Alice Matthews, Ph.D.
Cardiac Sonographer & Clinical AI Researcher
I scan hearts and help models learn the vocabulary of cardiology.
ARDMS-certified cardiac sonographer and Neuroscience Ph.D. (UNLV, 2020–2025), advised by Thessa Hilgenkamp on cardiac structure and function in adults with Down syndrome. I teach echocardiography and cardiovascular pathology at Concorde Career College Portland, scan in clinical rotations, and bring cardiology domain expertise to embedding and retrieval research on the AI side of the lab.
What I do.
Cardiac sonography is craft work — pattern recognition built from thousands of scans, an eye for the difference between a normal ventricular septum and a 3mm membranous defect, a feel for where to angle a probe to land an apical four-chamber view on a fussy neonate. I have spent a decade doing that work, and I teach it.
The AI side of the lab benefits from someone who has actually collected the data the models are trained on. I bring cardiology vocabulary, scanning workflow, and clinical edge cases to embedding and retrieval research — most recently CardioEmbed, where domain adaptation pushed retrieval accuracy on clinical cardiology queries to 99.6%.
Selected work · 6
CARDIOEMBED
retrieval accuracy on clinical cardiology — domain-adapted LoRA embeddings. arXiv:2511.10930.
STUDY MATERIALS
cardiac-sonography study guides authored: Reference glossary, Valvular, Physics, Vascular, OB/GYN.
CONCORDE · SPRING 2026
instructor of record for CVSG 1240, 1340, 1640, and 2370 at Concorde Career College Portland.
CLINICAL EXPERIENCE
adult and pediatric echocardiography, stress echo, TEE, advanced Doppler across diverse populations.
PEDIATRIC ECHO
CAAHEP-accredited pediatric echocardiography programs in the U.S. — completed neonatal and congenital training.
EMBEDDING COMPARISON
co-author on LoRA-adapted clinical cardiology embedding comparative analysis. arXiv:2511.19739.
Five threads.
Cardiac Sonography
Hands-on echocardiography across the lifespan.
ARDMS RDCS certified (#204043) with over a decade of clinical scanning experience. Adult and pediatric echocardiography, stress echo, transesophageal echocardiography, and advanced Doppler. Currently scanning at Concorde clinical rotations alongside teaching.
Pediatric & Congenital Imaging
One of only two CAAHEP-accredited programs in the U.S.
Specialized training in neonatal and congenital cardiac imaging. NICU scanning, complex pathology case studies, and ventricular-arterial coupling research in adults with Down syndrome — dissertation work that addresses cardiovascular care gaps for an underserved population.
Cardiac Sonography Education
Instructor of record, Concorde Career College Portland.
Teaching four courses in Spring 2026: Echo Scan Lab I (CVSG 1240), Cardiovascular Pathology (CVSG 1340), Echocardiography I (CVSG 1640), and Vascular Sonography II (CVSG 2370). Curriculum spans scanning technique, pathology mechanisms, valve and ventricular interpretation, and peripheral vascular imaging.
Clinical AI Research
Domain expert on the cardiology side of the model.
Co-author on CardioEmbed — a clinical-cardiology embedding LoRA reaching 99.6% retrieval accuracy on domain queries — and the follow-up comparative analysis of LoRA-adapted embeddings. Also a co-author on the LLM clinical-trial extraction benchmark in Algorithms (2025). Brings cardiology vocabulary, scanning workflow, and clinical edge cases to model evaluation.
Patient Advocacy
Care reaches the populations that need it most.
Former Patient Advocate at Children's Specialty Center of Nevada. Medical volunteer for Special Olympics Nevada. Contributor to the Medical Down Syndrome Conference and fundraiser for GiGi's Playhouse. Advocacy and research are the same thread, not separate ones.
Teaching · Spring 2026
Concorde Career College Portland.
Instructor of record for four cardiovascular sonography courses. Lecture, lab, and clinical rotation alongside students learning to scan.
- CVSG 1240Echocardiography Scanning Lab I
- CVSG 1340Cardiovascular Pathology
- CVSG 1640Echocardiography I
- CVSG 2370Vascular Sonography II
Library · 20 guides
Study materials.
Twenty cardiac-sonography study guides authored for student use — a reference glossary, valvular pathology, physics, vascular, and OB/GYN material. ARDMS-aligned, used in classes and rotations.
Publications · 7
Selected work.
EQUITRIAGE: a fairness audit of gender bias in LLM-based emergency department triage
Young RJ, Matthews A
arXiv:2605.03998 · 2026
Comparative analysis of LoRA-adapted embedding models for clinical cardiology text representation
Young RJ, Matthews A
arXiv:2511.19739 · 2025
CardioEmbed: domain-specialized text embeddings for clinical cardiology
Young RJ, Matthews A
arXiv:2511.10930 · 2025
When models can't follow: testing instruction adherence across 256 LLMs
Young RJ, Gillins B, Matthews A
arXiv:2510.18892 · 2025
Benchmarking multiple large language models for automated clinical trial data extraction in aging research
Young RJ, Matthews A, Poston B
Algorithms 18(5), 296 · 2025
Measurement protocols and determinants of peak oxygen consumption in adults with Down syndrome: a systematic review
Hilgenkamp TIM, Beck V, Azar F, Matthews A, Oppewal A
J. Intellectual Disability Research · 2024
Cardiac structure and function in adults with Down syndrome
Azar FM, Beck VDY, Matthews AM, Forsha DE, Hilgenkamp TIM
Int. J. Environmental Research and Public Health · 2022
The short version.
I'm an ARDMS-certified cardiac sonographer (RDCS #204043) and Ph.D. neuroscientist. I teach four cardiovascular sonography courses at Concorde Career College Portland, scan during clinical rotations, and contribute cardiology domain expertise to embedding and retrieval research at DeepNeuro.AI. My doctoral work studied cardiac structure, function, and ventricular-arterial coupling in adults with Down syndrome — an underserved population whose cardiovascular care still has wide gaps. Portland, Oregon.
Available for.
Open to research collaborations on cardiac imaging and clinical AI, guest lectures, and curriculum review.
Reach me through the contact page or LinkedIn.