Sinan Kockara

Sinan Kockara is a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University. He holds adjunct roles at the University of Central Arkansas (Computer Science and Engineering) and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. With a Ph.D. in Applied Computing and a BS in Computer Engineering, his expertise spans medical image processing, virtual reality (VR) surgical simulation, and high-performance computing. His research focuses on dermatology imaging and arthroscopic surgery training systems, with $2.4+ million in funding from NIH, NSF, and industry partners. He has authored 40+ publications and holds over 640 citations.

Education:

• BS, Computer Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University (Izmir, Turkey)
• PhD, Applied Computing, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Research Interests: Dr. Kockara develops VR-based surgical simulators for orthopedic training, including fluid dynamics simulations and bone drilling procedures. His work integrates machine learning for skill assessment and medical image analysis for dermatology applications. His lab (Biomedical Image Processing & HPC Lab) emphasizes real-time visualization and HPC optimization for medical systems.

Grants & Validation: He secured major grants to validate surgical training platforms like ViRCAST and VATDEP. His studies compare novice/expert surgeon performance metrics and employ systematic validation frameworks for medical simulations.

Labs & Future Work: Leads the Biomedical Image Processing & High-Performance Computing Lab, advancing real-time medical visualization and GPU-accelerated algorithms. Ongoing projects include cloud-based surgical simulators and AI-driven medical education tools.