Confirmed Invited Speakers
Luca Brombal
Luca Brombal is a tenure track researcher at the Department of Physics of the University of Trieste and affiliated with the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) working on advanced X-ray imaging techniques, with a focus on phase-contrast and spectral methods mainly using photon-counting detectors. His research addresses both laboratory and synchrotron-based implementations, including modulation-based phase-sensitive approaches for multimodal imaging and micro-CT. He leads the PEPI (Photon-counting Edge-illumination Phase-contrast Imaging) Laboratory, a compact system integrating spectral and phase-contrast, and contributes to the development of detectors, simulation tools, and reconstruction methods for quantitative imaging applications.
Jordi Carstens
2023 – now PhD Student, Salditt group, Institute for X-ray Physics, University of Göttingen
2021 – 2023 Medical physics expert at the Department of Radiotherapy and Radiation Oncology University Medical Center Göttingen
2019 - 2021 Training as medical physicist at the Department of Radiotherapy and Radiation Oncology, University Medical Center Göttingen
2017 – 2019 Master studies in physics University of Hamburg
2013 – 2017 Bachelor studies in physics University of Hamburg
Michela Esposito
Dr Michela Esposito is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London in the Advanced X-ray Imaging (AXIm) group, where she works on developing novel imaging techniques for x-ray microscopy.
With a background in Physics (BSc and MSc), Michela completed her PhD at the University of Surrey working on the development of large area CMOS sensors for biomedical applications. She then joined the University of Lincoln where she developed novel instrumentation for image-guided proton therapy, leading the development of a novel calorimeter for proton computed tomography.
Since joining AXIm, Michela worked on extending laboratory phase-based imaging techniques to microscopic length scales, leading to the development of a phase-based x-ray microscope for high content volumetric histology. Michela now leads MRC- funded research on applying phase-contrast imaging techniques to the development of novel cancer therapeutics.
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. Since November 2025, she serves as Academic Program Director responsible for teaching at the TUM Physics Department at the TUM NAT School. Her research in quantitative X-ray imaging has been recognised with an ERC Consolidator Grant (2023), and she serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Munich Institute of Biomedical Engineering (MIBE) at TUM.
Peter Modregger
2004-2009 PhD at Humboldt University of Berlin
2009-2014 Postdoc at the Swiss Light Source
2015-2019 Research Fellow at University College London
2019-2026 Juniorprofessor at the Univsersity of Siegen
since 2026 Professor at the Univsersity of Siegen
Martin Rongen
Martin Rongen is a Staff Scientist at the Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (ECAP). He earned his PhD in Physics from RWTH Aachen University in 2019 and subsequently held a postdoctoral position at JGU Mainz before joining ECAP in 2023 to pursue his habilitation. Throughout these years he has worked as an instrumentation specialist and calibration expert for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Since 2025, he coordinates the Technology Transfer Group at the chair of Prof. Stefan Funk, overseeing research and development in X-ray phase-contrast imaging and clinical dosimetry.