Dr. Ko is a Research Scientist in the Resuscitation Science Center (RSC) where she leads development and application of non-invasive, optical neuromonitoring technologies to detect and help mitigate neurological injury in preclinical and clinical studies of resuscitation and extracorporeal life support. She also leads implementation of preclinical data architecture and data standardization within the RSC to facilitate predictive model development with an emphasis on prediction of resuscitation success and of neurological injury.

Research focuses include:

• Diffuse optical techniques for non-invasive measurement of tissue oxygen saturation, blood volume, blood flow, oxygen metabolism and mitochondrial health.
• Examining the relationship of cerebral and systemic physiologic response to clinical interventions.
• Developing brain-directed management strategies to improve neurological outcomes following cardiopulmonary resuscitation and extracorporeal life support (e.g., cardiopulmonary bypass, ECMO).
• Preclinical large animal bioinformatics and machine learning for prediction of neurological injury.

BS, Princeton University (Electrical Engineering), 2009

MS, University of California Berkley (Bioengineering, Translational Medicine), 2012

PhD, University of Penn (Bioengineering), 2018

Research Scientist

Society of Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, 2021-

American Heart Association, 2020-

Optica, 2018-

International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 2018-

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, 2017-

American Society for Engineering Education, 2017-2018

Emerging Innovators in Collaborative Science Award, CHOP, 2022

Young Investigator Award, American Heart Association Resuscitation Science Symposium, 2020

Noninvasive Diagnosis of Intracranial Hypertension with a Backpack Optical Spectroscopy System
Department of Defense
2022
Co-I

Biomedical Optical Devices to Monitor Cerebral Health
CHOP Frontier Program
2019
Co-I

Novel Technology and Discovery Development for Traumatic Brain Injury
Toyota Way Forward Fund
2023
Co-I