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Dr Catarina Isabel Correia Veloso Da Veiga
8.19
8th Floor Malet Place Engineering Building
London
United Kingdom
WC1E 6BT
Dr Catarina Isabel Correia Veloso Da Veiga profile picture
Appointment
  • Senior Research Fellow
  • Dept of Med Phys & Biomedical Eng
  • Faculty of Engineering Science
Biography

I have a BSc Physics from the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal), and have specialised in Medical Physics with an MSc from the University of Porto (Porto, Portugal). During my MSc I spent one year at University College London (UCL) under the Erasmus Lifelong Learning Programme, where I became interested in radiotherapy (namely proton therapy) research. 


From 2012 to 2016, I was a PhD student at the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at UCL, and a member of the Proton and Advanced Radiotherapy Group. My PhD was funded by a competitive fellowship scheme from the Portuguese Government (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia). Under the supervision of Prof Gary Royle, I worked on using online CBCT images and deformable image registration to verify if radiotherapy treatments are being accurately delivered. Near the end of my PhD I had to opportunity to spend 6-months as a visiting scholar at University of Pennsylvania for 6-months, where I worked on the commissioning of the world's first IBA's CBCT system for adaptive proton therapy of lung cancer. 


In April 2016 joined the Centre for Medical Image Computing at UCL as postdoctoral researcher working with Dr Jamie McClelland and Dr David Landau on developing image analysis methods to study radiation-induced lung damage, a common side-effect of lung cancer radiotherapy. Since August 2018, I moved on to a Research Fellowship funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering. I have been working on combining the analysis of complex medical images acquired during cancer treatment and outcome modelling techniques to facilitate predictive modelling of radiation-induced toxic side-effects in childhood cancer patients.


Since my research is very focused on clinical applications. I currently hold an honorary  position in the Department of Radiotherapy Physics at University College London Hospital. I was also seconded for 1-month to MedAustron (Wiener Neustadt, Austria) in 2017, where I helped in the early stages of the commissioning a particle therapy clinical facility. 

Research Themes
Research Summary

Radiotherapy (RT) is a cancer treatment where high doses of target radiation are used to kill the malignant cells. RT is very effective in cancer treatment and is used in approximately 60% of cancer patients. However, radiation does not only kill cancer cells – it can also damage nearby healthy cells. Some organs are particularly sensitive to the harmful effects or RT; likewise, some patients are more sensitive than other with children being a cohort particularly at risk of long term side-effects. I am interested in how to use medical imaging during the cancer radiotherapy treatment pathway to ensure that the treatment is delivered accurately while causing the least harmful effects. Some of the projects I have been involved over the last years include:


- Adaptive radiotherapy in head and neck & lung cancer treatments using CBCT and deformable image registration.


- Quantifying radiation-induced lung damage in lung cancer patients using objective biomarkers extracted from serial CT imaging.


- Population-based anatomical models for predictive modelling of late effects in childhood cancer survivors.


- 3D-printing for radiotherapy phantom development

Teaching Summary

I am module lead of MPHY0034-35 MSc/MRes Research Projects. 


Appointments
21-JAN-2017 – 24-FEB-2017 Volunteer Physicist Physics EBG MedAustron GmbH, Austria
01-APR-2016 – 31-JUL-2018 Research Associate Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering University College London, United Kingdom
01-APR-2015 – 30-SEP-2015 Visiting Scholar Radiation Oncology Hospital of University of Pennsylvania, United States
21-OCT-2008 – 20-OCT-2009 Research scholar (BSc) Physics University of Minho, Portugal
Academic Background
2016   Doctor of Philosophy University College London
2012   Master of Science Universidade do Porto
2009   Bachelor of Science Universidade do Minho
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