Miguel A. González Ballester

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

Engineering Sciences

Degree in Computer Science from Universitat Jaume I (1996), and doctorate from the University of Oxford (2000). I was a senior researcher at Toshiba Medical Systems (Japan), INRIA (France), and the University of Bern (Switzerland), where I was leading the Surgical Technology Division at the Faculty of Medicine. From 2008 until September 2013 I was in charge of the Research Department of the company Alma IT Systems in Barcelona. In October 2013 I was appointed ICREA Research Professor, and joined the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, where I lead the Barcelona Centre for New Medical Technologies (BCN Medtech). I have approx. 250 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences, and have supervised 18 PhD theses. I was awarded Fellowships from Toshiba and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.


Research interests

My research focus is on computerised medical image analysis and computer-assisted surgery, including: image processing and computer vision, image-based diagnosis, medical imaging physics, computational modelling and simulation of virtual organs and surgical interventions, navigation in computer-assisted surgery, surgical devices and implants, and applied clinical research. In addition to basic research with solid mathematical foundations (notably my work on statistical biomechanical models), all my projects have a marked translational character, focusing on concrete clinical and industrial applications.

Selected publications

– Mangado N, Ceresa M, Duchateau N, Kjer HM, Vera S, Dejea Velardo H, Mistrik P, Paulsen RR, Fagertun J, Noailly J, Piella G & González Ballester MA 2016, ‘Automatic model generation framework for computational simulation of cochlear implantation’, Annals Of Biomedical Engineering, vol. 44, no. 8, pp 2453-2463.

– Olivares AL, González Ballester MA & Noailly J 2016, ‘Virtual exploration of early stage atherosclerosis’, Bioinformatics, vol. 32, no. 24, pp. 3798-3806.

– Sanroma G, Penate-Sanchez A, Alquézar R, Serratosa F, Moreno-Noguer F, Andrade-Cetto J & González Ballester MA 2016, ‘MSClique: multiple structure discovery through the maximum weighted clique problem’, Plos One, vol. 11, no. 1, e0145846, pp. 1-19.

– Karim R, Bhagirath P, Claus P, Housden RJ, Chen Z, Karimaghaloo Z, Sohn H-M, Lara Rodríguez L, Vera S, Alba X, Hennemuth A, Peitgen H-O, Arbel T, González Ballester MA, Frangi AF, Gotte M, Razavi R, Schaeffter T & Rhode K 2016, ‘Evaluation of state-of-the-art segmentation algorithms for left ventricle infarct from late Gadolinium enhancement MR images’, Medical Image Analysis, vol. 30, pp 95-107.

– Ruiz Pujadas E, Kjer HM, Piella G & González Ballester MA 2016, ‘Iterated random walks with shape prior’, Image and Vision Computing, vol. 54, pp 12-21.

– Carrera I, Gelber PE, Chary G, González Ballester MA, Monllau JC & Noailly J 2016, ‘Fixation of a split fracture of the lateral tibial plateau with a locking screw plate instead of cannulated screws would allow early weight bearing: a computational exploration’, International Orthopaedics, vol. 40, no. 10, pp 2163-2169.

– Mangado N, Piella G, Noailly J, Pons-Prats J & González Ballester MA 2016, ‘Analysis of uncertainty and variability in finite element computational models for biomedical engineering: characterization and propagation’, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, vol. 4, no. 85 (doi:10.3389/fbioe.2016.00085).


Selected research activities

1 patent application, 20 research projects & 34 publications in 2016.