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Expert is the inventor, designer, and project scientist/program manager of a number of different X-ray imaging systems, ranging from satellite-based X-ray telescopes to large systems for nondestructive imaging of 50 ton rocket motors and nuclear pressure vessels. Expert has both designed and implemented these X-ray imaging systems, including the associated image processing software and data analysis schemes. These systems include computed tomography, realtime radiography, and even traditional film-based systems. Expert holds a number of patents in X-ray imaging technology.

Expert is the inventor and chief technical architect in building at least three separate computed tomography (CT-scanning) systems. He is the individual most closely associated with transitioning CT from medical to non-medical uses. His systems are currently used to make cross-sectional images of the inside of America's largest solid rocket motors (1-2 meters diameter), and he currently holds contracts with NASA and the Air Force to amplify and streamline CT technology for faster, higher resolution, and cheaper implementation.

Expert was the project scientist on several satellite based experiments under NASA aegis. Among others, these experiments included the Einstein observatory and the X-ray/XUV solar X-ray imaging payload on the International Solar Polar Mission. During this time, Expert led the team that developed the imaging charge-coupled device (CCD) for imaging solar X-rays and XUV, and designed the image acquisition sequence and data analysis methods for these experiments.

Expert has designed a number of novel devices for the detection of X-rays, gamma rays, and energetic particles. He has used all kinds of X-ray and gamma ray sources, including isotopes, continuous wave X-ray generators, constant potential tube, electron linear accelerator X-ray sources, extending from 1 kV well up into the 10-100 MeV range. Expert has also designed facilities for the use of such equipment, including radiation shielding.

Expert provides technical and management support to companies in need of restructuring, redirection, or re-organization. These programs extend from the introduction of modern technology for a major US shoe company to strategic alliances between small, technology-rich companies and big companies with markets and capital. Re-orientation from a defense market to a commercial market is a specialty. Expert is responsible for defining a start-up product (freeze-frame x-ray cross-sectional imaging) for an existing small company. This program is funded almost completely from non-company funds, and when complete, will give the company a protected technology in a federally mandated inspection program for airplane components. Expert also provides technical oversight for the team over the course of the program. He developed the original idea and wrote the technical proposals for this program, about to enter its third stage of funding.

Expert has used real time radiographic imaging and film-based systems to provide quantitative image data that can be used to derive materials data that had not been previously available.


Expert has redesigned production systems so that they need less inspection and have greater probability of being manufactured correctly the first time. He has performed many studies on reliability (including a redesign evaluation of the Space Shuttle booster o-ring seal for a major aerospace company). Expert has taught the X-ray portion of the only course that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers in nondestructive testing and quality engineering. He has been a visiting scientist in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, a specialized section of the department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Expert has designed systems incorporating X-ray tubes and sources at energies ranging from several hundred electron volts to millions of electron volts. These systems typically require detailed calculations between emitted spectrum, specific spectral absorption by the test specimen, and the detector response. Expert has served as project scientist on a number of such programs where he was directly responsible for theoretical work, computer simulation, and experimental confirmation of X-ray emission and absorption.

Expert is the inventor of several techniques and systems for image processing, primarily related to x-ray images (including medical) and are used for reducing overall noise in computed tomographic images. Most of these techniques (including special two-dimensional filtering algorithms) have come about through his work in computed tomography and in radiographic imaging. Applications range from printed circuit boards to security inspection of giant containerized cargo units. His most recent system design and implementations include large x-ray inspection systems for strategic arms treaty verification, techniques for freeze-framing computed tomography (CT) of spinning jet turbine engines for nondestructive testing, and a technique for very high spatial resolution three-dimensional CT imaging of 10 foot diameter rocket motors with a factor of 10 improvement over existing techniques.

In his studies of methods for increasing efficiencies of catalytic processes, Expert (working with two others) derived a method for modeling the catalytic process in a simple catalytic reaction as a mechanical interaction model. This model led the team to expostulate a method for increasing efficiency in catalytic processes by inducing mechanical stresses and resulted in a patent.

In conjunction with his nondestructive testing work, Expert has designed and supervised construction of a number of nondestructive testing standards.

Expert's work in 3-D reconstruction of the interior of test specimens has resulted in a number of algorithms for processing the tremendous amounts of data associated with that task. The large data volume necessitates an efficient choice of computation algorithms and a method of display of the processed data which represents a 3-D set of material properties of the test specimen. He has used geometric warping, mathematical transformations, and coordinate collapse (among other techniques) to display and highlight segments of image data most important.

As a project scientist in a number of different experiments, Expert has been responsible for planning, carrying out, and analyzing data from dozens of experiments. These experiments range from the first direct imaging of XUV and X-ray radiation on charge coupled detectors to designing solar observation sequences for a dual telescope mounted on a NASA satellite.


Expert suggested a backscatter X-ray imaging configuration that resulted in what has become a standard technique employed in baggage inspection systems at airports. The backscatter technique works by scattering a higher proportion of X-rays that interact with explosives than X-rays that are scattered by other more typical baggage items.