Computational Imaging Group

Brief description

Stefano Mandija is currently employed as a clinical scientist /postdoctoral researcher in the Radiotherapy department of the University Medical Center Utrecht and the Computational Imaging Group.

Background

Stefano was born in Camposampiero, Padua (Italy) in September 1988. He was educated as a bioengineer at the University of Padua, 2007-2013. Afterwards, he moved to The Netherlands where he received his Ph.D. in the field of non-invasive characterization of tissue electrical properties with MRI at the University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands) in 2018. Subsequently, he was offered a Post-Doc position at the Radiology and Radiotherapy departments of the University Medical Center Utrecht. His research topics range from fundamental and methodological research to clinical development of quantitative MRI methods and MRI biomarkers for diagnostic and radiotherapy treatment response prediction and monitoring. In particular, he works on the characterization of tissue electrical properties for early-stage radiotherapy treatments efficacy assessment using MRI (NWO recipient VENI grant 2020), MRI-based guidance of spinal cord stimulation (RESTORE and Prep2GO consortia), and he also supports the development and translation of quantitative MRI methods in clinical settings (MR-STAT). He is also clinical MR-physicist for breast tumour radio-ablation, and MRI-guided cardiac radio-ablation using stereotactic radiotherapy (STOPSTORM.eu consortium).

Projects

Side Activities

Chair of the ISMRM Benelux Annual Meeting (2020)

Fellowship and Awards

NWO VENI Grant (2020): MR-based measurements of ‘Tissue ElectroMagnetic Properties in radiation Oncology (TEMPO)’: A predictive tool for early-stage assessment of radiotherapy treatments
Junior Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, ISMRM (2020)

PhD thesis

Non-Invasive Characterization of Brain Tissue Electrical Properties with MRI, 23 January 2018, Utrecht, The Netherlands, ISBN: 978-90-393-6904-3, Utrecht University.

Three most recent publications
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M L Groot Koerkamp, Y J M Hond, M Maspero, C Kontaxis, S Mandija, J E Vasmel, R K Charaghvandi, M E P Philippens, B Asselen, H J G D Bongard, S S Hackett, and A C Houweling. 'Synthetic CT for single-fraction neoadjuvant partial breast irradiation on an MRI-linac'. Physics in Medicine & Biology, 2021.
R J M Navest, S Mandija, S E Zijlema, B Stemkens, A Andreychenko, J J W Lagendijk, and C A T Berg. 'The noise navigator for MRI-guided radiotherapy: an independent method to detect physiological motion'. Physics in Medicine & Biology, 2020.
R J M Navest, S Mandija, T Bruijnen, B Stemkens, R H N Tijssen, A Andreychenko, J J W Lagendijk, and C A T Berg. 'The noise navigator: a surrogate for respiratory-correlated 4D-MRI for motion characterization in radiotherapy'. Physics in Medicine & Biology, 2020.

Keywords: MRI Physics| Electrical Properties Tomography | MRI in Radiotherapy | MR-STAT | MRI-guided cardiac radioablation