Mentors

Richard is Associate Professor of Proton Therapy Physics at University College London (UCL) and former Lead for Proton Therapy Physics at UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Richard trained as a clinical scientist (medical physics) in London before working as a clinical radiotherapy physicist for several years in the NHS and for Cancer Care Ontario in Canada. He also worked at the Gray Laboratory Cancer Research Trust managing and using the ion microbeam facility for the study of radiation bystander effects in vitro.

In 2002 Richard joined Loma Linda University Medical Center in California, home of the world’s first hospital‐based proton therapy facility, where he worked alongside pioneers in the field of clinical proton therapy. In 2005 he moved to the world-renowned University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) to take a senior medical physics role in the development and implementation of a new proton therapy facility. This facility included the first proton pencil beam scanning (PBS) system in the United States and Richard contributed to pioneering work at MDACC that forms the basis for contemporary proton PBS treatment planning and delivery techniques. He returned to London in 2013 to take leadership roles in both the development of a national proton therapy clinical service for the NHS and the development of translational proton therapy physics research.

Richard serves on numerous national and international committees. He has been a member of the NHS England Chief Scientific Officer's Leadership, Improvement, and Advice Group as well as the NCRI CTRad Proton Beam Therapy UK Clinical Trials Steering Committee. He led the development of proton therapy content for the Health Education England (HEE) e-Learning for Healthcare platform and he has served on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Network of Experts to provide advice FLASH radiotherapy approval. Richard is currently a member of the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) Science Committee and is founder and convenor of the EFOMP Particle Therapy Special Interest Group. He serves on the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Committee on Physicists as Educators, the AAPM Particle Therapy Subcommittee, the AAPM Working Group on Global Democratization of Proton Therapy Systems, and the AAPM Mentorship Program. He also serves on a number of Particle Therapy Cooperative Group (PTCOG) subcommittees, recently accepting the role of co-chair for the PTCOG Gastrointestinal (GI) Subcommittee. He is a member of the Institute of Physics (IOP) Medical Physics Group Committee and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) Working Party for a Code of Practice for Proton Therapy Dosimetry. Richard is co-chair of the Protons and Heavy Ions Subgroup of the RadNet Emerging Radiotherapy Technologies Working Group and co-chair of the FlashForwardTM Consortium Dosimetry Management Working Group.

Richard is an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Radiology. He has  published over 150 journal and conference papers, more than 5 book chapters, and 1 patent. He has also given over 100 invited talks on proton therapy around the world. He is a Chartered Physicist, a Chartered Scientist, and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

2023
CARUANA, C. J. (2023). The BSc Physics, Medical Physics and Radiation Protection at the University of Malta - a success story in attracting young people to the Radiation Protection professions. 8th International Conference on Education and Training in Radiation Protection, Groningen, The Netherlands. (accepted)
CARUANA, C. J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2023). Education and certification of Medical Physicists: recent developments and future innovation. 19th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, Liepaja, Latvia.
CARUANA, C. J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2023). Strategic and robust (resilient) leadership in Medical Physics. 2nd Panhellenic Congress of Medical Physics. Athens. October 23.
CARUANA, C. J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2023) Strategic and robust (resilient) leadership in Medical Physics. 11th Alpe-Adria Medical Physics Meeting, Novi Sad, Serbia. October 2023.
CARUANA, C. J. Teaching Medical Physics to the Non-Physics Healthcare Professions – EFOMP Policy Statement 18. Conference of the Nordic Association of Clinical Physics. Reykjavik. March 2023.
Pace, E., CARUANA, C. J., Bosmans, H., Cortis, K., D’Anastasi, M., & Valentino, G. (2023). Objective surrogates for patient risk and sensitivity-specificity, and descriptors of body habitus for the optimization of abdominopelvic CT - an update to April 2023. 19th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, Liepaja, Latvia.
Cardona, N., Pace, E., & CARUANA, C. J. (2023). A Comparative Study of Basic Patient Radiation Dose Related Summary Statistics Obtained From One Commercial and One Free Open-source Dose Monitoring Platform. 19th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, Liepaja, Latvia. (under review)
Pace, E., CARUANA, C. J., Cortis, K., D’Anastasi, M., & Valentino, G. (2023). QA of commercial dosemonitoring systems: A comparative study of two freely available software packages for use as reference software. European Congress of Radiology, Vienna, Austria.
Pace, E., CARUANA, C. J., Bosmans, H., Cortis, K., D’Anastasi, M., & Valentino, G. (2022). A Software Program for the Fully Automated Contouring of Patient Outlines for the Determination of Size Specific Dose Estimate in Abdominal CT. Results of Initial Testing on Seventeen Systems. Presentation. European Congress of Radiology, Vienna, Austria.
Cardona, N., Pace, E., & CARUANA, C. J. (2023). A Comparative Study of Basic Patient Radiation Dose Related Summary Statistics Obtained From One Commercial and One Free Open-source Dose Monitoring Platform. 19th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics, Liepaja, Latvia. (under review)

2022
CARUANA, C. J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2022). A novel curricular model for medical physics and radiation protection education – an alternative possible way forward for Africa? First African Congress of Medical Physics, Marrakesh November 2022.
CARUANA, C. J. (2022) In Search of New Approaches to Attract Students to University Programmes in Medical Physics and Radiation protection. 22nd Asia-Oceania Congress on Medical Physics, Taipei, Taiwan
CARUANA, C. J. (2022) Medical Physics Education at the University of Malta: an update. Malta Association of Medical Physics Annual Conference November 2022
CARUANA, C. J. (KEYNOTE SPEAKER, 2022). Scientific and strategic leadership in Medical Physics - we need both! World congress on medical physics and biomedical engineering, 12 – 17 June. Singapore.
CARUANA, C. J. (2022). Learning resources for strategic Medical Physics leadership. World congress on medical physics and biomedical engineering, 12 – 17 June. Singapore.
Pace, E, CARUANA, C. J. Bosmans H, Kelvin Cortis K., Melvin D'Anastasi M., and Valentino G. (2022). An optimized Python scripted open source programme for fast WED calculations. World congress on medical physics and biomedical engineering, 12 – 17 June. Singapore.
CARUANA, C. J. , and Pace, E. (2022). A novel and successful approach to attracting students to medical physics and radiation protection university programmes. European Congress of Medical Physics. 1 – 19 August 2022, Dublin.
Pace, E., and CARUANA, C. J. et al (2022). Patient dose, image quality and body habitus descriptor surrogates for abdominal CT: an updated comprehensive systematic literature review. European Congress of Medical Physics. 1 – 19 August 2022, Dublin. Vella, K., CARUANA, C. J., Vella, N., Schembri ,K., Camilleri, M.L., Busuttil, M. and Pace, E. (2022).
STRATEGIC PLANNING IN MEDICAL PHYSICS: A SWOT ANALYSIS OF A DIAGNOSTIC RADIOLOGY CONSTANCY TESTING PROGRAMME FOR MEDICAL IMAGING DEVICES IN A MAJOR HOSPITAL IN MALTA. European Congress of Medical Physics. 1 – 19 August 2022, Dublin.
Pulè A., CARUANA, C. J., Schembri, K, Vella N. and Pace, E., (2022). A Comparative Study of Internationally used Constancy Testing Protocols for Medical X-Ray Imaging Devices. European Congress of Medical Physics. 1 – 19 August 2022, Dublin.
Bosmans, H., CARUANA, C. J., Fiebech, M., Damilakis, J., and Dobbe, D. (2022). The EUTEMPE Atelier: problem solving in the hospital. European Congress of Medical Physics. 1 – 19 August 2022, Dublin. (whole day workshop)
Pace, E., CARUANA, C. J. , Bosmans. H., Cortis, K., D’Anastasi, M. and Valentino, G. (2022). A software program for the fully automated contouring of patient outlines for the determination of Size Specific Dose Estimate in abdominal CT. Results of initial testing on seventeen systems. European Congress of Radiology, Vienna. 2022
CARUANA, C.J. and Pace, E. (2022). INCREASING THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS IN RADIATION PROTECTION AND MEDICAL PHYSICS - FINDING A FORMULA THAT WORKS. 6th European Congress on Radiation Protection. 30 May – 3 June 2022. Budapest.
CARUANA, C.J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2022).Strategic planning for attracting young people to radiation protection and medical physics university programmes. 6th European Congress on Radiation Protection. 30 May - 3 June 2022. Budapest.
CARUANA, C.J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2022). Real-world case studies in Medical Physics leadership. Online webinar of the Asian Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics.
CARUANA, C.J. (INVITED SPEAKER, 2022). An innovative combined physics, medical physics and radiation protection undergraduate degree. Nuclear education and training – a young perspective. European Nuclear Education Network Special Event 3rd March 2022.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
As a clinical scientist working in a teaching hospital, my personal aim has been to develop and introduce physics techniques into clinical environments. This work has led to 90 articles in top ranked imaging journals such as Journal of Nuclear Medicine and European Journal of Nuclear Medicine; medical physics journals such as IEEE Transactions in Medical imaging; and high impact factor clinical journals such as Lancet, Lancet Oncology, and Lancet Neurology. My current citation h-index is 44 with 8325 citations of my work. I have also been named as a co-investigator on several grants with total value more than £1.4m, and have secured smaller sums working with commercial partners.

Areas of research expertise are:
• Optimisation of Quantitative SPECT for dosimetry and diagnostics
• Imaging assessment of novel radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and therapy
• Quantitative Amyloid, and Tau PET imaging in neurodegenerative diseases
• Application of nuclear medicine imaging in epilepsy
• PET/MR imaging and its technical challenges in clinical applications
• Enhancement of PET/MR image quantification
• Assessment of dopamine transporter availability in disease assessment and progression
• Use of PET/CT and PET/MR for radiotherapy planning
• Harmonisation of PET and SPECT imaging for multi-centre trials
• Quantitative cardiovascular imaging

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
I have been fortunate to have experienced a wide range of cutting-edge technologies at their inception and introduction into clinical practice. I enjoy and deem it my duty to share my knowledge in both the fundamentals and newer areas of my field. In addition to sharing my learning through many invited talks within the UK and overseas, I have also had significant teaching experience at local, national, and international level which is described below.

UCL
• I have lectured for UCL for over 10 years at Bachelors and Masters level. During this time, I have continued to develop the content, and have also introduced different teaching methods learnt through experiences at UCL and through other teaching opportunities abroad.
• I have supported and supervised of B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. research throughout UCL campus, learning from theses I have examined for UCL and for other universities nationally and internationally.

University of Manchester
• As a pioneer of PET/MR imaging and as a well-respected educator I have been invited to provide lectures on PET/MR. More recently, with my work in quantitative SPECT and PET, I have now been invited to provide further lectures on Quantitative Nuclear Medicine Imaging.

Teaching Strategy Initiatives
• NHS Department of Health and Social Care. I acted as a consultant to set the training syllabus for Medical Physics Experts in the UK
• European Federation of Medical Physicists / European Association of Nuclear Medicine I am in a working party setting the syllabus for accreditation of medical physics experts in the continent of Europe.

Employment
1996-2001 Medical physicist at Radiotherapy Department of Tartu University Clinics, Estonia
2001-2019 Head of Medical Physics at Radiotherapy Department of North Estonia Medical Centre
04.2019-10.2019 Consultant at Dosimetry Laboratory of IAEA, Seibersdorf, Austria
2019-present Head of Medical Physics at Radiotherapy Department of North Estonia Medical Centre

Membership
Member of ESTRO Physics Committee
Member of ESTRO
Member of AAPM
Board member of MPWB
Member of Estonian Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics Society
Past member of IOMP award committee

Work experience:

Abr. 2015-present        CLARASPITAL. Medical Physicist.
Ene 2013-Mar 2015     RADIO-ONKOLOGIE AMSLER AG. Medical Physicist.
Aug 2012-Dez 2012     UNISSPITAL ZÜRICH. Medical Physicist.
May 2009-May 2012    UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF CANARIES. Medical Physicist Resident.

Research projects

Research project: "Cooperation in the Field of Dose Measurement in the Interventional Radiology Lab" A cooperation agreement between the University Hospital of Canaries (HUC) and the company Siemen AG, Healthcare Sector.

Publications

• The effect of endorectal balloon on anorectal dose during postoperative volumetric arc radiotherapy of prostate cancer. Streller T, Rusch U, Herraiz Lablanca MD, Minneken I, Najafi Y, Shrestha B, Oertel S, Riesterer O. Radiother Oncol. 2017 Jun;123(3):454-458.
• TOPOS: a new topometric patient positioning and tracking system for radiation therapy based on structured white light. Lind BL, Müller RG, Lang S, Herraiz Lablanca MD, Klöck S. Med Phys 2013 Apr, 40(4)
• Laser investigation of stored metal cluster ions. L. Schweikhard, K. Hansen, A. Herlert, M.D. Herráiz Lablanca, G. Marx, M. Vogel Hyperfine Interact. 146/147, 275-281 (2003)
• Recent gold clusters studies in a Penning trap. L. Schweikhard, K. Hansen, A. Herlet, M.D. Herráiz Lablanca, G. Marx, M. Vogel. Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 219 (2002) 363-371.
   

Associate Professor | Biomedical Engineering | University of Vigo
antonio.lopez.medina@sergas.es
antonio.lopez@uvigo.gal

Experience
Gained a PhD in Physics on electronic contamination in clinical use beams from the University of Granada, Spain and trained as a medical physics expert in the Spanish training scheme (1996-1999) at the Hospital Virgen de las Nieves in Granada. He has worked in three hospitals of the Spanish public health system and since 2000 he has been working at the Hospital do Meixoeiro in Vigo, mainly in radiotherapy.

He has been an associate professor at the University of Vigo since 2021 and teaches Clinical and Hospital Engineering in Biomedical Engineering.

He has collaborated both in the direction and teaching of different courses organized by his hospital, by the IAEA, by the Spanish Society of Medical Physics (SEFM) and by the International University of Andalusia.

He has maintained a line of research through three consecutive research projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health (ARTFIBio, ARTFIBio-DTS and HeNeBra) in adaptive radiotherapy by functional imaging in head and neck cancer, in which the information contained in PET/CT, DWMRI and DCEMRI images has been used to evaluate tumor response to radiotherapy treatment. As a result of these projects, he supervised the PhD thesis of David Aramburu Núñez.

Currently his research work is driven by the SINFONIA project (funded by the EU H2020 - GA 945196). His participation in this project has focused on improving risk prediction due to radiotherapeutic treatment in patients with lymphomas and brain tumors and the measurement and calculation of doses to personnel in theranostics (with Lu-177 DOTATE and Ga-68 DOTATOC). These results, in addition to being published in several articles, have been used for the PhD thesis by Mercedes Riveira Martin. Both PhD theses have obtained the maximum qualification.

He has also collaborated in the SAMIRA tender on medical equipment (N°ENER/D3/2021-253-2), as an expert in radiotherapy, whose final recommendations are expected to be published in the coming months by the Directorate-General for Energy (ENER) of European Commission.

He has been liaison between the Spanish Society of Medical Physics (SEFM) and ESTRO from 2015 to 2019, years in which he collaborated in the application of the HERO model of radiotherapy costs to the Spanish reality and in the development of the Core Curriculum of Expert in Medical Physics in Radiotherapy.

From 2020 to 2023 he has been a voting representative of SEFM at EFOMP and since 2021 he has been the secretary of the EFOMP European and International Matters Committee. In February 2023 he was appointed vice-chair of this committee and since January 2024 he has been its chair. His work in this committee has focused on the creation of the Early Career Special Interest Group, the establishment and follow-up of institutional agreements with other entities and the programming of the warm-up webinars corresponding to the ECMP 2024.

Publications
https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=jPP9-38AAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao

MSc and PhD in Physics from Queen's University of Belfast.  MBA from the Open Sc and PhD in Physics from Queen's University of Belfast.  MBA from the Open University.  Worked in CT imaging of trabecular bone as a post-doctoral fellow in Canada before joining the Cross Cancer Institute, Canada as a Medical Physicist in radiotherapy.  Moved back to Ireland in 1995 to take the Director of Physics at St Luke’s Hospital in Dublin, Ireland and still hold that position.  Adjunct Professor and co-supervisor of  PhD and MSc  students at University College Dublin School of Physics and Centre for Physics in Health and Medicine.  Member of the Canadian College of Physics in Medicine, registered Radiation Protection Advisor and registered MPE with the Irish College of Physicists in Medicine. Involved in teaching medical physics at graduate and undergraduate physics courses and for the Specialist Registrar Fellowship training programme.  Course supervisor and faculty member for of the ESTRO Dose Modelling and Verification and Risk Management courses.  Programme director for the CAMPEP accredited Irish Radiotherapy Physics Residency programme. Currently physics lead to the Irish National Cancer Control Programme.  Research interests include dose calculation in radiotherapy, risk management and radiation protection. Chair of the EFOMP School (2022-2024).

Dr Irene Polycarpou is an Associate Professor in Medical Physics at European University Cyprus. She attained MSc and PhD from King's College London and she undertook postdoctoral research at St Thomas' Hospital London.

Expert in medical imaging. Research interests include enhancement of the diagnostic value of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). She was involved in the development of simulated 4D PET-MRI
datasets that can be used freely by academia and industry for any scientific investigation. She has participated in several projects including “FP7 EU project, Sublima, PET-MR combined for maximal efficiency”, “FP7 EU project, HYPERimage, Hybrid PET/MR” and projects funded by the Research Promotion foundation. She is actively participating in the organization of international conferences and workshops. She is an active member of the board of the Society of Medical Physicists Cyprus and the President of the Cyprus Association of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering. She is affiliated with the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP), the International  Radiation Protection Association (IRPA), the European Federation of Organizations of Medical Physics (EFOMP), and the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (EAMBES), through CAMPBE.

Per Poulsen graduated with a PhD in nanoscale physics from Nanjing University in China. After a postdoc about carbon nanotubes at Copenhagen University, he first worked as a clinical medical physicist at Aarhus University Hospital for six years and then as a visiting researcher focusing on image-guided MLC tracking at Stanford University for two years. Since 2010, he has been leading a research group at Aarhus University that mainly work on various aspects of motion management for both photon and proton based radiotherapy. The topics include tumor and organ motion detection during treatment delivery, the impact of the motion on the delivered dose and ways to mitigate this impact. A more recent research focus is proton FLASH therapy including preclinical studies in collaboration with radiobiologists and development of fast FLASH compatible in-vivo dosimetry systems.
 

Contributions to science
72 peer-reviewed articles, including 17 as first author and 6 as the last author cited 2377 times, contributing to an h-index of 25 (google scholar 13/5-2024). Verified reviewer of 113 manuscripts.
48 Oral presentations at conferences, including 9 as an invited speaker.
Received funding for more than 14 mil. Dkr.
Main supervisor for PhD students (Camilla Panduro Nielsen and Sarah W Stougaard)
Co-supervisor for PhD students (Anne Andresen, Morten Horsholt Kristensen and Ruta Zukauskaite (finished))

Employment
2005 Jan - now Medical physicist, Laboratory of Radiation Physics, Odense University Hospital, Denmark
2017 Jan – now Medical physicist Danish Centre for Particle Therapy, Aarhus, Denmark
2022 Dec – now Associate professor, Institute of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark

Leading roles in oncology
Board member of DSKO (Danish Society for Clinical Oncology) 2020-now
The academic lead of DcmCollab. National radiotherapy treatment plan database, 2022-now
Member of the Danish Head and Neck Cancer (DAHANCA) Quality Assurance group. 2007-now
Member of the Danish Neuro-Oncology Group (DNOG) 2017-now
Work packages leader for Danish National Research Center for Radiotherapy “Clinical Trials Quality Assurance Platform”. 2018-2023
Work packages leader for Danish National Research Center for Radiotherapy “Treatment planning and automation”. 2018-2023
Joint principal investigator for DCCC Brain Tumor Center work packages 11 National Quality Assurance program for radiotherapy delineation. 2021-2026

National workshops hosted
Artigicial intelligens in Radiotherapy – clinical impementation. 22-23 Jan 2024Head and neck level variance workshop. 24-25 Jan 2023
Artificial intelligence in Radiotherapy. 6-7 Dec 2022
Radiotherapy Quality Assurance. 18-19 Jan 2022
Pelvis organs at risk variance 9-19 Dec 2021
Head and neck organs at risk variance 2-3 Oct 2019
Brain organs at risk variance 11-12 Apr 2019

Contributions related to clinical trials
Lead QA physicist on DAHANCA10 - Effect of darbepoetin alfa and radiotherapy in the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. A multicenter, open-label, randomized, phase 3 trial by the Danish Head and Neck Cancer Group. Finished
Joint lead QA physicist on DAHANCA19 - Head and neck cancer patients receiving the EGFRinhibitor zalutumumab. A multicenter, open-label, randomized, phase 3 trial by the Danish Head and Neck Cancer Group. Publication in progress
Lead QA physicist on DAHANCA28 - Phase I / II study of accelerated hyperfractionated radiotherapy, concomitant cisplatin and nimorazole in patients with stage III-IV p16 negative planocellular carcinoma of the larynx, pharynx and cavum oris. Finished
Lead QA physicist on DAHANCA34 - Quality of Life After primary TORS vs IMRT “The QoLATI study” for patients with early-stage oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: A Randomized National Trial. Trial recruiting
Lead QA physicist on DAHANCA35 - A national randomized trial of proton versus photon radiotherapy for the treatment of head-neck cancer. Trial recruiting
Lead QA physicist on DAHANCA37 - A phase II study of intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) for re-irradiation with curative intent for recurrent or new primary head and neck cancer. Trial recruiting

Professor Seco graduated with a PhD from the University of London, at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. He then went on to become an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, working at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He then returned to Europe to work at the German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ in Heidelberg, heading up a new group dedicated to ion beam research and with the focus on 1) novel imaging technologies to reduce Bragg peak positioning errors in patients and 2) on investigating the mechanism of radiation triggered DNA damage via reactive oxygen species. He is also presently the Chair of Medical Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg University. He is a member of the EFOMP Scientific Committee representing the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP) and Chair elect of the EFOMP School (ESMPE) .

Professor in Medical Radiation Physics at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University, certified medical physicist, and head of the Stockholm University Medical Radiation Physics division affiliated to the Department of Oncology and Pathology at Karolinska Institutet. In parallel with her deep involvement in the educational program for the medical physicists run at Stockholm University, her main research interests focus on proton and ion radiotherapy, biologically optimised adaptive radiation therapy, radiobiological modelling and the risk of second malignant neoplasms from radiotherapy.

She is editor in chief of the European Journal of Medical Physics (Physica Medica).

Graduated in Physics, PhD. in Physics and currently working as a Medical Physicist in Hospital Dr. Negrín (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain). Tutor of residents. My professional activity is mainly developed in gynaecological brachytherapy, dosimetry and quality assurance. In the research field, I worked in projects related to particle physics (CERN, FERMILAB, Superkamiokande, K2K). Currently my research is focused in Medical Physics issues. I have worked as collaborator professor at Valencia (Spain) and Geneve (Swizerland) universities. I run an academy for the preparation of the Spanish access exam to become a Medical Physics resident. I am a member of the directive board of the Spanish Society of Medical Physics.

Physicist Marcel van Herk is responsible for a programme of international leading cancer research and innovation, closely interfaced with clinical practice. The group’s focus is on improving accuracy of radiation therapy including target volume definition, treatment planning, image guidance and imaging-based treatment follow-up generating real-world evidence from very large cohorts of patients.

His multidisciplinary group is part of the division of cancer sciences. It includes 2 senior lecturers (one honorary), 5 research associates, 24 PhD students, 14 masters’ students and 6 clinical scientist (HSST) students who cover physics, clinical oncology, clinical physics, radiography, and radiology. All research is directly aimed at improving the clinical practice of cancer treatment in the Christie, UK, and the world. A key element is the direct collaboration with academic clinicians, of which there are few. His work led to new standards of care in cancer treatment delivery and is recognised internationally as practice changing. Marcel has (co-) authored 300 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Work Experience
04-08/2013 Internship at the Accelerator-based materials science group, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
11/2013-05/2022 Medical Physicist/Medical Physics Expert at University Hospital Würzburg, Germany Department of Radiotherapy, services also provided to the Institute of Interventional and Diagnostic Radiology
since 05/2022 Vice Group Leader of the Medical Physics group, Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Würzburg, Germany with responsibility for the topics Dosimetry and Education
since 10/2023 Interim Professor at Hochschule RheinMain (University of Applied Sciences), Rüsselsheim, Germany (part-time)

Memberships
EFOMP Individual Associate Member
ESTRO
DGMP/DRG (German national organizations)

Professional Activity
Member of the EFOMP Communications & Publications Committee
Member of the ESTRO Focus Group for Dosimetry & QA
Examiner for the German national member organization DGMP
Contribution to national standardization in the field of dosimetry for DIN