Tilo Baumbach
Tilo Baumbach is professor of experimental physics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He received his PhD for research in semiconductor physics at the University of Leipzig, worked as a scientist in the inelastic neutron spectroscopy group at the Institute Laue Langevin in Grenoble and later moved to applied and industrial research and development at the Fraunhofer Institute for Non-Destructive Testing in Dresden, where he used X-ray scattering, diffraction and imaging techniques. As part of a habilitation fellowship he carried out research on reciprocal space imaging of thin films and nanostructures at the ESRF Grenoble and habilitated in 2000. Together with his PhD students, he established the techniques of full-field rocking curve imaging and synchrotron radiation computed laminography. Together with his groups, he designed diffraction and imaging beamlines, experimental stations, and in situ instrumentation, which they operate at synchrotron facilities (ESRF, KIT Light Source, PETRA III) and laboratory sources for applications in nanoscience, materials research and, increasingly, life sciences. Tilo Baumbach became head of the Fraunhofer IZFP branch institute in Dresden in 1999, director of ANKA (today KIT Light Source) in 2004, and is now head of the Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation (IPS) at KIT.
Matthieu Boone
Matthieu Boone is Associate Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Ghent University. He is one of the PIs of both the Centre for X-ray Tomography (UGCT) and the Radiation Physics research group, investigating all aspects of high-resolution X-ray tomography. His research focus is on the use of novel instrumentation, notably hyperspectral X-ray detectors, and phase contrast imaging.
Luca Brombal
Luca Brombal gained his PhD in Physics at the University of Trieste in 2020. His thesis “X-ray Phase-contrast Tomography: Underlying Physics and Developments for Breast Imaging” has been included in the Springer Thesis: Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research series. In 2021 he was awarded by the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) a Young Researcher’s grant for developing a new X-ray laboratory called PEPI (Photon-counting Edge-illumination Phase-contrast Imaging). Since 2022 he has been a researcher at the University of Trieste, and he is currently the PI of the MUST project (A compact multimodal X-ray system for 3D micro-imaging of soft tissue based on the integration of spectral and phase-contrast techniques), funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (PRIN-PNRR).
Hans Hertz
Hertz received his PhD in optical physics 1988 at Lund University, Sweden and did his post-doc at Dept. of Applied Physics, Stanford University. Since 1997 he is full professor of Biomedical Physics at the Royal Inst. of Technol. (KTH), Stockholm. Here he leads a multi-disciplinary research team grounded in x-ray science and technology and with strong interaction to nanochemistry, cell biology, and preclinical and clinical medicine. He pioneered the liquid-jet laser-plasma source, the liquid-metal-jet electron-impact source, and several laboratory high-resolution imaging methods. The research has resulted in a few spin-off companies. Present research interests include high-resolution phase-contrast x-ray imaging, x-ray fluorescence imaging, x-ray microscopy, and biomedical applications, from cell biology to clinical.
Julia Herzen
Julia Herzen studied physics (2001-2006) and received her PhD (2010) from the University of Hamburg, including a research stay at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland, 2008). She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at TUM (2010 & 2014) and as a beamline scientist at the synchrotron radiation source PETRA III (Hamburg, 2012-2014), and held a position as interim professor at TU Dortmund (2014/15), as assistant professor for biomedical imaging physics at TUM (2018-2023), before being appointed as associate professor for biomedical imaging physics at TUM in 2024. She has recently been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant (2023) for her research in quantitative X-ray imaging.
Kaye Morgan
Prof Kaye Morgan is a physicist based at Monash University in Australia, working on new methods of x-ray imaging and applying these methods in biomedical research collaborations. Many of these applications have required high-speed imaging to capture biological function and avoid motion blur, and as a result, her group has focused on developing methods of x-ray phase and dark-field imaging that minimise the number of required exposures. This includes propagation-based imaging and some of the earliest work in speckle-tracking and single-grid imaging. Her experimental program has used conventional x-ray sources, the Munich Compact Light Source, and synchrotron sources, both around the world and across the road from Monash at the Australian Synchrotron. Her research program has been supported by a series of fellowships from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Veski, and the Technical University of Munich Institute for Advanced Studies, and project funding from ARC and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Emmanuel Brun
Dr Emmanuel Brun, research director at Inserm (the French national health research Institute), is developing for more than a decade the numerical and experimental tools of biomedical X-ray Phase Contrast and Dark-field Imaging using both synchrotron radiation and conventional systems. After his Ph.D. on image analysis of synchrotron-based µCT and a postdoc at UCSB, Emmanuel arrived at the Biomedical beamline of the European Synchrotron. After 4 years as an ESRF staff member, he is since 2015 a full-time researcher on the development of biomedical imaging methods for various applications ranging from osteoarticular diseases X-ray phase-contrast imaging to immunohistological data analysis. He is a co-author of 20 conference proceedings and more than 60 journal articles in the domain as well as two patents.
Uddhab Chaulagain
Uddhab is a scientist working in the X-ray Group, at the ELI Beamlines, one of the pillars of the European Extreme Light Infrastructure project (ELI). He was awarded PhD from Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC), Paris France. He has been working with high power laser systems over past 12 years. At ELI beamlines, he is leading the development of compact X-ray sources based on Laser Plasma accelerators and their applications in high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy.
Vittorio Di Trapani
Originally from Palermo (Italy), Dr. Di Trapani completed a bachelor’s degree in Physics (2015) and a Master’s degree in Medical Physics (2017) at the University of Pisa (Italy). His Master’s thesis concerned the characterization of a system for propagation based system for breast CT with synchrotron radiation implemented within the SYRMA-3D collaboration at the SYRMEP beamline of the Elettra synchrotron (Trieste, Italy). In 2017, he started a PhD in Experimental Physics at the University of Siena (Italy). His Ph.D. project focused on the implementation of two state-of-the-art acquisition systems for spectral imaging applications: (i) a laboratory setup for spectral micro-CT with an energy-resolving photon-counting detector, and (ii) a setup for K-edge imaging with bent-Laue optics with synchrotron sources. As part of his Ph.D. program, he spent six months as a visiting researcher at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada), under the supervision of Prof. D. Chapman, working on the development of acquisition procedures and reconstruction algorithms tailored for spectral imaging with bent-Laue crystals. After defending his Ph.D. thesis, in July 2021 he joined the S-BaXIT project (ERC consolidator grant project led by Prof. P. Thibault) as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In the framework of the project, he worked on the design and implementation of a new laboratory facility for X-ray imaging (tomography, spectral imaging, propagation-based imaging, and speckle-based imaging) hosted by the Elettra Synchrotron. His main interests include X-ray detectors, spectral imaging applications, and the development of phase contrast techniques.
Sylvain Formaux
Sylvain Fourmaux is a Research Associate at INRS since 2004. He is working at the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) facility located in Varennes (Québec). From 2009 until 2014 he built the laser wakefield and Betatron X-ray radiation beam line using the ALLS 80 TW laser system. In 2014-2016 he managed the experimental aspects of the upgrade of the 80 TW laser system up to 150 TW on target. In 2017 the laser based synchrotron radiation beam line was successfully operational with the upgraded laser system and an improved alignment system. Since 2021, he is in charge of providing support to users getting access to the 150 TW facility. His research interests include plasma physics, ultrafast lasers, high intensity laser-matter interaction, particle acceleration (ions and electrons), laser wakefield electron acceleration, ultrafast X-ray sources and their applications.
Tim Salditt
Tim Salditt is professor of experimental physics at the Institute for X-ray Physics of the University of Göttingen. He studied physics in Munich and Grenoble, and received his Ph.D. in 1995 for research in kinetic growth of surfaces and interfaces, which he studied by diffuse X-ray scattering and non-specular reflectivity with Hans Peisl at the University of Munich. He then moved his focus to biophysics, using the newly developed approaches for interface-sensitive scattering to study fluctuations in oriented lipid membranes. In his postdoctoral work with Cyrus Safinya in Santa Barbara, he worked on the structure and interactions of lipid/DNA complexes. Driven by the motivation to study biomolecular assemblies also in the hierarchical and complex functional environment of cells, he developed X-ray waveguide optics for nanoscale holographic imaging and tomography. With his group, he has designed a synchrotron radiation instrument, which they operate at the PETRAIII storage ring, together with DESY. Using a combination of diffraction with micro- and nano-focused beams as well as holographic imaging and tomography, they can now study biomolecular assemblies and biological matter, from the molecular level to biological cells and tissues. Recently, they also got increasingly involved with translating phase contrast tomography from synchrotron to laboratory instrumentation, more amenable for biomedical research groups. They push the limits in X-ray optics, including focusing, wave-front control, coherence, phase retrieval, reconstruction algorithms, information theory and image processing in order to get a maximum of information from a minimum of photons, Tim Salditt has been spokesperson of the collaborative research center Nanoscale Photonic Imaging for 12 years, and is a principle investigator of the DFG Center for Excellence Multi-Scale Bioimaging: from molecular machines to networks of excitable cells. He is a member of the Academy of Science in Göttingen, and of the DESY scientific advisory committee.
Jan Sijbers
Jan Sijbers graduated in Physics in 1993. In 1998, he received a PhD in Physics from the University of Antwerp, entitled Signal and Noise Estimation from Magnetic Resonance Images". He was an FWO Postdoc at the University of Antwerp and the Delft University of Technology from 2002-2008. In 2010, he was appointed as a senior lecturer at the University of Antwerp. In 2014, he became a full professor. He is Senior Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing as well as Associated Editor of IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. Jan Sijbers is the head of imec-Vision Lab and co-founder of IcoMetrix and Deltaray. His main interest are in image reconstruction, processing, and analysis with focus on Magnetic Resonance Imaging and X-ray Computed Tomography.
Daniel Symes
Daniel Symes is an experimental operations manager at STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). He received his PhD at Imperial College London (2003) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Central Laser Facility at RAL. Using the Gemini laser, he is developing plasma-based particle accelerators in collaboration with teams of visiting researchers, and is particularly interested in the emergence of laser-driven x-ray sources as viable instruments for high resolution tomography. He is leading the installation of a laser-plasma accelerator capable of advanced industrial imaging at the Extreme Photonics Applications Centre, due to open at RAL in 2025. He has co-authored over 60 research papers, including a demonstration of biological microtomography using a plasma accelerator.