Jericho has passed his Trasfer Exam
December 16, 2020Jericho took and passed his Transfer Exam with flying colors! Jericho is now a PhD student in the XCITE lab and his resaerch focuses on megavoltage and kilovoltage cone beam CT (CBCT) imaging. Congratulations, Jericho!
Jericho wins two UVic donor awards
December 10, 2020Jericho has received the James A. & Laurette Agnew Memorial Scholarship and the The R. M. Pearce Memorial Fellowship. Very well deserved, congratulations, Jericho!
Dr. Chelsea Dunning
October 20, 2020Chelsea defended her PhD thesis entitled 'Contrast agent imaging using an optimized table-top x-ray fluorescence and photon-counting computed tomograhy imagign system' today! Congratulations on your new degree, Dr. Dunning, and all the best at Mayo Clinic!
Joanna joined the lab
October 15, 2020Joanna Nguyen joined our lab from Ryerson University mid October. As a postdoctoral fellow, Joanna will be working on development of food scanning contaminant detection software. Welcome to the XCITE lab, Joanna!
Lab trip to Strathcona Provincial Park
Setpember 15, 2020Our lab went on a backpacking trip to Stathcona Provincial Park in August. We camped at Circlet lake and some of us summitted Mt. Alber Edward (2,093 m) on Sunday morning. Nobody fell down on the desent. Thank you all for attending our 2020 XCITE lab trip!
AAPM presentation featured by Physics World
August 10, 2020The lab's work on low-cost kilovoltage arc therapy presented at the AAPM/COMP Annual Meeting was highlighted by Physics World!
Magdalena's Canada Research Chair got renewed
July 3, 2020Magdalena's Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics got approved. Just don't tell anyone, it's top secret!
Chelsea accepted a position at Mayo Clinic
July 1, 2020Chelsea will be starting her new postdoctoral position at the CT Innovation Center at Mayo Clinic in January 2021. Congratulations, Chelsea!!
NSERC Alliance Grant
June 1, 2020We are pleased to announce that together with Jesse Tanguay from Ryerson University and Redlen Technologies, we have been awarded an NSERC Alliance grant entitled 'Advanced x-ray imaging for food and baggage inspection'. We look forward to continuing our work with photon-counting detectors.
XCITE Lab will present at the AAPM/COMP Annual Meeting
May 15, 2020Our lab was very successful with abstracts submissions to the AAPM/COMP Annual Meeting that was due to COVID-19 converted to a virtual meeting. Chelsea, Nolan, Devon and Teaghan will be giving oral presentations and Daniel will be presenting an e-poster. Congratulations to all!
Nolan was awarded NSERC CGS-D
April 17, 2020Huge congratulations to Nolan for receiving the prestigeous NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship for the remainder of his doctoral research! Well done and even better deserved, Nolan!
Teaghan received NSERC CGSM
April 15, 2020Congratulations, Teaghan for receiving your NSERC scholarship! We look forward to keeping you in the lab in the summer and as an MSc student in September!
Nolan passed his Candidacy Exam
April 8, 2020Nolan took his online Candidacy Exam, which went very well. All members of Nolan's committee were impressed with his outstanding progress so far as well as with his ambitious plan going forward. Congratulations, Nolan!
Chelsea was awarded a JSPS Summer Program Fellowship
April 7, 2020Chelsea was successful with her Mitacs/Japan Socienty for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Summer Program application! She now has the funding to work with Prof. Ikuo Kanno at Kyoto University on their photon-counting detector imaging system for two months. Big congratulations, Chelsea!!
Alex will be joining the lab as a PhD student
April 6, 2020Alex Hart accepted a PhD position in the XCITE lab. After he finishes his MSc project on PET imaging in August, he will start his PhD studies in our lab. Welcome to the XCITE lab, Alex!
Ellie will be joining the lab for the summer
March 31, 2020Ellie Badun, a Physics/Computer Science undegraduate student, has received UVic SURA and will be working with us on visualization of EGSnrc simulation results. Welcome (at least virtually), Ellie!
Daniel received NSERC USRA
March 12, 2020Daniel will be doing his summer research on plastic scintillator use for FLASH with us, for which he has received an NSERC USRA. Congratulations, Daniel!!
Teaghan will be joining the lab
February 15, 2020We are pleased that Teaghan has decided to accept our offer for his MSc studies in Medical Physics and will be continuing in our lab as an MSc student in September. We are happy that you chose us and good luck with your NSERC application!
Devon has passed his Trasfer Exam
December 18, 2019Devon took and passed his Transfer Exam with flying colors! Devon is now a PhD student in the CREATE PoND program and his resaerch focuses on imaging of gold nanoparticles. Congratulations, Devon!
Editor's Choice
December 9th, 2019Our Medical Physics Letter is now published as Editor's Choice!
Chelsea was awarded the James A. & Laurette Agnew Memorial Scholarship
November 28, 2019Chelsea was selected as the recepient of the James A. & Laurette Agnew Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to outstanding graduate students doing medical research in the Division of Medical Sciences or the Faculty of Science. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Our research was featured by Physics World
November 14th, 2019Our free-acces Medical Physics Letter entitled 'On the capabilities of conventional x-ray tubes to deliver ultra-high (FLASH) dose rates' was highlighted by Physics World. Thank you for picking this research up!
Nolan wins second place at the JR Cunningham Young Investigator Symposium at COMP
October 6th, 2019Congratulations to Nolan for this great achievement! He won second place for his Kelowna presentation entitled 'Strategies for the delivery of spatially fractionated radiotherapy using conventional and FLASH-capable sources' that he co-authored with Luca Egoriti and Alex Gottberg from UBC.
Devon receives NSERC CGS M award
July 30, 2019Congratulations to Devon on receiving this prestigeous scholarship!
Chelsea's Best In Physics research was highlighted by Physics World
July 27, 2019Chelsea's spectral CT research presented at the AAPM Annual Meeting as Best In Physics (Imaging) is highlighted on the Physics World website. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Chelsea and Nolan will be presenting in the COMP Young Investigator Symposium in Kelowna
July 10, 2019Chelsea and Nolan will be giving oral presentations at COMP in the YIS! Devon will present a poster only after 2 months of research. Congratulations, everybody!
Nolan received an award at the Canadian Student Health Resaerch Forum
June 25, 2019Nolan's work on FLASH/MRT therapy received Honourable Mention in the Canadian Student Health Research Forum poster competition in Winnipeg. Congratulations, well deserved!
Dylan is a PhD
June 10th, 2019Dylan successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled 'Design and Evaluation of a Monte Carlo Model of a Low-Cost Kilovoltage X-ray Arc Therapy System' in front of his family including a 2-year old niece in a record time. Congratulations Dylan and all the best with your residency at Stanford!
Nolan will be presenting at the Canadian Student Health Resaerch Forum in Manitoba
June 4, 2019Nolan received a travel grant to attend an annual CIHR meeting in Manitoba. He will be presenting his eXCITEing simulation and experimental work on FLASH MRT. Congratulations, Nolan!
Chelsea and Nolan win CAMTEC awards
May 22, 2019Chelsea won one of the two CAMTEC travel awards to present her spectral CT research at the AAPM Annual Meeting in San Antonio. Nolan received a Honourable Mention for the CAMTEC Breakthrough of the Year Award for his small animal radiotherapy dosimetry phantom work. Congratulations Chelsea and Nolan and thank you CAMTEC!
XCITE lab receives funding from New Frontiers in Research Fund - Exploration
May 21, 2019We are excited to announce that our project entitled "Towards radiation therapy of cancer without side-effects" was selected for funding in the 2018 innaugural NFRF competition. We will study FLASH MRT radiotherapy at the TRIUMF ARIEL beamline in collaboration with Alexander Gottberg from TRIUMF and Nancy Ford from UBC.
Kevin left the lab, Spencer is back
May 21, 2019Kevin finished his second co-op term in the lab and we are very grateful for his help with spectral CT and XFCT experiments. Spencer, on the other hand, will be back to work on Monte Carlo simulations of Gafchromic film response. Thank you, Kevin, and welcome back, Spencer!
Best in Physics at the AAPM Annual Meeting in San Antonio
April 16, 2019Good news for our lab came with the AAPM abstract dispositions. Chelsea will be presenting her work entitled 'Multiplexed Spectral Computed Tomography (CT) Imaging of Three Contrast Agents' and Nolan will give a talk on 'Dosimetric Verification for In-Vivo Radiobiology Experiments Using a 3D-Printed Mouse'. Chelsea received the Best in Physics distinction second year in a row. Congratulations to both Chelsea and Nolan!
Call Chris a Doctor
April 5, 2019Chris's defense of his thesis entitled 'Microcomputed Tomography Dosimetry and Image Quality in Preclinical Image-Guided Radiation Therapy' was well attended by his family and friends and went quite well. The committee decided on minor revisions and after these are addressed, Chris will officially be a doctor. Congratulations, Chris! It has been a pleasure for everyone to have you in the XCITE lab and good luck at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre!
Chelsea passed her Candidacy Exam
April 1, 2019Chelsea took her Candidacy exam today, which she introduced with an impressive list of published and under review manuscripts. Chelsea passed with flying colors and is one more step closer to receiving her doctorate. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Chris and Dylan matched!
March 29, 2019The Medical Physics residency match results were released today. We are extremely happy to announce that both Chris and Dylan matched! On July 1st, Chris will be starting a residency position at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Dylan will start his training and Stanford University. Congratulations to both of you!
Participation in a fundraising 10k trail race
March 11, 2019Jericho, Kevin and Magdalena ran a 10k (10.8k to be exact!) trail race Another Brick in Nepal in East Sooke Park. It was a beautiful day to support building schools in Nepal. Jericho took second overall and Kevin did great, too, getting to the finish line before Magdalena by a large margin. What a fun morning!
Nolan wins a UVic award
November 20, 2018Nolan has recieved the Nora & Mark Degoutiere Memorial Scholarship awarded to two outstanding graduate students in the department. Congratulations, Nolan!
Kevin and Spencer joined XCITE lab
September 20, 2018I am pleased to inform your that Kevin Murphy and Spencer Robinson joined our lab for a co-op term. They will both be working on getting our energy resolving x-ray imaging setup ready. Hopefully they will enjoy their creative project. Welcome, Spencer and Kevin!
XCITE Lab partying in Nashville
August 8, 2018The XCITE Lab was well represented at AAPM this year. Chelsea gave her BEST IN PHYSICS talk that was received very well. She also presented her electronic poster and attracted a lot of researchers.
Nolan gave an excellent first conference talk on the design of a microbeam collimator for the SARRP irradiator. His first PMB paper got accepted while he was at AAPM, too. So overall, Nolan had a good experience at AAPM. Clay presented his work on seed tracking with the Varian high-DQE CWO detector and was able to network, so he can get a great residency position at some point. Clay was also convinced by Lei to accept a postdoc position at Stanford, so congratulations, Clay! Jericho presented an e-poster on dual-energy microCT imaging with his London colleagues and managed to get a picture with his favourite science object.
Magdalena was very lucky to receive the 2018 John S. Laughlin Young Scientist Award. She was very happy she did not trip on the podium and could celebrate with amazing UVic students.
Eisa and Jericho joined XCITE lab
May 14, 2018Eisa Al Yaqoub will be doing his co-op on accurate small animal dosimetry with a plastic scintillator in collaboration with Laval University. He will be co-supervised by Nolan and Chris. Jericho O'Connell will be working with Redlen Technologies on image processing from chicken breast data acquired by a CZT photon counting detector. Welcome, Eisa and Jericho!
Chelsea will be presenting at the Canadian Student Health Resaerch Forum in Manitoba
May 8, 2018Chelsea received a travel grant to attend an annual CIHR meeting in Manitoba. She will be presenting her eXCITEing work on gold nanoparticle imaging with XFCT. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Andrew joined XCITE lab
May 1, 2018Andrew Coathup will work with the Varian high-DQE imager and will assess its capability for clinical imaging during his PhD. He will be supervised by Erika Chin from BCCA and co-supervised by Magdalena. Welcome, Andrew!
XCITE Lab goes to AAPM Annual Meeting in Nashville
April 16, 2018Chelsea, Nolan, and Clay will be giving oral presentations at the 2018 AAPM Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN. Chelsea will be presenting her work entitled 'Optimization of a Table-Top X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography (XFCT) System' as BEST IN PHYSICS (IMAGING)! Nolan will be presenting 'Optimization of a Microbeam Collimator for Use On the Small Animal Radiation Research Platform' in a regular session and Clay will give a talk 'Convolutional Neural Network Fiducial Detection for Position Reconstruction Using a High-Efficiency Cadmium Tungstate Portal Imager' in a SNAP oral presentation session. Congratulations all!
Nolan passed his PhD Transfer Exam
February 28, 2018Nolan passed his PhD Transfer Exam and will become a PhD student in May. Congratulations, Nolan! Hope you will have fun with your project.
Dylan passed his Candidacy Exam
February 9, 2018Dylan passed his Candidacy Exam with flying colors in record time (45 minutes). Congratulations, Dylan!
Dylan will be giving an oral presentation at the 2018 World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering
February 5, 2018Dylan will be presenting his work entitled 'Inverse optimization of kilovoltage arc therapy treatment for breast, lung and prostate patients' in June in Prague. What a beautiful city to hold a conference in! (Not at all biased.)
Chris wins 3rd place in the Young Investigators Symposium at COMP!
July 20, 2017Both Chris and Chelsea gave excellent presentations at COMP. Since this was Chris's second time at YIS, he was more experienced and received an award this time around. Congratulations, Chris! Big thanks goes to our Laval collaborators Francois Therriault-Proulx and Luc Beaulieu.
XCITE Lab goes to COMP ASM held in June in Ottawa
May 15, 2017Chris and Chelsea will be presenting in the Young Investigator Symposium at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting in Ottawa! Clay will be giving a talk on high-DQE MV imaging and Dylan will be presenting his work on kilovoltage x-ray beam therapy with a poster. Together with other UVic students showing their work, our program will have a strong presence at the meeting.
Henry and Clay presented at Varian Research Partners Symposium in Chicago
May 5, 2017Henry presented his work on TrueBeam visualization for VirtuaLinac simulations in an oral presentation. Based on the feedback we received, his talk was a big success! Congratulations, Henry! Clay presented a poster on MV CBCT imaging with Varian's high-DQE detector.
Chelsea and Chris will be giving oral presentations at AAPM in Denver
April 19, 2017Chelsea will be presenting her work "Alternative Geometries for X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography (XFCT) Imaging of Gold Nanoparticles" and Chris will give a short talk on "Establishing MicroCT Imaging Dose to Mouse Organs Using a Validated Monte Carlo Model of the Small Animal Radiation Research Platform". Good work!
Chelsea passed her PhD Transfer Exam
February 28, 2017A day after Chris's exam, Chelsea passed her PhD Transfer Exam and will officially become a PhD. student next semester. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Chris passed his Candidacy Exam
February 27, 2017Chris Johnstone is now a PhD. candidate, he passed his Candidacy Exam. One more step closer to your degree. Congratulations, Chris!
Lab hike to Mt. Doug
January 15, 2017Some of us celebrated the new year by a few hour hike to the top of Mt. Doug and back down to the beach. It was a lot of fun, mainly due to Henry's kids who are absolutely fearless and Kristy's great puppy Karl. Hopefully we'll get to go on a more advanced trip soon!
Dylan presented his work in a collaboration meeting in Las Vegas
November 16, 2016Dylan took the opportnity to present his and Henry's recent work on kilovoltage radiotherapy at a meeting with our industrial and UC Davis collaborators in Las Vegas, NV. Thank you, Dylan!
Henry received an NSERC USRA scholarship
November 15, 2016Henry received an NSERC grant to conduct research on Monte Carlo dose calculations for advanced radiotherapy techniques. This research will be performed in collaboration with Varian Medical, Stanford University and McGill. Congratulations, Henry!
Aaron and Lila have joined the lab
October 15, 2016Aaron Bannister and Lila Chergui chose the XCITE Lab for their honours project. Aaron will be working on a project related to the effect of metals on dosimetry in patient radiotherapy delivery and Lila will be investigating microbeam therapy delivery on our small animal radiation research platform. Welcome to the lab, Lila and Aaron!
Henry joined the lab
October 1, 2016Henry Baxter, a third-year computer science/math undergraduate student joined the XCITE Lab and will be working under Dylan's guidance on Monte Carlo simulations of low-cost radiotherapy. Welcome, Henry!
Chelsea was awarded the RM Pearce Memorial Fellowship
September 16, 2016Chelsea was selected as the recepient of the RM Pearce Memorial Fellowship! The RM Pearce Memorial Fellowhip is awarded annually to a highly qualified student who is entering or is enrolled in a Master's or Ph.D. program in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria. Congratulations, Chelsea!
Nolan started the MSc program in Medical Physics
September 7, 2016Nolan started his MSc program in Medical Physics and his only classmate is Kristy Rieck who will be working with Prof. Devika Chithrani. Welcome to our program, Nolan and Kristy!
Magdalena received an award for the best publication in medical physics from CAMP
June 8, 2016The Czech Association of Medical Physcists announced that Magdalena won 1st place for the Best Publication in Medical Physics for authors under 35 years old for her work entitled "Treatment planning for radiotherapy with very high-energy electrom beams and comparison of VHEE and VMAT plans".
Chris and Chelsea will be presenting at COMP ASM!
May 9, 2016Chris's abstract entitled "Automated Imaging Quality Assurance for Image-Guided Small Animal Irradiators" has been selected for an ORAL presentation as part of the Young Investigator's Symposium at the COMP 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting! Chelsea will be presenting poster on her undergraduate research on PET imaging after proton therapy of ocular melanoma. Congratulatios, Chris and Chelsea!
NSERC Discovery grant
April 19, 2016We have received funding from NSERC for a project entitled "Tackling physics challenges of small animal radiotherapy". We will be developing QA procedures for our newly installed small animal image-guided irradiator (SARRP) and integrating an XFCT imaging module on it. Thank you, NSERC.
Varian is supporting our MV CBCT imaging research
March 11, 2016We are please that Varian Medical will be supporting our research to investigate the use of high DQE efficiency MV imaging panel for megavoltage cone beam CT imaging during radiation therapy. We are very excited about this unique research opportunity!
Chelsea has joined the Lab!
March 4, 2016Chelsea Dunning, a 1st year MSc. student and the capitan of the Physics volleyball team, decided to work on an x-ray fluorecence CT project for her MSc. thesis and therefore joined the lab. Chelsea has a very good background in XFCT, as she presented it at multiple (all possible?) occasions during her UVic courses. You can checkout what Chelsea likes to do scientifically and in her spare time in the Memmbers tab. Welcome Chelsea!
Dylan has joined the Lab!
January 4, 2016Dylan Breitkreutz, a Vanier scholar and the winner of the 2016/17 AAPM/RSNA graduate scholarship, joined the XCITE Lab as a PhD. student. Dylan arrived from the University of Alberta in Edmonton and he will be working on designing a kilovoltage radiotherapy source for treatments of deep seated targets. Welcome Dylan!
XCITE Lab featured in Science Matters
December 14, 2015Our research has been featured in the Fall 2015 edition of Science Matters, the alumni newsletter of UVic Faculty of Science. Yay!
Nolan and Spencer have joined the Lab!
October 15, 2015Nolan Esplan and Spencer Bialek are the new members of the XCITE Lab. While Nolan will be working on Monte Carlo simulations of XFCT, Spencer will be developing small animal CT imaging QA procedures for conformal radiotherapy system and will be funded by XStrahl. Welcome Nolan and Spencer!
Proton-induced XFCT presentation at WMIC
September 8, 2015Magdalena presented "Experimental validation of proton-induced x-ray fluorescence imaging for visualization of gold nanoparticles" at the World Molecular Imaging Congress in Honolulu. This was the first attendance of a group member at a molecular imaging meeting, but there will be more to come, as the lab's focus will slowly shift towards molecular imaging. We would like to thank Hokkaido University Global Station for Quantum Medical Science and Engineering for providing travel support for the meeting.
Chris has joined the Lab!
August 20, 2015Chris Johnstone has become the first member of the XCITE Lab! Chris will work on developing commissioning and quality assurance procedures for small animal radiotherapy machines. Chris has a lot of experience with dose measurements of kilovoltage x-ray beam and this PhD project is a good fit for him. Welcome Chris!