orhun

Orhun Davarci joined the Center for Computational Oncology in the Spring of 2019. He is currently a Research Engineering/Scientist Assistant in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin working in the lab of Dr. Thomas Yankeelov. Orhun completed his bachelor's and master's degrees in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX. While Orhun started his research position in the CCO performing image quality analyses of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images of breast cancer, with the advent of COVID-19 pandemic, he took active role in researching hybrid modeling approaches in computational epidemiology combining statistical and mechanistic approaches to improve accuracy of short-to-intermediate term predictions on the progression of the pandemic outbreaks, under mentorship from CCO faculty and staff. He is currently involved in two projects on developing computational approaches with the aim of improving the treatment approaches to prostate cancer. First project investigates the potential role of using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) in determining the aggressiveness of prostate cancer. Second project investigates the role of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in prostate cancer growth. Outside of lab, Orhun enjoys jogging in his neighborhood in Pflugerville, and mentoring high school students, helping them through the college admissions process.