Ronald Instrella

In Vivo Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (¹H-MRS), Spectral Quantification in ¹H-MRS, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Software Development.

Ronald Instrella is an incoming doctoral student with a wide range of engineering and research experience in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and software development. At Stanford, his undergraduate work focused on motion correction thermometry for applications using MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS). In 2015, his interest in image processing led to projects on remote sensing of shallow marine environments using small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) at NASA Ames Research Center. He officially became a federal civil servant in 2020, and since 2017 has served as a software engineer at NASA's Intelligent Systems Division, contributing to systems related to extravehicular activity (EVA), NASA’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) campaign, and the agency’s technology transfer program.

Ronald joined the MR Science laboratory as a Ph.D. student in 2021. His research focuses on methods development for proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-MRS). His long-term career goal is to become a computational researcher in ¹H-MRS, utilizing novel approaches in statistics, sequence programming and software development to improve MRS methodology. He also hopes to inspire others to pursue careers in science and engineering, through outreach and public engagement.

Pronouns: he/him

PhD      Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University,
               School of Engineering and Applied Science (2021 - )
MS        Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (2014)
BS         Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (2013)

Honorable Mention, Poster Competition
i2i Workshop, New York University (2023)

TL1 Doctoral Fellowship
Columbia University Irving Medical Center (2022)

NASA Superior Accomplishment Award (SAA), Performance Year 2021
Intelligent Systems Division, NASA Ames Research Center (2021)

Nominated, NASA Ames Honor Award, Contractor Employee
Earth Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center (2016)

Undergraduate Award of Excellence
Stanford University (2013)

Walk the Talk Service Leadership Award
Stanford University, Haas Center for Public Service (2013)

GitHub Repos | ORCID Profile | ResearchGate | LinkedIn

Instrella R, Juchem C. Uncertainty propagation in absolute metabolite quantification for in vivo MRS of the human brain. Magnetic Resonance in Med. November 2023:mrm.29903. doi:10.1002/mrm.29903

Chirayath V, Instrella R. Fluid lensing and machine learning for centimeter-resolution airborne assessment of coral reefs in American Samoa. Remote Sensing of Environment. 2019;235:111475. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2019.111475

Rieke V, Instrella R, Rosenberg J, et al. Comparison of temperature processing methods for monitoring focused ultrasound ablation in the brain: Temperature Processing Methods. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2013;38(6):1462-1471. doi:10.1002/jmri.24117