Tesla Talk: Investigating the body: Current Medical Visual Culture

Speaker: Dr. Dolores Steinman, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Toronto
UCL Contact: Gordana Novakovic (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 09 Mar 10, 18:00 - 19:00
Venue: Garwood LT
Further Information:

The nearest Tube stations are Euston Square and Warren Street. For full details, see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/about-ucl/location/public-transport

How to find the Garwood Lecture Theatre:

Once you enter the main gate of UCL in Gower Street, you will face the Portico in the UCL quadrangle courtyard. Please take the right hand side diagonal and walk to the right corner of the building. You will see the brass tablet indicating South Wing. Enter the second entrance door at the South Wing, and you will find the Garwood Lecture

Abstract

The intricacies of flowing blood can, in principle, tell us much about the potential for, or how best to treat, the vascular diseases that cause most heart attacks and strokes. In practice, however, such "hemodynamics" are difficult to see directly, leading to the now-popular use of computer simulations of blood flow derived from medical images of the patient. Echoing historical developments in the representation of the body, our challenge is to represent these complex data in ways that are meaningful to the lab, to the clinic, and to the patient. In this talk, Dolores Steinman will discuss the Biomedical Simulation Laboratory's efforts to transcend disciplinary boundaries, placing them into their historical context, and emphasizing the key role that artists have, and could, play in creating visual meta languages for scientific visualization.

Dr. Dolores Steinman

Dr. Dolores Steinman was trained as a Paediatrician and, upon relocating to Canada, obtained her PhD in Cell Biology. Currently she is a Research Associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto and a volunteer Docent at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In her research she observes the rapport and the connection between medical imagery and its non-scientific counterparts. Her pursuit is driven by her keen interest in placing the ever increasingly technology-based medical research in the larger context of the humanities.

Website
http://www.mie.utoronto.ca/labs/bsl/