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 MEM Research Center, 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 more than 400 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, deep 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
- Rafael-Palou X, Aubanell A, Ceresa M, Ribas V, Piella G & González Ballester MA 2022, 'Prediction of lung nodule progression with an uncertainty-aware hierarchical probabilistic network', Diagnostics, vol. 11, no. 12, pp 2639:1-18.
- Perera-Bel E, Mercadal B, García-Sánchez T, González Ballester MA & Ivorra A 2022, 'Modeling methods for treatment planning in overlapping electroporation treatments', IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 69, no. 4, pp 1318-1327.
- Galdran A, Hewitt KJ, Ghaffari NL, Kather JN, Carneiro G & González Ballester MA 2022, 'Test time transform prediction for open set histopathological image recognition', Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13432 (Medical Image Computing and Computer Aided Interventions - MICCAI 2022, Singapore), pp 263-272.
- Segarra-Queralt M, Neidlin M, Tio L, Monfort J, Monllau JC, González Ballester MA, Alexopoulos L, Piella G & Noailly J 2022, 'Regulatory network-based model to simulate the biochemical regulation of chondrocytes in healthy and osteoarthritic environment', Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 3856, pp 1-16.
- Sánchez-Martínez S, Camara O, Piella G, Cikes M, González Ballester MA, Miron M, Vellido A, Gómez E, Fraser A & Bijnens B 2022, 'Machine learning for clinical decision-making: challenges and opportunities in cardiovascular imaging', Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol. 8, no. 765693, pp 1-11.
- Liu Y, Wang X, Wu Z, López-Linares K, Macía I, Ru X, Zhao H, González Ballester MA & Zhang C 2022, 'Automated anatomical labeling of a topologically variant abdominal arterial system via probabilistic hypergraph matching', Med Image Anal, vol. 75, no. 102249, pp 1-19.
- Jiménez-Sánchez A, Mateus D, Kirchhoff S, Kirchhoff C, Biberthaler P, Navab N, González Ballester MA & Piella G 2022, 'Curriculum learning for improved femur fracture classification: scheduling data with prior knowledge and uncertainty', Med Image Anal, vol. 75, no. 102273, pp 1-12.