Anthony Durkin

Biography

Anthony J. Durkin, Ph.D., is Associate Researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging Lab at the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, University of California, Irvine. His research centers on the development and clinical translation of spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI), a wide-field, non-contact near-infrared spectral imaging technique capable of quantitatively mapping tissue optical properties, oxygenation, and composition in vivo. He is a co-founder of Modulated Imaging, Inc. (now Modulim, Inc.), the company that has commercialized this technology, and holds fifteen issued U.S. patents including ones related to spatially structured illumination and wide-field functional imaging.

Durkin's work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the U.S. Army Combat Casualty Care Research Program, among other sponsors. His laboratory has applied SFDI extensively to burn wound severity assessment, reconstructive surgery, skin cancer, and organ viability monitoring. He is the principal investigator of an NIH NIGMS R01 focused on clinical evaluation of burns using SFDI, and serves as a co-investigator on projects addressing directed-energy-induced tissue damage and the SFDI to characterize the evolution of thyroid eye disease. His research has accumulated more than 11,000 citations, with an h-index of 59 (Sept 16, 2026).

Durkin is an elected Fellow of SPIE and a Senior Member of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America). He serves as Senior Topical Editor for the SPIE Journal of Biomedical Optics and has been a member of its editorial board since 2003. He previously served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Virtual Journal of Biomedical Optics (2010–2016). Durkin received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin under the mentorship of Rebecca Richards-Kortum. He was an National Research Council Post-doc at the US Food & Drug Administration for 3 years. He worked as Director of Bioscience at Candela (medical laser company) in Wayland for 3 years, contributing to projects related to laser-based treatment for sleep apnea, laser reduction of acne, and optical imaging as a surrogate for Moh's surgery. He has been at the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic since Jan. 2001.

Education

• Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin
• M.S. in Condensed Matter Physics, University of North Texas
• B.S. in Physics, Lamar University

Distinctions

• SPIE Fellow, 2017
• Best Paper, SPIE Photonics West 2020 Therapeutics and Diagnostics in Urology Conference, 2020
• Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Fellowship, Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, 2001-2003
• National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Research Fellowship, Electro-Optics Branch/FDA, 1995-1997
• New Focus/Optical Society of America Student Travel Award, CLEO, 1992
• Senior Member, SPIE, 2016
• Senior Member, Optical Society of America, 2018
• 3rd Place Poster, Military Health System Research Symposium, 2023
• Gordon Research Council Post-Doc/Graduate Student Award, Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology, 1996
• Member, Sigma Pi Sigma, National Physics Honor Society, 1982-present