Dr. Can Zhao has been a Research Scientist at NVIDIA since 2019, focusing on deep learning for medical imaging. Her research focuses on developing foundation models and generative AI technologies that can have broad impact on medical imaging research and healthcare. She led the development of object detection and image generation modules of MONAI, an open-source AI framework for healthcare research. Currently, she leads the development of NV-Generate (also called MAISI in publications), a widely adopted foundation model for 3D medical image generation, with over 50k downloads as of June 2026.
Dr. Zhao received her bachelor's degree in Semiconductor Physics from Tsinghua University in 2013. She subsequently transitioned to medical imaging research and earned her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of Dr. Jerry Prince. During her doctoral studies, she developed SMORE, a self super-resolution framework for magnetic resonance imaging that remains influential in anisotropic MRI super-resolution research.
Dr. Zhao is a widely recognized expert in medical image synthesis, having delivered multiple keynote talks at MICCAI and CVPR workshops and tutorials. She organized the MICCAI Simulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging (SASHIMI) Workshop from 2020 to 2023, and the CVPR 2026 Tutorial on AI for Medical Imaging. In addition, she served as an Oral Session Chair for MICCAI and SPIE Medical Imaging in 2024, and as an Area Chair for MICCAI and SPIE Medical Imaging from 2024 to 2025. She is also a Board Member of Women in MICCAI (WiM) for the 2025–2026 term, and a Board Member of MICCAI Industrial Talk Series since 2021.
Pronunciation: "Can Zhao" is pronounced "Tsan Jow" (similar to "how" with a "zh" sound). The given name "Can" (灿) means "brilliant" or "radiant" in Chinese.
