About Us - The NIRx Team

Randall L. Barbour, Ph. D.: Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Barbour is the originator of the field of diffuse optical tomography and co-founder of the company. He has an extensive background in a broad range of medical and scientific and technical fields.

His formal biomedical training includes a Ph. D. degree in biochemistry from Syracuse University and a post-doctoral fellowship in Laboratory Medicine from SUNY Buffalo. Dr. Barbour is currently Professor of Pathology at SUNY Downstate, and Research Professor of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnic University. Dr. Barbour is also active in a number of professional societies and related organizations.

Dr. Barbour has an extensive research and publication record. He has been awarded more than $7 million dollars in peer reviewed grants from NIH and other government agencies, and he has published more than 150 peer review and conference papers; he is co-editor on three books; and he holds four patents. His publications cover a broad range of subject matter.

Christoph H. Schmitz, Ph. D.: Director, NIRx Medizintechnik GmbH

Dr. Schmitz has a strong background in physics with wide expertise in laser optics, medical physics, data acquisition, and the design of analog and digital electronics.

In 1998 he received his Ph. D. degree in Physics from the University of Hannover, Germany, where he worked on non-invasive in vivo evaluation of tissue optical properties.

In 1999, Dr. Schmitz joined the Optical Tomography Group at SUNY Downstate as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Barbour and subsequently joined NIRx where he has played a key role in the development of the DYNOT system.

Dr. Schmitz has published more than 20 peer review and conference papers. He has received two grants as Principal Investigator; a Phase I NIH SBIR grant from the National Cancer Institute and a two-year grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the early detection of breast cancer.

Daniel Lee, MD: Medical Director

Dr. Lee received his M.D. degree from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine.  He subsequently completed Surgery residency at Yale University and Cardiothoracic Surgery training at Cornell University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  Dr. Lee was funded by the NIH during surgery residency to conduct research at Columbia University investigating the relationship between RAGE (Receptor for Advance Glycation End-product) and atherogenesis and tumorigenisis as well as biomedical optics.  He was also a member of the Cardiac Transplantation Team.  

His current research includes autoimmune response in ischemia reperfusion and near-infrared optical tomography in cerebral protection during cardiopulmonary bypass. 

Dr. Lee performs a full spectrum of adult cardiac and thoracic surgery.  He is particularly interested in complex aortic surgery, ventricular assist devices, and minimally invasive thoracic surgery.

Yaling Pei, Ph. D.: Director of Software Development

Dr. Pei holds MS degree in Computational Mechanics from Southwest Jiaotong University (China), and in 1999, received her Ph. D. degree in Material and Structural Engineering from Polytechnic University.

Dr. Pei has broad training in numerical methods including finite element techniques and has played a key role in developing the software used for image recovery and time-series image analysis with the DYNOT system.

Dr. Pei has published more than 20 peer review and conference papers in the field of biomedical optics. She has been awarded four grants as Principal Investigator including a Phase I and Phase II funding from the Office of Army Research and a Phase I SBIR grant award from NIHLB. Dr. Pei also is a co-inventor on six patents granted or under review that deal with data analysis schemes for imaging in highly scattering media.

Harry L. Graber Ph.D.: Senior Applications Specialist

Dr. Graber received his A.B. in Chemistry from Washington University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in 1998.

Dr. Graber has carried out research in many areas of diffuse optical tomography during the past 15 years.
More recently Dr. Graber has worked in the area of biological signal analysis, with particular attention on signal decomposition and nonlinear time series analysis.

Dr. Graber has published sixteen peer review papers and is a co-inventor on four patents. He has been awarded a Phase I SBIR grant from NINDS as Principal Investigator and serves as Research Assistant Professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

Yong Xu, Ph.D.: Assistant Director of Software Development

Dr. Xu obtained his M.S. Degree in Physics from Chengdu University of Science and Technology and in 1995 received his Ph.D. Degree in Physics from the Southwest Jiaotong University.

Dr. Xu is experienced in the use of mathematical and experimental techniques for acquiring and analyzing optical tomographic data. He is the primary author of 14 peer review and conference papers.

Dr Xu has been published in the foremost international journals dealing with optical tomography, including the Journal of Biomedical Optics and Applied Optics.

He is also Research Assistant Professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center