The DaCosta Lab congratulates Dr. Christopher Gibson for successfully defending his PhD on October 27, 2023! His PhD thesis, entitled “Development and clinical translation of a new handheld imaging system for 5-ALA-induced fluorescence guided breast conserving surgery,” describes the work that was done to develop an intra-breast cavity imaging system to detect residual carcinoma at the surgical margins intraoperatively. Another significant portion of his thesis included the development of a new phantom model to characterize the device’s imaging performance which, for the first time, includes (1) an adjustable depth capability using thin film phantoms; (2) a refillable chip containing user-selected fluorophores in desired quantities; and (3) phantom materials representing various tissue types. Both the imaging device and phantoms were engineered to solve real-world problems which we are excited to see the impact of in the near future.