Burke Thompson
BME MS Thesis Defense Presentation
Date: 2026-11-06
Time: 3:00-4:00 PM
Location / Meeting Link: IC 215/ https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/253067914699016?p=MknQtGe58qjnz7MnD2

Committee Members:
Prof. Lakshmi Dasi; Dr. Thangam Natarajan; Prof. Rudolph Gleason


Title: Multifidelity Hemodynamic Frameworks for Patient-Specific Risk Assessment in Transcatheter Cardiac Interventions and Congenital Heart Defects

Abstract:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 1 million deaths annually and upwards of $400 billion dollars in associated annual costs. Computational modelling tools such as Finite Element Analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Fluid-Structure Interaction offer relatively inexpensive and noninvasive methods to investigate the relationships between CVD etiology and underlying physiology and biomechanics. In the clinic, modelling tools can be employed to optimize clinical management or to plan interventional procedures, improving patient outcomes in the setting of CVD. In this work, novel multifidelity modelling frameworks for pre-procedural risk stratification of transcatheter valve replacement (TAVR) and anomalous aortic origin of the coronary arteries (AAOCA) are developed and applied retrospectively to model outcomes in real patient cohorts. A one-way fluid-structure interaction pipeline is used to correlate post-TAVR hemodynamics with hypoattenuated leaflet thickening (HALT) in a cohort of 23 patients, and a tunable one-dimensional fluid-structure interaction model of anomalous aortic origin of the coronary arteries is employed to predict deformation dynamics and flow restriction in 7 AAOCA patients. These frameworks take as input readily available pre-procedural clinical data and provide insight into post-procedural biomechanical state, providing the framework for future clinical risk-stratification and procedural pipelines.