Abstract: A system for monitoring states of cells in a bioreactor, the system including: an optical coherence tomography system including: a reference arm coupled to a mirror; a sample arm coupled to an optical probe configured to emit an imaging beam into a bioreactor; a light source; and a spectrometer configured to detect recombined light reflected along the reference arm and the sample arm; and a controller comprising a processor and memory, the controller being configured to receive spectrometer data from the optical coherence tomography system and to compute statistics of objects detected by the optical coherence tomography system.