Ulrike Dydak is a Professor in the School of Health Sciences at Purdue University and Director of the Purdue Life Science MRI Facility. She received her MS in physics from the University of Vienna, Austria, and did her PhD and postdoc in medical imaging at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), Z?rich. Her research focuses on the development and application of novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) techniques and their translation to clinical and life science studies – with applications in metal-induced parkinsonism, neurological and psychiatric disorders. A particular focus of her group is to study manganese-induced neurotoxicity in welders, using MRS techniques to measure changes in GABA, Glutamate and glutathione, while using quantitative MRI to assess the dynamics of metal deposition in the human brain. Other collaborative projects include application of MRS in post-partum depression and addiction, and 31P-MRS in hepatocellular cancer.