Virginie Papadopoulou, PhD

About Me

Since May 2016, I am working as a Research Associate within the Dayton Lab at UNC Chapel Hill, in the department of Biomedical Engineering. My main focus is the use of nanodroplets and microbubbles for contrast enhanced ultrasound imaging and therapy of cancer.

From January 2015 to March 2016, I was a postdoc at Imperial College London, with the Ultrasound Laboratory for Imaging and Sensing (ULIS) led by Dr Mengxing Tang in the Department of Bioengineering. Our EPSRC-funded research project looked at developing a prototype system for in-vivo 3D Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound Imaging. We also collaborated with the group of Dr Neill Duncan in the Department of Medicine to evaluate this in healthy volunteers with NIHR-BRC funding.

Previously, my PhD was on "Computational and experimental techniques towards optimising the cardiovascular risk assessment of hyperbaric decompression stress caused by circulatory bubble dynamics".

From July 2012 to December 2014, I was an Early Stage Researcher under the supervision of Prof. Balestra for the PHYPODE project, financed under a Marie Curie Initial Training Network, whilst concurrently studying towards a PhD in Bioengineering from Imperial College London.

After graduating from Imperial College London in 2011 with a MSci in Physics with Theoretical Physics, I had started a PhD in the Bioengineering Department, supervised by Dr Mengxing Tang in the ULIS and Dr Robert Eckersley who is now based at Kings College London. Being a keen scuba diver and instructor myself, I wanted to look into the theory behind decompression models used by divers. My PhD focused on understanding bubble formation mechanisms in humans and developing tools towards a more physiologically relevant decompression model. More detailed information relating to the motivation and aims of this research, as well as published results can be found here and here. As a phycisist/mathematician by training, I am particularly fortunate to have met people from very different backgrounds who can help with the physiological and medical aspects of this work, through the PHYPODE project in particular. This is an interesting addition to the imaging expertise of the group at Imperial College London, as well as to that of our collaborators from the Multiphase Dynamics Group in Thessaloniki led by Prof. Karapantsios.