Karen Drukker, PhD, MBA

Karen has been involved in medical imaging research at the University of Chicago for 20+ years. Her interests include medical imaging, machine learning applications in the detection, diagnosis, and prognosis of disease with a focus on rigorous training/testing protocols, generalizability, and performance evaluation.
Karen has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers on artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging – mostly related to breast image analysis, performance evaluation methods, and COVID-19, has co-authored several book chapters, and is co-inventor on 2 patents. She is currently Editorial Board Member for the professional peer-reviewed journal Medical Physics, and Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Imaging and the British Journal of Radiology. She has been involved in the organization of multiple scientific Grand Challenges and served on scientific committees for many medical imaging conferences; most recently as the Chair for the Computer-Aided Diagnosis Conference of the Society for Optics and Photonics Medical Imaging Symposium. She was awarded Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine for her contributions to medical physics.
Karen has been actively involved with MIDRC in a collaborative research project focussed on scientific Grand Challenges and a technology development project which focuses on performance metrics and benchmarking. Furthermore, she’s part of organizational aspects of MIDRC as a member of many of the trans-MIDRC committees and working groups. As a female PhD in physics, the Bias and Diversity Working Group, of which she is a co-lead, holds a special place in her heart.
Karen is the proud mom of 2 wonderful boys, ages 9 and 11, with whom she enjoys going on adventurous hikes, as seen in the picture taken in the Upper Peninsula by their dad. Keywords are nature lover, fitness enthusiast, spiritual yogi, and health nut. Socks and sandals allowed. She grows her own vegetables on her small farm that also houses her 3 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 bunnies, and her trusty tractor.

Kenneth Tomkovich, MD

As the American College of Radiology® (ACR®) COVID-19 Imaging Research Registry (CIRR) site principal investigator (PI), Kenneth Tomkovich, M.D., has led his team at CentraState Medical Center to contribute more than 16,000 imaging studies and clinical data representing more than 6,000 patients to the MIDRC repository through the registry. His dedication to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and his tireless efforts to coalesce his institutional team at CentraState have made him an integral member of ACR’s CIRR Steering Committee and a true leader of this effort. CentraState’s participation enhances practice diversity in the MIDRC dataset by contributing cases from a private practice setting.
A prolific researcher, Dr. Tomkovich has authored or co-authored articles in several medical journals, including Respiratory Medicine, Academic Radiology, Emergency Radiology and the American Journal of Radiology. He has also presented papers at numerous national and international medical conferences. His specific research interests include breast imaging and interventions. Dr. Tomkovich, has dedicated the past 10 years studying the topic of breast cancer cryoablation. Applying his skills as a fellowship-trained interventional radiologist, he has worked to develop ablation techniques and protocols for the primary treatment of breast cancer. Dr. Tomkovich is a lead principal investigator on the ICE3 trial for ultrasound guided cryoablation of low risk breast cancers without surgical resection.
Through relationships he had developed over the years, several of his international colleagues had shared with him the imaging findings typically seen in COVID-19 patients. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit his institution in March 2020, he was prepared. He diagnosed several of the earliest cases based on imaging findings days before any the availability of laboratory testing or confirmation. This sharing of images and collaborative spirit led to his interest in working with the ACR and MIDRC.
“The ACR was receptive to the idea of a COVID-19 research registry. As a global leader in imaging, the ACR used its vast imaging resources to establish the registry. Collaborating with MIDRC was a natural choice,” said Tomkovich. “To have such a dataset available for investigators from around the world to draw upon and use is one positive resulting from the pandemic. We are all part of a larger global medical community. COVID-19 has helped remind us that diseases have no boundaries. Through our common experiences, working together and sharing information, we can improve the quality of healthcare for all. The MIDRC dataset is a powerful tool that will aid in that goal,” added Tomkovich.
Dr. Tomkovich is a native of New Jersey. In his spare time, he volunteers with several community groups and has coached youth baseball and soccer. He enjoys family vacations with his wife and three children. He loves to golf and regularly attends Giants, Mets and Rutgers games. He is a big country music fan and is looking forward to seeing Kenny Chesney in concert this summer.