English version below.

Op vrijdag 26 mei om 12u30 organiseert AIG de 4^de editie in de ‘Worldwide Engineers from Ghent University’ reeks van lezingen. Hierin geven we het woord aan een FEA alumnus werkzaam in het buitenland die naast het ingenieursaspect ook aandacht heeft voor de socio-economische en maatschappelijke aspecten die gepaard gaan met werken in het buitenland.

In deze editie laten we prof. dr. ir. Dimitri Van De Ville aan het woord, doctor in de ingenieurswetenschappen: computerwetenschappen en professor in de bio-ingenieurswetenschappen verbonden aan de EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) en de Universiteit van Genève in Zwitserland.

In zijn lezing getiteld ‘About Signals, Graphs and Brains’ zal hij ons wegwijs maken in de complexe wereld van signaalanalyse en modellering die cruciaal is om de structuur en activiteit van de hersenen in kaart te brengen. Zijn doel is om de rijke spatiotemporele structuur van de output van neurologische beeldvormingstechnieken zoals magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ten volle te benutten om inzicht te krijgen in de werking van zowel gezonde als ongezonde hersenen.

Hieronder kan u de volledige (Engelstalige) versie terug vinden van de biografie van de spreker alsook van de inhoud van zijn lezing.

Na de lezing worden er – voor de liefhebbers – pizza’s voorzien.

Fourth edition Worldwide Engineers from Ghent University

AIG presents the 4^th edition in the ‘Worldwide Engineers from Ghent University’ series of lectures on Friday May 26 at 12u30. In these lectures, we give the stage to FEA alumni working abroad to not only focus on the engineering aspects, but also cover the societal and economic topics related to working abroad.

For the 4^th edition, we present prof. Dimitri Van De Ville, PhD in Computer Science Engineering and professor in bioengineering at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) jointly affiliated to the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

In his lecture ‘About Signals, Graphs and Brains’ he will guide us through the complex world of analysis and modeling of signals crucial to gain insight into the structure and function of the human brain. His goal is to exploit the rich spatiotemporal structure of data resulting from neuroimaging such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to unravel how a healthy and unhealthy human brain works.

You can read the full bio of the speaker as well as the abstract of his lecture below.

English abstract “About Signals, Graphs, and Brains”

State-of-the-art neuroimaging such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides unprecedented opportunities to non-invasively measure human brain structure (anatomy) and function (physiology). To fully exploit the rich spatiotemporal structure of these data and gain insights into brain function in health and disorder, novel signal processing and modeling approaches are needed, instilled by domain knowledge from neuroscience and instrumentation.

I will highlight our main research axes to pursue this endeavor. First, the analysis of temporal dynamics reveals the complex interplay of systems-level brain organization, both during task and resting-state conditions, with relevance for applications in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. The versatility of our methods lets us explore other parts of the central nervous system, in particular, the spinal cord. Second, the emerging framework of graph signal processing is well tailored to neuroimaging by integrating a brain graph (i.e., the structural connectome determined by diffusion-weighted MRI and tractography) and graph signals (i.e., the spatial activity patterns obtained by fMRI). New filtering operations uncover a behaviorally-relevant spatial gradient from uni- to transmodal regions.

Full English Bio Dimitri Van de Ville

Dr. Dimitri Van De Ville received his Ph.D. degree in computer science engineering from Ghent University, Belgium, in 2002. He was a post-doctoral fellow (2002-2005) at the lab of Prof. Michael Unser at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, before becoming responsible for the Signal Processing Unit at the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, as part of the Centre d’Imagerie Biomédicale (CIBM). In 2009, he received a Swiss National Science Foundation professorship and since 2015 became Professor of Bioengineering at the EPFL, jointly affiliated with the University of Geneva, Switzerland. His main research interest is in computational neuroimaging to advance cognitive and clinical neurosciences. His methods toolbox includes wavelets, sparsity, deconvolution, graph signal processing. He was a recipient of the Pfizer Research Award 2012, the NARSAD Independent Investigator Award 2014, the Leenaards Foundation Award 2016, and was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 2020 and Fellow of the EURASIP in 2023.

Dr. Van De Ville serves as an Editor for the new journal, Neuroimage: Reports since 2020, as a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing since 2019 and as an Editor for the SIAM Journal on Imaging Science from 2018 onwards. He served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing from 2006 to 2009, and the IEEE Signal Processing Letters from 2004 to 2006. He was the Chair of the Bio Imaging and Signal Processing (BISP) TC of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2012-2013) and the Founding Chair of the EURASIP Biomedical Image & Signal Analytics SAT (2016-2018). He was a Co-Chair of the biennial Wavelets & Sparsity series conferences, together with Y. Lu and M. Papadakis.