个人简历：
Dr. Zekun Li is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, ShanghaiTech University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024, where he was advised by Prof. Abhinav K. Jha.
Dr. Li’s research lies at the intersection of quantitative nuclear medical imaging, estimation theory, and inverse problems. His work focuses primarily on low-count quantitative SPECT for radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT). During his Ph.D. studies, he developed the projection-domain low-count quantitative SPECT methods for alpha-particle-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy (alpha-RPT) and extended that approach to multi-energy-window dual-isotope quantifications and an estimator that accounts for intra-regional uptake heterogeneity. These studies provide tools for reliable quantitative imaging for alpha-RPT. In addition, Dr. Li’s broader research interests include AI-aided methods for low-count quantitative SPECT, advanced quantitative SPECT algorithms and system development, and positronium lifetime imaging.
Dr. Li has published multiple first-author papers in journals in medical imaging and nuclear medicine, including IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences. His work has received the Alavi-Mandel Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and the Outstanding Research Award from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2025, Dr. Li was selected as one of the SNMMI “Ones to Watch.”
研究领域：
Low-count quantitative SPECT algorithms and systems for alpha-particle-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy
AI-based medical image reconstruction and analysis
Positronium lifetime imaging
教学与课程：
图像科学数学基础（Basic Mathematics of Image Science）
图像科学数学进阶（Advanced Mathematics of Image Science）
放射性药物治疗与影像学应用（Radiopharmaceutical Therapy and the Application of Imaging）
学术任职：
Services to External Academic Communities
Member, SNMMI AI Task Force, 2025–present
Member, SNMMI Computational Nuclear Oncology Working Group, 2024–present
代表性论文：
Zekun Li, N. Benabdallah, R. Laforest, R. Wahl, D. Thorek, and A. Jha, “A multiple-energy-window projection-domain quantitative SPECT method for joint regional uptake quantification of Thorium-227 and Radium-223,” IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2024, 43(12):4281–4293.
Zekun Li, N. Benabdallah, J. Luo, R. Wahl, D. Thorek, and A. Jha, “ISIT-QA: An in silico imaging trial to evaluate a low-count quantitative SPECT method across multiple scanner-collimator configurations for radium-223-based radiopharmaceutical therapies,” Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 2024, 65(5):810–817.
Zekun Li, N. Benabdallah, D. S. Abou, B. C. Baumann, F. Dehdashti, D. H. Ballard, J. Liu, U. Jammalamadaka, R. Laforest, R. L. Wahl, D. L. J. Thorek, and A. K. Jha, “A projection-domain low-count quantitative SPECT method for alpha-particle emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy,” IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences, 2022, 7(1):62–74.
实验室介绍：
The Nuclear Medicine Imaging and Instrumentation Laboratory, or NMII Lab, develops quantitative imaging methods and instrumentation technologies for precision nuclear medicine, radiopharmaceutical therapy, and other medical imaging applications. Grounded in imaging physics, estimation theory, image reconstruction algorithms, and artificial intelligence, the lab addresses challenges in quantitative nuclear medical imaging, including low counts, complex physics, and various imaging system designs and conditions. The long-term goal of the lab is to establish rigorous, validated, and translatable computational platforms for quantitative medical imaging.
The lab’s main research areas include low-count quantitative SPECT algorithms and system development; quantitative imaging and dosimetry-related methods for radiopharmaceutical therapy; imaging-physics modeling and quantitative estimation; objective task-based evaluation of medical imaging systems and algorithms; AI-aided medical imaging; and emerging molecular imaging mechanisms such as positronium lifetime imaging. The lab integrates theoretical investigations, algorithm development, numerical simulation, phantom experiments, small-animal studies, and clinical collaborations to advance quantitative imaging technologies for precision medicine.
The lab welcomes students and researchers with backgrounds in biomedical engineering, medical imaging, nuclear medicine, applied mathematics, physics, computer science, electronic, artificial intelligence, and related fields to join the group or establish collaborations and conduct interdisciplinary research.
