Brad Sutton

Brad Sutton is a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Technical Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at Beckman Institute. He holds affiliate roles in the Neuroscience Program, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and is a Health Innovation Professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. His roles also include fellowship positions with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the CZ Biohub Chicago.

Education: Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan (2003).

Research Interests: Focus on advanced MRI techniques for structural and functional brain imaging, including diffusion-weighted imaging, dynamic imaging, and neuromuscular coupling studies. His work emphasizes multi-scale bioimaging to understand brain function across interventions, aging, and disease.

Publications: Over 180 peer-reviewed articles in 2025-2024 highlight innovations in MRI technology and applications in neuroscience, including breakthroughs in laminar fMRI specificity, myelin development modeling, and Alzheimer’s biomarker studies. Recent work extends to clinical applications like aortic imaging automation and mixed reality training tools.

Awards: AIMBE and ISMRM Fellowships (2017/2024), Abel Bliss Scholar (2014-), and over 9 patents in imaging techniques.

Labs & Teams: Leads the Magnetic Resonance Functional Imaging Lab. Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams across engineering, medicine, and computational science to advance imaging technologies and their clinical translation.