Extended Biography
Epoch 1
Graduate Student
1966-1968 Graduate student studying at the University of Rochester with David Blackstock and Hugh Flynn. Research leading to first publication on the viscous wave equation in J.A.S.A. and an M.S. E.E. degree. Scientific communication was mainly through publications and conferences. Plots were hand calculated. Presentations involved professionals who created word slides and traced plots drawn from calculated or data points. Oscilloscope traces were recorded by Polaroid photographs.
Epoch 2
Pioneering Surface Acoustic Wave Device Research
1970-1981 Research on surface acoustic wave devices on piezoelectric crystals at AF Cambridge Research Laboratories in Bedford, MA and fundamental understanding of basic physics of surface wave transducers which led to advanced designs of low loss, high frequency, high performance signal processing devices and two patents, 5 book chapters and reports, 16 peer reviewed papers and 17 conference publications, including one that won the IEEE Transactions on Sonics and Ultrasonics 1974 Best Paper award. These efforts laid the groundwork for the design of surface acoustic wave filters which enabled wireless communication and cell phones. Presently billions of these devices are made per year. Several may be in your cell phone. Presentations used similar professional help and 2 by 3 “ slides containing images of words, equations and experimental results on positive film sandwiched between two glass plates or on 35 mm slides. Presented mainly at IEEE Ultrasonics Symposia and Acoustical Society of America conferences. Punch card experts typed in programs punched onto cards; others fed boxes of punch cards into IBM 360 computers. A large program used 80K of memory.
Epoch 3
NonDestructive Evaluation Ultrasound
1974-1981 Research with postdoc Harold Frost and Jim Sethares led to an invention of a new noncontact handheld electromagnetic transducer, patented, and advanced nondestructive evaluation methods and 8 peer-reviewed publications and 9 proceedings papers.
Epoch 4
Coal Seam Imaging at Oxford University
1979-1980 Became interested in imaging after one year examining imaging methods for coal seams under a fellowship from the National Coal Board at Oxford University, U.K.. Scientists could directly program in Fortran on cathode ray tube terminals connected to shared PDP computers.
Epoch 5
Research and Development of Diagnostic Ultrasound Systems at Hewlett Packard
1981-1999 Joined Advanced Projects Group at Hewlett Packard (hp) in Andover, MA and left when hp was the worldwide leader in phased array ultrasound echocardiology imaging systems. Recollections of this time at hp were published recently (2021). Contributed to advanced transducer and array designs, materials and modeling; beamforming algorithms, acoustic output measurements, hydrophone development, nonlinear propagation and bioeffects and harmonic imaging. Despite confidentiality restrictions, managed to publish 12 chapters and peer reviewed papers and 7 conference papers and one patent. Because of the widespread use of copiers, presentations were made on viewgraphs which were transparent copies of paper originals or were hand drawn. Color plots could be made directly on hp plotters from computers. Initially engineers wrote Fortran programs and shared large computers accessed through several available terminals. John Hart, the leader of the ultrasound effort, predicted we would each have our own “workstations.” By the late 80’s, his prediction came true along with email. In the late 80’s MATLAB for advanced scientific programming simplified and sped up research and designs. By the early 90’s his research group obtained a Convex 240 supercomputer with power cables as big as your arm. By the late 1990’s, hp workstations had the computing power of the supercomputer which was then rendered obsolete. The world wide web became available in the mid 1990’s and became an amazing source of information and linked together scientists around the world for the first time and enabled distant collaborations.
Epoch 6
New Model for Ultrasound Propagation and PhD
1989-1993 Completed a PhD in physics at the University of Bath, Linear and Nonlinear Acoustic Propagation in Lossy Media (1993), under the sponsorship of an hp fellowship. Dissertation involved solving the viscous wave equation using fractional calculus methods and led to a book chapter, 3 three conference papers and 5 peer reviewed articles three of which together have been referenced nearly twelve hundred times and helped inspire Waves with Power-Law Attenuation, a 2019 book by Sverre Holm. Experimental control and computation (Fortran) were handled by an IBM XT pc and MSDOS.
Epoch 7
Ultrasound Telemedicine
1981-2010 Worked with Professor Peder Pedersen of WPI to pioneer ultrasound telemedicine and training methods and produced a startup, Imagasonics, applied for four patents and published five conference papers.
Epoch 8
Geophysical Exploration
2010- Present Collaborated with a geophysics team at MIT to apply medical imaging approaches to seismology and ended up with even newer methods of underground explorations, three journal articles and five conference papers. Co-inventor on two new patents, issued in 2023 and 2024, on Heterogeneous Subsurface Imaging Systems and Methods, which describes a novel methods of subsurface exploration which employs both acoustic and electromagnetic waves in complementary fusion.
Epoch 9
Professor at Boston University
2000-Present Became faculty member of the Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Departments at Boston University. Taught entrepreneurship and best practices, senior projects, ultrasound, medical imaging and wave propagation courses. Introduced all biomedical engineering students at B.U. from 2005-2017 to ultrasound imaging via lab modules. Collaborated on research characterization of lung airways and the cervical spine with ultrasound, examining coral with ultrasound, imaging vocal folds, developing hybrid electrical impedance tomography and ultrasound imaging transducers, high speed beamforming and imaging simulators, ultrasound-induced bioeffects, acoustic radiation force, nonlinear effects, elastography, brain imaging with functional ultrasound, clinical use of ultrasound transducers, activation of neurons with ultrasound and the history of ultrasound. Supervised PhD students including Adam LaPrad who won the BME best paper award. Presently, Research Professor Emeritus. Around 2000, digitally generated Powerpoint slides replaced Viewgraphs. Desktop and laptop computers became widespread with access to large mainframe computers.
Epoch 10
Textbooks
2000-2024 Wrote Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging: Inside Out, 806 pages, alone; now in its second edition, it is the most widely used ultrasound imaging science textbook worldwide, referenced over 2800 times and taught in many universities. Completed new textbook, co-authored with Peter Kaczkowski, Essentials of Ultrasound Imaging, published in December, 2023 and teaching with a revolutionary method using ultrasound simulator programs and laboratories based on ultrasound research systems. Also contributed to biomedical engineering textbooks, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering (two editions), Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing and Biomedical Sensors; chaired a group that wrote the fourth edition of the AIUM ultrasound dictionary. Taught three short courses at the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposia.
Epoch 11
Leader in ultrasound safety and standards
1988- Present Since 1988, (for 35 years), is delegate to Technical Committee 87 of the International Electrotechnical Commission which produces the international standards for ultrasound, is Head of the U.S. Delegation, is Convenor of Working Group 6, High Intensity Therapeutic Ultrasound and Focusing. As AIUM Technical Standards Chair, Szabo helped introduce Therapeutic Ultrasound back into the main AIUM agenda which led to a joint AIUM/ISTU meeting. He facilitated, organized and is leading the High Intensity Focused Ultrasound effort within the international ultrasound standards group, IEC TC87. As co-chair of the AIUM-NEMA Acoustics Output Measurements Standard Committee which produced one of the first diagnostic ultrasound standards: Acoustic Output Measurement and Labeling Standard for Diagnostic Ultrasound Equipment, 1992. He contributed to many research and other efforts on acoustic output measurements and bioeffects. This work included ten peer-reviewed papers, many presentations and the development of a highest frequency and highest resolution membrane hydrophone ever made at that time (1998).
Epoch 12
Technical Expert
2001-2024 He was a technical expert witness in three cases with winning outcomes.