Daniel Tward

Dr. Daniel Tward is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), holding joint appointments in the Department of Neurology and the Department of Computational Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and completed postdoctoral training at the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. His research integrates neuroimaging, machine learning, and differential geometry to analyze brain structure changes in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, with a focus on bridging molecular pathology and clinical imaging.

Research Interests: Dr. Tward's work addresses challenges in neuroimaging data complexity, developing computational tools to map brain anatomy across scales (from centimeters to microns). Key areas include neurodegeneration in the medial temporal lobe, multi-modal image registration, and spatial transcriptomics. His lab emphasizes high-dimensional statistics and geometry-driven analysis to improve diagnostic accuracy and clinical trial design.

Grants & Projects: Secured NIH funding for:

• A 3D multimodal human brain atlas integrating MRI and histology.
• CloudReg—a distributed framework for massive neuroimage registration.
• Contributions to the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) for mouse/rat brain atlases.

Students & Training: Mentors undergraduate researchers via the BIG Summer program, with projects on neural networks, spatial transcriptomics, and MRI analysis. No PhD/Master's advisees listed.