{"id":309,"date":"2026-06-04T10:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/j-pet.pl\/?page_id=309"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T08:45:18","slug":"advisory-board","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/j-pet.pl\/?page_id=309","title":{"rendered":"ADVISORY BOARD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prof. Simon Cherry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology, University of California, Davis, USA
School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King\u2019s College London, UK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon R. Cherry, Ph.D.\u00a0\u00a0received his B.Sc.(Hons) in Physics with Astronomy from University College London in 1986 and a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London in 1989.\u00a0\u00a0In 1993, he became a faculty member in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA.\u00a0\u00a0Simon joined UC Davis in 2001 and is currently Distinguished Research Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology.
Simon\u2019s research interests center around biomedical imaging. His major contributions have been in developing systems for positron emission tomography, for example in designing and building the first microPET scanner for small-animal imaging and as co-leader of the EXPLORER consortium which developed the world\u2019s first total-body PET scanner.\u00a0\u00a0He also has contributed to detector technology innovations for PET, conducted early biomedical studies using Cerenkov luminescence, and developed the first proof-of-concept hybrid PET\/MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) systems.
Simon is an elected fellow of six professional societies and a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors.\u00a0\u00a0He has received several international awards including the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Cassen Prize in 2022.\u00a0\u00a0He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology from 2011-2020. Simon is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, review articles and book chapters in the field of biomedical imaging. He is also lead author of the widely-used textbook \u201cPhysics in Nuclear Medicine\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Prof. Craig Levin<\/strong>\n<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Stanford University, USA<\/strong>

Dr. Craig S. Levin is a Professor of Radiology and, by Courtesy, of Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering at Stanford University, U.S.A. He is a founding member of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford, and Principal Investigator and Director of the NIH-NCI funded T32 Stanford Molecular Imaging Scholars postdoctoral training program. He received his M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from Yale University. An internationally recognized researcher in the field of molecular imaging he has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 40 patents awarded or pending. He directs a 20-member laboratory that explores new concepts in instrumentation and software algorithms for molecular imaging, introduces some of these new tools into clinical and pre-clinical imaging studies of cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders, and partners with industry to disseminate some of these technologies into products used for patient care throughout the world. To support his research, he has generated numerous grant awards as Principal Investigator from government, industry, and private institutions. He lectured in a Nobel symposium in 2007, and in 2012 was elected into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering\u2019s College of Fellows, and also in 2012 was given the U.S. Academy of Radiology Research Distinguished Investigator Recognition Award. In 2020 he received the Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist award from the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, and in 2023 he received the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Mars Shot Award.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Prof. Charalampos Tsoumpas<\/strong>\n<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands<\/strong>|

I have developed advanced mathematical and computational methods that embed physics-based and physiological models into medical image reconstruction. My work helps improve the accuracy of quantitative imaging and has been adopted in clinical and commercial systems. In 2025 I became a Vici laureate, a prestigious and highly competitive research award sponsored by the Research Dutch Foundation (Domain Applied & Engineering Science) to work towards ultra-low-dose PET\/CT imaging.
My research career began during my bachelor in Physics at the National University of Athens (1998\u20132002), where I designed a novel image reconstruction method using artificial neural networks\u2014work that led to my first publication. During my MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (2002\u20132004), I completed a 5-month internship at Hammersmith Hospital in London. There, I developed new models for scattered photons, which led to two patents and software improvements now used in clinical systems. During my PhD at Imperial College London (2004\u20132007), I developed a novel reconstruction technique integrating tracer kinetics, enabling the generation of parametric images\u2014a breakthrough now incorporated into modern PET\/CT systems. As a postdoctoral researcher at King\u2019s College London (2008\u20132013), I achieved two further milestones: (1) demonstrating the first use of MRI for non-rigid motion correction with one of the world\u2019s earliest PET-MRI prototypes, and (2) showing the critical role of regularisation in motionaware reconstruction. As a Lecturer in Medical Imaging at the University of Leeds (2013\u20132021), I led projects funded by national and international organisations including the Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, UK Research Innovation councils, and the EU. Over the past two decades, my team has contributed extensively to the STIR (Software for Tomographic Image Reconstruction) open-source platform.
My work has been acknowledged by leading professional societies. I am a Fellow of both the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Physics & Engineering in Medicine, and a Senior Member of IEEE. In 2017, I received together with my co-authors the Rotblat Medal from the Institute of Physics for a highly cited article published in Physics in Medicine & Biology.
I have held leadership roles in several research networks and academic-industry collaborations. Since 2014, I have been a team leader in the Crystal Clear Collaboration coordinated by CERN. I represented the UK in two COST Actions (TD1007, TD1401), co-chaired a software working group, and led dissemination efforts. I am also a founding member of the Collaborative Computational Project: Synergistic Reconstruction in Biomedical Imaging (CCP SyneRBI).From 2015 to 2018, I served as Head of Enterprise & Innovation at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine (250 staff, 80 academics, 120 PhD students), where I enhanced industry engagement and helped secure funding from the Royal Society, MRC, and EPSRC, in collaboration with partners including Positrigo, GE Healthcare, Invicro, and Bruker. STIR is now used in Positrigo\u2019s commercial PET scanners.
I have supervised 23 PhD students (12 as primary supervisor) and maintain close connections with many of them. I strongly value mentorship, team-oriented environments, and fostering research with genuine clinical relevance and novelty. I place high importance on developing well-documented open-source code to accelerate scientific progress and reproducibility. Several of my mentees have built successful careers in academia and industry. I\u2019m particularly proud that my first two PhD students under primary supervision received the IEEE Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n