Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Research Symposium

Dr. Burns is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. He also serves as the Director of TEDxCU. He is an award-winning instructor and group facilitator who teaches several courses that focus on persuasion, leadership, small group dynamics, team problem solving, sport communication, and training development. Dr. Burns is a champion of interdisciplinary research and the creator of CoSearch, an interdisciplinary research competition that has been used by universities around the globe. Learn more about CoSearch by watching Dr. Burns’ TEDx talk titled: Promoting Interdisciplinary Research with Community Impact.

Dr. Burns' professional experiences outside of academia include working for NBC’s Today Show at the 2006 Torino, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio de Janeiro, 2018 PyeongChang, 2020 Tokyo, 2022 Beijing, and Paris 2024 Olympic Games. While at the Today Show he works on the production management and logistics team. Dr. Burns also worked as a communication specialist for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Burns is an applied communication researcher and has published and presented research in the areas of persuasion, message development, higher education and the college transition, narrative influence, instructional communication, training and development, and family communication. Prior to his move to Colorado, Dr. Burns spent ten years as a faculty member at Texas State University, where he first developed the CoSearch program.

Dr. Parrish has a MS/BS in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, a 3 year stint as a collaborative scientists with Siemens Medical Systems, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Biophysics from the University of Minnesota focused on MR imaging including acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis methods. At the University of Minnesota. He was involved in some early developments of functional MRI and was recruited to Northwestern University in 1995 to develop an MR Neuroimaging research program. Since that time, he founded and continues to be Director of the Neuroimaging facility that houses 4 research dedicated magnets. He has been successful in obtaining and administering his own research projects investigating: the impact of cerebrovascular disease on brain activation studies, the physiologic basis of the blood oxygen level dependent signal using caffeine and other vaso-challenges, how physiologic noise affects BOLD resting state networks, neuroplasticity changes induced by therapy in chronic stroke, simultaneous collection of perfusion and permeability information in brain tumors, the early detection of Alzheimer’s through changes in blood brain barrier and the development of a new field of intraoperative mapping of brain function using infrared thermal imaging.

Dr. Parrish, a professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, has created a world-class imaging center that attracts collaborators from Northwestern, surrounding Chicago institutions, and across the globe. Under his leadership, Dr. Parrish has created the NU Research Image Processing System (NURIPS) that maintains state-of-the-art data processing pipelines for the analysis of all types (and modalities) of research imaging data with a focus on replication, reproduction, and Artificial Intelligence methods. Dr. Parrish leads the Imaging Core at the Mesulam Center for Alzheimer’s disease and Cognitive Neurology.

He supports many projects regarding acquisition and processing of neuroimaging data with his extensive technical background. He has also expertise designing and conducting large multi-center studies with an emphasis on harmonizing data acquisitions and developing robust analysis pipelines. Dr. Parrish has a strong interest in TBI as it pertains to the brain and c-spine. He is a founding member of the Concussion Neuroimaging Consortium, has worked with ex-NFL players, worked in the criminal justice system on neuroimaging in the law, and developed methods to identify chronic pain in subjects who experienced a motor vehicle crash. Dr. Parrish has over 30 years of neuroimaging experience and leads a team of researchers that are focused on investigating the many facets of the brain that can lead to better diagnoses, treatment methods, and overall outcomes for patients.