University of California. Also during his time at NASA, he developed and demonstrated the first live transmission of vital signs and video from a commercial aircraft, which earned he and his research partner the Smithsonian Award in 1998.
Prior to joining NASA, he was a project leader at the Hewlett-Packard Company focusing on networking protocol design and implementation. His group developed the first commercial implementation of the X.500 distributed directory and XDS networking interfaces. While earning his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Delaware, he also worked for Hewlett-Packard developing a Microbial Identification System and other work in computation applied in analytical chemistry.
He regularly serves on review sections for NIH, NSF, DoD, and other granting agencies, serves on the program committees of several technical conferences, and advises and consults with several small, high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley. In addition to his position at Stanford, he is also an adjunct professor in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. He has over 15 years of full-time technical experience in industry, government, and academia, 11 years of management experience, and over 40 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications.