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Sarah Patch

  • Associate Professor, Physics

Research Interests

Algorithm development for direct image reconstruction is Dr. Patch's area of training, although she currently collects experimental data. \nEarly work in diffuse tomography led to cone beam CT inversion as a corporate scientist. Dr. Patch returned to academia to focus (pun intended!) on thermoacoustics. Thermoacoustic imaging is a hybrid technique in which rapid heating induces outgoing pressure pulses, which are detected noninvasively by transducers surrounding the field of view. Dr. Patch has developed an inversion formula for idealized thermoacoustic data and quantitatively imaged the electrical conductivity in fresh surgical specimens. Most recently, she has turned her attention to thermoacoustic range verification during ion therapy.

Biographical Sketch

Sarah Patch received her BS in Mathematics & Computational Sciences from Stanford University in 1989 and her PhD in Applied Math from UC Berkeley in 1994. She then obtained a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Mathematical Sciences and worked at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications from 1994 to 1995. In 1995, she was awarded a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the University of Muenster, Germany. The following year Patch went back to Stanford University. From 1997 to 1999 Patch held a position GE’s Corporate Research and Development Center; in 2005 she joined GE Medical Systems’ Applied Science Lab in Milwaukee. Since 2005, she has been working at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. \nProfessor Patch is inventor on more than 10 patents, as well as author on numerous publications. Her work has been supported by NIH, NSF, and DARPA.

Selected Publications

Patch, Sarah K., Hull, David, Thomas, Majorca, Griep, Stephanie, Jacobsohn, Kenneth, and See, William. “Thermoacoustic contrast of prostate cancer due to heating by very high frequency irradiation” Institute of Physics60. (2015): 689-708.
Roggenbuck, Michael, Catenacci, Jared, Walker, Ryan, Hanson, Eric, Hsieh, Jiang, and Patch, Sarah K.“Thermoacoustic Imaging With VHF Signal Generation – A New Contrast Mechanism for Cancer Imaging over Large Fields of View” Abdomen and Thoracic Imaging - An Engineering & Clinical PerspectiveEd. El Baz, Ayman. Springer. (2014).
Li, D., Jung, Y. S., Kim, H. K., Chen, J., Geller, D. A., Shuba, M. V., Maksimenko, S. A., Patch, Sarah K., Forati, E., and Hanson, G. W.“The effect of sample holder geometry on electromagnetic heating of nanoparticle and NaCl solutions at 13.56 MHz” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering59.12 (2012): 3468--3474.
Eckhart, A., Balmer, R., See, W., and Patch, Sarah K.“Ex Vivo Thermoacoustic Imaging over Large Fields of View with 108 MHz Irradiation” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering58.8 (2011): 2238-2246.
Patch, Sarah K., Rao, N., Kelly, H., Jacobsohn, K., and See, W. A.“Specific heat capacity of freshly excised prostate specimens” Physiological Measurement32.11 (2011): 55-64.
Treeby, B. E., Cox, B. T., Zhang, E. Z., Patch, Sarah K., and Beard, P. C.“Measurement of broadband temperature-dependent ultrasonic attenuation and dispersion using photoacoustics” IEEE Trans on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Freq Control56.8 (2009): 1666-1676.
Hanson, George W., and Patch, Sarah K.“Optimum Heating of Nanoparticle Thermal Contrast Agents at RF Frequencies” Journal of Applied Physics106. (2009): 054309.
Fallon, D., Yan, L., Hanson, G. W., and Patch, Sarah K.“RF testbed for thermoacoustic tomography” Review of Scientific Instruments80. (2009): 064301.

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.