Miguel A. González Ballester

Miguel A. González Ballester

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

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. 300 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences, and have supervised 20 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 through machine learning, 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

– López-Linares K, García I, García A, Cortes C, Piella G, Macía I, Noailly J & González Ballester MA 2019, ‘Image-based 3D characterization of abdominal aortic aneurysm deformation after endovascular aneurysm repair‘,  Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, vol. 7, no. 267, pp 1-17.

– Zimmer V, González Ballester MA & Piella G 2019, ‘Multimodal image registration using Laplacian commutators‘, Information Fusion, vol. 49, pp 130-145.

– Ruiz Wills C, Olivares AL, Tassani S, Ceresa M, Zimmer V, González Ballester MA, del Río LM, Humbert L & Noailly J 2019, ‘3D patient-specific finite element models of the proximal femur based on DXA towards the classification of fracture and non-fracture cases‘, Bone, vol. 121, pp 89-99.

– Torrents-Barrena J, Piella G, Masoller N, Gratacós E, Eixarch E, Ceresa M & González Ballester MA 2019, ‘Fully automatic segmentation of the placenta and its peripheral vasculature in intrauterine fetal MRI‘, Medical Image Analysis, vol. 54, pp 263-279.

– Rampun A, López-Linares K, Morrow PJ, Scotney BW, Wang H, Garcia Ocaña I, Maclair G, Zwiggelaar R, González Ballester MA & Macía I 2019, ‘Breast pectoral muscle segmentation in mammograms using a modified holistically-nested edge detection network’, Medical Image Analysis, vol. 57, pp 1-17.

– Xia J, Wang F, Benkarim OM, Sanroma G, Piella G, González Ballester MA, Hahner N, Eixarch E, Zhang C, Shen D & Li G 2019, ‘Fetal cortical surface atlas parcellation based on growth patterns’, Human Brain Mapping, vol. 40, pp 3881-3899.

– Torrents-Barrena J, López-Velazco R, Piella G, Masoller N, Valenzuela-Alcaraz B, Gratacós E, Eixarch E, Ceresa M & González Ballester MA 2019, ‘TTTS-GPS: Patient specific preoperative planning and simulation platform for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome fetal surgery’, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, vol. 179, no. 104993, pp 1-23.

Selected research activities

– New spin-off company: MiWEndo Solutions

– Program Chair IEEE ISBI 2019