Mentors

Richard is Associate Professor of Proton Therapy and Research Lead for Translational Proton Therapy Physics at University College London (UCL). He is also a Visiting Research Collaborator at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

Richard trained as a clinical scientist (medical physics) at the Royal Free Hospital in London before working for a number of years as a clinical radiotherapy physicist in both the UK and Canada. He then worked in charged-particle microbeam research and development at the Gray Laboratory Cancer Research Trust in the UK before starting his career in proton therapy at Loma Linda University Medical Center, California, in 2002. He moved to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2005 to play a leading role in clinical implementation and programme development for a new proton therapy facility, opened in 2006. In 2013, Richard took the role of Operational Lead for Proton Therapy Physics at University College London Hospitals (UCLH), focusing on developing a new proton therapy programme for the UK National Health Service (NHS). He currently leads translational proton therapy physics research at UCL.

Richard has co-authored approximately 30 peer-reviewed papers, 90 conference abstracts, and four book chapters in the field of proton therapy. He is a Chartered Physicist, a Chartered Scientist, Associate Editor of the British Journal of Radiology, and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Ad Maas is now a retired medical physics expert after 35 years working in the Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis, a general hospital in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. He did his PhD at the state university of Groningen, the Netherlands, in1980. Subject was a physiology research programme on guinea-pig taenia caeci.  He was trained as an MPE for Hospital Physics in the years 1983-1987. In the Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis he was director of the Medical Technology Department until 2014. In 2018 he became chair of the EFOMP Professional Matters Committee working on a new procedure for international approval of national registration schemes for medical physicist experts. His main interests are hospital physics, hospital safety, quality systems, operating room, intensive care and cardiac pacing (CIEDs). He is also a member of the MREC Brabant representing the field of medical devices.

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).

Yolanda Prezado is the founder and leader of the interdisciplinary team “New Approaches in Radiotherapy (NARA)” based at National Scientific Research Center- CN RS, Orsay, France. The main research avenue of the team NARA is the conception and development of innovative methods based on the use of the spatial fractionation of the dose. In particular, NARA has pioneered a novel technique called Proton Minibeam radiation therapy. Yolanda Prezado obtained her PhD in Physics in 2003. She is a board certified medical physicist (Spain and France). She has been developing her research in radiotherapy, first at Hospital Universitario de Salamanca (Spain), then at the Biomedical Beamline of the European Synchrotron Radiation facility (Grenoble, France) and at CNRS since 2011. Her research interests include charged particle therapy, dose calculations (Monte Carlo simulations), small field dosimetry and radiobiology. She has been the Chair of Science Committee of the European Federation of Medical Physics and deputy spokeperson of the International Biophysics collaboration. Yolanda is the ECMP2024 President. 

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.
 

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) .

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.