Inaugural Lecture Series

Upcoming events 

A Magnetic Journey with Prof Karin Shmueli

Date: Wednesday 22 May 2024, 17:30
Location: Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre (G06), Robert's Building

From a PhD at UCL to postdoctoral research the USA National Institutes of Health and attracted back to UCL again, I will describe my magnetic journey to becoming a Professor of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Physics in October 2021. I will talk about magnetic susceptibility: what is it, why is it useful and how we can calculate it from MRI phase images that are not usually used. I will present some of the research I have done with my team and collaborators to optimise quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) for clinical applications from head to (almost) toe, such as: in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and sickle cell anaemia, in head and neck cancer down to prostate and pelvic imaging. Finally, I will introduce the start of my journey into using QSM to study brain function and using MRI to measure electrical conductivity.

 

This event is also available to live stream if you're unable to attend campus.

Find out more and book

All of our inaugural lectures are free to attend and open to all. You don't have to be a UCL staff member or student to come along.

Lectures usually begin at 17:30 and are typically one hour long. A drinks reception will follow, to which everyone is welcome to join. We look forward to meeting you at one of our events!

Previous Lectures

The Wandering Photon with Prof Ilias Tachtsidis

Lecture held on Thursday 16th March 2023

My inaugural lecture will be a collection of short stories from my journey to becoming a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University College London. I will start by describing how I was introduced to the use of light and photons to look inside the body, followed by my PhD and postdoc years, running between the lab and the hospital; and from there how I lead a successful team and research programme of work in developing the next generation of brain imaging tools. Integrated within these stories are my teaching and outreach activities. At the end I will introduce the new approaches that my team are developing to transform patient metabolic imaging.

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About Professor Ilias Tachtsidis

Prof Tachtsidis is an engineer working at the interface of technologies development and clinical application. His research focuses on the development of optical technologies to monitor and image the brain. Prof Tachtsidis is internationally recognised as a leader in the development of instruments that use light and have the capacity to image non-invasively how our brain cells use oxygen to produce energy. He has published extensively (more than 160 peer reviewed publications) and leads a successful programme of outreach activities via the Metabolight team that he leads, demonstrating how engineers and medical doctors work together to solve clinical problems and save patient lives.

Prof Tachtsidis also leads the MultiModal Spectroscopy (MMS) Research Group.

Seeing through: my journey with X-rays for creating images and building new instruments with Prof Marco Endrizzi

Lecture held on Wednesday 20 March 2024

In this lecture I will talk about my academic journey, starting from when I developed a passion for X-ray imaging techniques, through becoming part of the Advanced X-ray Imaging group at UCL where phase contrast techniques have been pioneered and developed for nearly two decades, until now. Through a small collection of examples and short stories, I will show how this passion has provided me with the opportunity to learn about fundamentals of Optics and Radiation Physics, to travel around the world and to design and build unique instruments. I will conclude with an outlook of future directions, through the two main projects I am involved in at present, the National Research Facility for laboratory-based X-ray Computed Tomography and the new satellite group at the Francis Crick Institute.

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About Professor Marco Endrizzi

Marco graduated in Applied Physics from the University of Pisa in 2008 and obtained a PhD in Physics from the University of Siena in 2011. He moved to London in 2012 when he joined the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at University College London as a postdoctoral researcher.

He secured a Marie-Curie career integration grant in 2012 and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship in 2015 that supported his activities on laboratory-based X-ray dark-field microscopy and microtomography. His contributions include a method, now UCL-proprietary, for X-ray dark-field imaging under incoherent illumination and hence suitable for laboratory settings as it is compatible with standard X-ray tubes.  Since November 2020 Marco is co-Director of the National Research Facility for lab-based X-ray Computed Tomography (NXCT), and in September 2023 he joined The Francis Crick Institute as a satellite group leader.