Dr. Joseph Woods

Hi! My name is Joseph Woods, and I am a postdoctoral researcher at QIS Lab.

The current focus of my research is the technical and methodological development of robust, water-specific, relaxometry in the liver using phase-cycled balanced steady-state free-precession (bSSFP) MRI.

I have spent most of my academic career so far developing advanced Arterial Spin Labelling (ASL) MRI techniques, a pursuit that I am continuing, with collaborations in the UK, Switzerland, and Germany. My research has included the development of perfusion protocol optimization algorithms,1–3 inventing a novel transit-time robust perfusion sequence,4 advancing ASL at Ultra-High Field (7 Tesla),5,6 and increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of ASL-based dynamic angiography.7

I completed my Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Mathematics with Physics at the University of Southampton in 2013 before my Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil – Oxford’s name for a PhD) at the University of Oxford in MRI Physics (2019). Following this, I completed a post-doc at the Center for Functional MRI at the University of California San Diego with Professors Divya Bolar and Eric Wong and a post-doc at the Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB) centre at the University of Oxford with Professor Thomas Okell.

In 2024, I was elected as a Junior Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM).

I am a supporter of open science and share as much code and data as I am able to alongside each of my first-author publications (e.g. on https://zenodo.org/communities/aslmri/ for my ASL research). I have also been involved with a number of community efforts to increase the dissemination of MRI research, including from the ISMRM Perfusion Study Group8–10 and the Open Source Science Initiative for Perfusion Imaging (OSIPI).11

  1. Woods JG, Chappell MA, Okell TW. A general framework for optimizing arterial spin labeling MRI experiments. Magn Reson Med. 2019;81(4):2474-2488. doi:10.1002/mrm.27580
  2. Woods JG, Chappell MA, Okell TW. Designing and comparing optimized pseudo-continuous Arterial Spin Labeling protocols for measurement of cerebral blood flow. NeuroImage. 2020;223(July):117246. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117246
  3. Zhang LX, Woods JG, Okell TW, Chappell MA. Examination of optimized protocols for pCASL: Sensitivity to macrovascular contamination, flow dispersion, and prolonged arterial transit time. Magn Reson Med. 2021;86(4):2208-2219. doi:10.1002/mrm.28839
  4. Woods JG, Wong EC, Boyd EC, Bolar DS. VESPA ASL: VElocity and SPAtially Selective Arterial Spin Labeling. Magn Reson Med. 2022;87(6):2667-2684. doi:10.1002/mrm.29159
  5. Woods JG, Ji Y, Li H, Hess AT, Okell TW. SNR-efficient whole-brain pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling perfusion imaging at 7 T. Magn Reson Med. 2025;94(3):965-981. doi:10.1002/mrm.30527
  6. Ji Y, Woods JG, Li H, Okell TW. Dynamic B field shimming for improving pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling at 7 T. Magn Reson Med. 2025;93(4):1674-1689. doi:10.1002/mrm.30387
  7. Woods JG, Schauman SS, Chiew M, Chappell MA, Okell TW. Time-encoded pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling: Increasing SNR in ASL dynamic angiography. Magn Reson Med. 2023;89(4):1323-1341. doi:10.1002/mrm.29491
  8. Woods JG, Achten E, Asllani I, et al. Recommendations for quantitative cerebral perfusion MRI using multi-timepoint arterial spin labeling: Acquisition, quantification, and clinical applications. Magn Reson Med. 2024;92(2):469-495. doi:10.1002/mrm.30091
  9. Qin Q, Alsop DC, Bolar DS, et al. Velocity-selective arterial spin labeling perfusion MRI: A review of the state of the art and recommendations for clinical implementation. Magn Reson Med. 2022;88(4):1528-1547. doi:10.1002/mrm.29371
  10. Hernandez-Garcia L, Aramendía-Vidaurreta V, Bolar DS, et al. Recent Technical Developments in ASL: A Review of the State of the Art. Magn Reson Med. 2022;88(5):2021-2042. doi:10.1002/mrm.29381
  11. Paschoal AM, Woods JG, Pinto J, et al. Reproducibility of arterial spin labeling cerebral blood flow image processing: A report of the ISMRM open science initiative for perfusion imaging (OSIPI)_and the ASL MRI challenge. Magn Reson Med. 2024;92(2):836-852. doi:10.1002/mrm.30081

Office O1.429 (1st floor)
sitem-insel
Freiburgstrasse 3
3010 Bern, Switzerland


2021-2024 University of Oxford
2019-2021 University of California San Diego
2015-2019 DPhil Candidate University of Oxford
BSc in Mathematics with Physics