Bill Katz

OBJECTIVE

To work with cutting-edge technology and innovative business models.

EDUCATION

M.D.
The University of Virginia, 1995
Studied basic sciences including genetics/biostatistics, neuroscience, human behavior, and psychopathology and participated in clinical care in areas such as Psychiatry, Neurosurgery, and Orthopedics

Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering.
The University of Virginia, 1994
Dissertation: “Semiautomated Segmentation and Display of Three-Dimensional Images of the Head"

B.S. Biological Sciences.
Stanford University, 1987
In addition to premedical studies, completed almost all coursework required for a coterminal M.S. in Computer Science before leaving for the M.D./Ph.D. program at Univ. of Virginia. Graduate coursework included numerous courses in Artificial Intelligence, Medical Informatics, and Computer Graphics

Summer Session of East Asian Economic Systems and Japanese
Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, 1983

International Baccalaureate
St. Mary’s International (High) School, Tokyo, Japan, 1982
Completed thesis on computer-assisted instruction and International Baccalaureate study with Honors for one year college credit

HONORS

Best Screenplay, 2008 De Anza Screenplay Competition

Grand Prize, 2003 Writers of the Future Contest, August 2004

First Prize Short Story, 2003 Writers of the Future Contest, Q2 2003

Sigma Xi, the Research Honorary Society, 1993

Whitfield-Randolph Endowed Award, University of Virginia, 1992
Awarded by committee selection for notable MD/PhD nervous system research.

Association of Computing Machinery Programming Competitions, 1986-1991
Numerous awards in regional and local competitions as member of Stanford University and University of Virginia teams.

Traineeship, Medical Scientist Training Program, University of Virginia, 1987 - 1995
Full-tuition and stipend fellowship for joint M.D./Ph.D. training.

Second prize, 1986 Apple “Wheels of the Mind" Competition Member of
Macintosh software development team winning $10,000 award for an educational computer model of human respiration.

Firestone Major Grant for Extended Research, Stanford University, 1985
Competitive award for undergraduate research at Stanford University in “Three-Dimensional Ultrasound Imaging of Pelvic Structures."

Research Assistantships, Stanford University, 1985-1987
Half-tuition and stipend assistantships for research as coterminal B.S./M.S. student in Biological and Computer Sciences.

EXPERIENCE

Senior Scientist, March 2006 – November 2007
Stanford University, Stanford, Ca.
Developing cardiovascular modeling and simulation systems in C++/Tcl as part of the NIH National Center for Physics-Based Simulation of Biological Structures. Developing web projects in PHP and Ruby (simtk.org, simbiome.org).

Founder, November 2001 – Present
Publishare LLC, Arlington, Va.
Developing internet-based writers’ workshop and publishing system (Writertopia) in Ruby on Rails and Javascript (AJAX). Also consulting, exploring new web technologies, and writing.

Senior Scientist, June 1999 – October 2001
Varian Medical Systems, Charlottesville, Va.
Varian Medical acquired the therapy planning division of Multimedia Medical Systems (see below).

• Designed, developed, and supported a software system for real-time radiotherapy planning in an intra-operative setting. By October 2001, the VariSeed system was employed at over 600 hospitals and clinics.
• Served as a liason to physicians and physicists at numerous medical centers during the design and deployment of prototype software.
• Handled intellectual property matters for R&D; team including several issued patents.

Senior Software Engineer, October 1995 – June 1999
Multimedia Medical Systems, Charlottesville, Va.

• One of the founding members of this start-up company with divisions in therapy planning systems and internet-based clinical information sharing.
• Created algorithms for the optimal positioning of radioisotope sources in the treatment of prostate cancer. Developed prototypes for dose-optimized source placement using both simulated annealing and a proprietary method for direct evaluation of user-defined rules.
• Designed and implemented both voxel-based and polygonal computer graphics visualization libraries for clinical therapy products. Built on Open Inventor toolkit to create polygonal rendering library for company products.
• Designed business plan, organized project team, and created Digital Humans CD-ROM product as sole programmer. Digital Humans CD-ROM received excellent reviews including a “CD-ROM of the Month" designation from Byte columnist Jerry Pournelle. Over 15,000 copies of the product were shipped in its two year lifespan.

Assistant Professor of Research in Neurosurgery, May 1995 – October 2001
Acting Director, Neurosurgical Visualization Lab, May 1995 - October 1995
Neurosurgical Visualization Laboratory, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Served as a resource for lab research proposals and consultation. Previously managed research lab exploring the use of advanced computer technology to bring 3D images and advanced human-computer interfaces to clinical care and medical education. Wrote and assisted in several grant proposals targeting both government and industrial sources.

Post-Doctoral and Pre-Doctoral Fellow, April 1991 - February 1995
Neurosurgical Visualization Laboratory, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Researched and implemented C++/MOTIF objects for three-dimensional visualization, Talairach registration, image mapping, and semi-automated segmentation. Also performed dissection of cadaver heads to verify imaged brain anatomy.

Pre-Doctoral Fellow, June 1988 - April 1991
Medical Image Processing Laboratory, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Developed computational techniques for automatic detection of the lower abdominal aorta and iliac arteries in MR images.

Teacher, January 1990 - June 1990
Tandem School, Charlottesville, Va.
Taught semester-long high school course on “Introduction to Computers."

Independent Study, March 1988 - September 1991
Developed self-taught computer programs which play the game Go-moku (Connect-5) using traditional artificial intelligence and artificial neural network approaches.

Pre-Doctoral Fellow, July 1987 - June 1988
Molecular Computer Graphics Laboratory, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Researched and implemented three-dimensional computer graphics for the display of biomedical structures.

Research Assistant, June 1984 - June 1987
Division of Urology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, Ca.
Developed image processing and graphics programs for ultrasonic imaging of the prostate gland.

Project Manager and Programmer, April 1985 - June 1987
Faculty Author Development Program, Stanford University, Stanford, Ca.
Managed small student programming teams and implemented C/PASCAL respiratory and chemotherapy simulations as well as economics courseware.

Computer Programmer, July 1984 - September 1984
Intermart Systems, Tokyo, Japan.
Designed a Japanese word processor in assembly language for a laptop computer as part of a small development team

Research Assistant, June 1984 - September 1984
IBM Tokyo Scientific Center, Tokyo, Japan.
Analyzed and presented medical decision support system papers and developed PL/I user interface to a statistical analysis system for clinical data.

Student Researcher, September 1983 - March 1984
Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, Ca.
Developed C software for the simulation of plate tectonics as part of small development team.

Technical Writer, July 1983 - September 1983
Intermart Japan, Tokyo, Japan.
Independently wrote a BASIC manual for the Japanese SORD microcomputer.

Computer Programmer, June 1982 - September 1982
Akasaka Corporate Business Group, Citibank, Tokyo, Japan.
Developed BASIC programs for corporate accounts based on end-user feedback.

PUBLICATIONS

Katz WT. “Plastic Soul of a Note." Writers of the Future Volume XX, Galaxy Press, August 2004

Katz WT. “Segmentation and Visualization for the Digital Humans CD-ROM," Proceedings of the National Library of Medicine Visible Human Project Conference, 1996.

Snell JW, Jackson TR, Katz WT, Hinckley K, Goble JC, Laws ER, Kassell NF. “A Three-Dimensional Stereotactic Neurosurgical Planner/Simulator." Proceedings of SPIE Medical Imaging Conference, February 1995, pp. 110-118.

Goble JC, Snell JW, Katz WT. “Semiautomatic Model-Based Segmentation of the Brain from Magnetic Resonance Images," Proceedings of AAAI Spring Symposium on Applications of Computer Vision in Medical Image Processing, March 1994, pp. 211-214.

Katz WT, Merickel MB, Goble J, Kassell NF, Brookeman JR. “Segmentation of the Brain from 3D Magnetic Resonance Images of the Head," Proceedings of SPIE Medical Imaging Conference, February 1993, Vol. 1898, pp. 809-819.

Merickel MB, Jackson TR, Katz WT, and Snell JW. “The Use of A Priori Model Based Information to Guide Segmentation and Classification of MR Images," Proceedings of the 1992 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 5: 2212-2213, November 1992.

Katz WT, Snell JW, and Merickel MB. “Artificial Neural Networks," Methods in Enzymology, 210: 610-636, 1992.

Katz WT and Merickel MB. “Automated Segmentation of 3-D Magnetic Resonance Images of the Head," Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 1: 297-298, October 1991.

Katz WT and Pham SP. “Experience-Based Learning Experiments using Go-moku," Proceedings of the 1991 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2: 1405-1410, October 1991.

Merickel MB, Snell JW, Jackson TR, Skyba DM, and Katz WT. “Multispectral Tissue Identification in MR Images," Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 3: 1323-1325, October 1991.

Katz WT and Merickel MB. “Blood Vessel Detection in 3-D Medical Images," Neural Network Review, Vol. 4, No. 1: 34-35, 1990.

Merickel MB, Spetz KS, Kamiya K, Jackson TR, and Katz WT. “What’s in store for imaging workstations," Diagnostic Imaging, August 1990: 148-151.

Katz WT and Merickel MB. “Aorta Detection in Magnetic Resonance Images using Multiple Artificial Neural Networks," Proceedings of the 1990 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 3: 1302-1303, November 1990.

Merickel MB, Jackson TR, Spetz KS, and Katz WT. “Diseased Tissue Identification and Quantification Utilizing MRI," Proceedings of the 1990 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 1: 394-395, November 1990.

Katz WT and Merickel MB. “Translation-Invariant Aorta Segmentation from Magnetic Resonance Images," Proceedings of the 1989 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, 1: 327-333, June 1989.

Katz WT. “Artificial Intelligence," University of Virginia Loki Science Magazine, Fall 1988: 16-18.

PRESENTATIONS

Speaker, 2007 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, San Diego, California, March 2007.

Speaker, First International Rails Conference, Portland, Oregon, June 2006.

Speaker, Symposium on Radiation Oncology Calibration Issues, Madison, Wisconsin, October 1999.

Invited Lecturer, Univ. of Virginia Prostate Brachytherapy Course, 1997 to 1998 (Monthly).

Speaker, First NLM Visible Human Project Conference, Bethesda, Maryland, October 1996.

Panelist, Visible Human Television Program, Healthcare Informatics Telecom Network, 1996.

Speaker, Telemedicine & Telepresence Surgery, 1995 Image SIG Symposia, Phoenix, Arizona, July 1995.

Poster Presentation, SPIE Conference on Medical Imaging, Newport Beach, California, February 1993.

Poster Presentation, Satellite Symposium on 3D Advanced Image Processing in Medicine, Rennes, France, November 1992.

Oral Presentation, New Approaches to Segmentation session, 1992 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Paris, France, November 1992.

Speaker, Univ. of Virginia Medical Scientist Training Program Research Symposium. Charlottesville, Virginia, April 1992.

Oral Presentation, Neurologic Applications of 3D Image Reconstruction session. 1991 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Orlando, Florida, October 1991.

Oral Presentation, Machine Learning session. 1991 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Charlottesville, Virginia, October 1991.

Oral Presentation, Knowledge-Based Medical Image Analysis session. 1990 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 1990.

Poster Presentation, Neural Networks Applications session. 1989 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, San Diego, California, June 1989.

Speaker, Symposium on the Biomedical Applications of Neural Networks. Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, April 1989.

PATENTS

Brachytherapy system for prostate cancer treatment with computer implemented systems and processes to facilitate pre-operative planning and post-operative evaluations, with Jackson, Spetz, Snell, and Markush. Patent 6,360,116, issued March 19, 2002.