XCITE Lab projects

Current XCITE Lab members

Name Position Project
Magdalena Bazalova-Carter Associate Professor All of them :)
Deae-eddine Krim Postdoctoral fellow X-ray FLASH radiotherapy
Alison (Xinchen) Deng Postdoctoral fellow Photon-counting CT imaging
James Day Postdoctoral fellow CT imaging with photon-counting detectors
Alex Hart PhD candidate Scintillators and FLASH with x-ray tube
Jade Fischer PhD student Radiotherapy with VHEE
Olivia Masella PhD student KOALA - kilovoltage x-ray arc radiotherapy
Nathan Clements MSc student Collimator for KOALA
Olivia Moluchi MSc student Undecided
Sandhya Rottoo BSc student Phantom development for KOALA
Jacob Atkinson BSc student Treatment planning for KOALA
Maddie Perry Research Associate Cell 3D printing and SFRT


Magdalena Bazalova-Carter, PhD, DABR
Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics (Tier 2)

Magdalena received her BSc in Physical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague in 2003 and her PhD in Medical Physics at McGill University in 2008. In 2009, she started her postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University and three years later she was promoted to an Instructor at the same institution. Apart from advancing her academic career, Magdalena enjoyed working at the Stanford Hospital as a part-time clinical medical physicist. Magdalena joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy as an Assistant Professor in July of 2015. Her CV can be downloaded here.
Magdalena likes science very much and would like to fullfill her long-lasting dream of doing medical physics research in a self-built cabin at a lake in Canada. Apart from research, Magdalena loves to spend time outdoors: she enjoys rock climbing, ice-climbing, back-country skiing, mountaineering, and biking. She climbed the highest peak of the Americas at 6964 m and crossed western Canada (Vancouver to Winnipeg) on her bicycle. At conferences, you are likely to see her climbing up streets poles, bar walls, or any vertical rock-resembling surfaces (mouse over her photo).

Deae-eddine Krim, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow

Deae-eddine Krim is a dedicated and passionate physicist hailing from Morocco. After completing his BSc in 2016, he continued his academic pursuits by enrolling in the Master's program in the physics of matter and radiation. During this time, he focused on simulating linear accelerators (LINACS) used in medical physics for his MSc graduation project. In 2019, Deae-eddine embarked on his doctoral thesis at Mohammed First University of Oujda-Morocco, where he tackled some of the biggest challenges in radiation therapy. His research involved the development of a groundbreaking/new virtual source model for large and small fields, as well as a novel treatment method using focused VHEE beams through virtual magnetic lenses and prisms.
Beyond his academic accomplishments, Deae-eddine is a sports enthusiast with a passion for football (soccer), tennis, and running. He is also an avid follower of the automotive industry and enjoys staying up-to-date with the latest trends. In his free time, he loves discovering new music and is always on the lookout for talented artists to add to his playlist.

Alex Hart
PhD student

Alex received his BSc in Applied Physics from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington in 2015. Shortly after, he began his career in medical physics as an Applied Physics Technologist with Northwest Medical Physics Center before moving to Canada for graduate school. Alex earned his MSc in Medical Physics from the University of Victoria in early 2021 while a member of the UBC-based Qurit lab. His masters work focused on the development of new clinical protocols for oncological FDG PET/CT imaging. As a PhD student, Alex is excited to contribute to the rapidly developing field of FLASH radiotherapy.
Alex enjoys the privilege of spending graduate school living on beautiful Vancouver Island by getting out for hiking and mushroom foraging trips as often as possible. He is also a lifelong student of music, currently studying bluegrass guitar and mandolin.

Jade Fischer
PhD student

Jade graduated from the University of Calgary in 2022 with a B.Sc in physics. During her undergrad, Jade worked on a variety of research projects including projects in chemistry and complexity science. She ultimately was drawn to medical physics. Her work included projects on functional treatment planning for liver SBRT and machine learning for medical image translation. Through her graduate education, she is excited to learn about novel techniques and apply those skills to improve treatment methods and outcomes for patients.
Jade is very excited to begin graduate school in a city where she can pursue her favorite activities such as climbing, hiking, and ultimate frisbee for a few more months of the year. That being said, she will miss the snowy winters of Alberta because she is also a big fan of winter sports such as skiing, ringette, and sledding (which definitely counts as a sport).

Olivia Masella
PhD student

Olivia received her BSc in Physics from the University of Waterloo in 2022. Starting from her second year as an undergrad, she worked as a co-op student and subsequently as a volunteer at the Grand River Cancer Centre, performing QA duties and researching cell-simulation methods. Olivia's research allowed her to work closely with a 3D Multi-Scale cell modelling software ultimately leading to an undergraduate thesis investigating simulated chemotherapy on a simulated prostate tumour model. Her interest in Medical Physics came quickly and suddenly once exposed to the field leaving her excited to begin her master's at the University of Victoria.
In her spare time, Olivia enjoys cooking, trying new restaurants, spending time with friends, and exploring new sceneries. Additionally, with a newfound love for running, Olivia's looking forward to discovering beautiful Vancouver Island while pushing herself to beat her personal bests.

Nathan Clements
MSc student

Nathan is from Summerland, BC and will be entering fourth-year of his BSc in Physics September at UVic. He is very excited to join the XCITE Lab for an NSERC USRA position. He will be experimenting with the AmpTek X-123CdTe detector doing phantom scans and hopefully working up to a biological sample. In his free time, he likes going to the gym and playing basketball and volleyball.

Olivia Moluchi
MSc student

Olivia graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2024 with a BSc in Life Physics and specialization in Medical Physics. During her undergraduate degree, she worked as a co-op student at London Health Sciences Centre performing machine- and patient-specific quality assurance assessments, as well as discovered a new process of casting radiochromic gels into sphere moldings to explore gel dosimetry in smaller samples. Her interest in Medical Physics expanded even further while being a volunteer at Grand River Cancer Centre where she investigated radiation response in tumour spheroids with optical coherence tomography, leading her to an undergraduate thesis. She is eager to learn more about novel techniques within this field, such as FLASH radiotherapy.
Olivia is extremely excited to begin graduate school on beautiful Vancouver Island where she will spend her free time hiking, running, and swimming at every beach she can find. She also looks forward to training for triathlons in this breathtaking scenery and tough elevation.

Jacob Atkinson
BSc student

Jacob is an undergraduate student in his final year of a combined Bachelor’s of Physics and Astronomy. At first, he worked on various research projects in astrophysics from the early stages to planet formation around young stars to stellar interior hydrodynamics. Following this, he read up on medical physics, where he discovered a passion for the field. His current research interests now include Monte Carlo simulations, mathematical modeling, and treatment planning.
Outside of his academics, Jacob enjoys hiking, playing guitar, watching the Canucks and learning more about different branches of physics and mathematics.

Sandhya Rottoo
BSc student

Sandhya is from Montreal, Quebec and is working towards a B.Sc in physics with a minor in philosophy at McGill University. She first worked on radio telescope collaboration, then shifted towards particle physics and helped develop hardware and simulation tools for a liquid xenon detector. This summer, she is working on QA for the KOALA project and is very excited to discover more medical physics.
Sandhya likes to spend her free time reading and writing speculative fiction, cooking, baking, and playing a variety of instruments. She has recently taken up aikido and hopes that it will give her enough muscles to do a push up. She is also having a great time exploring Vancouver Island with her friends. Her (non research) goal for the summer is to learn to skip rocks.

Former XCITE Lab members

Name Next or current position Project
Devon Richtsmeier, PhD Medical Physics resident at BC Cancer Photon-counting CT
Pierre-Antoine Rodesch, PhD Postdoctoral fellow at CHUV in Lausanne Photon-counting CT
Jericho O'Connell, PhD Postdoctoral fellow at Harvard/Dana Farber Cost-effective RT
Nolan Esplen, PhD Postdoctoral fellow at MD Anderson FLASH/SFRT
Josephine Brewster Undergraduate student at UVic Low-cost radiotherapy
Jonathan Eby, BEng MSc student at U of Toronto Table-top FLASH system
Teaghan O'Briain, MSc MSc Student and VIU Motion correction in PET
Laszlo Zalavari, PhD Resident at Stanford University Segmentation in photon-counting x-ray images
Joanna Nguyen, PhD Researcher at General Electric Food inspection with photon-counting detectors
Daniel Cecchi MSc student at U of Calgary Scintillators for FLASH therapy
Ellie Badun Programmer Web-based dose viewer VICTORIA
Chelsea Dunning, PhD Postdoctoral fellow at Mayo Clinic Novel x-ray imaging modalities (PhD)
Dylan Breitkreutz, PhD Resident at Stanford University Kilovoltage x-ray beam arc therapy (PhD)
Chris Johnstone, PhD Resident at University of Toronto Small animal radiotherapy (PhD)
Spencer Robinson BSc student at UVic Spectral CT imaging, EBT3 film response
Eisa Alyaqoub BSc student at University of Madison (EE) 3D printing for small animal radiotherapy
Clay Lindsay PhD student at UVic Combined kV/MC imaging with a high-DQE MV detector
Spencer Bialek PhD student at UVic (Astronomy) Software development for microCT image analysis
Henry Baxter BSc student at UVic (CS) Visualization of TrueBeam treatment trajectories
Kilovoltage x-ray beam arc therapy
Lila Chergui MSc student at Perimeter Institute (Theory) Microbeam radiotherapy
Aaron Bannister MSc student at UVic (Medical Physics) Gel dosimetry in the presence of metals