We invite you to apply if you are a technical physician, biomedical engineer or applied physicist interested in ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging of the carotid artery. You will be a member of the Biomedical Photonic Imaging group of the University of Twente. You will work in the Pioneers in Health Care (PIHC) project ‘Risk assessment in ischemic stroke by photoacoustic quantification of carotid plaque (in)stability’. See this news item for more background information regarding the project.

Worldwide vascular diseases cause 17.8 million deaths annually, partly from ischemic stroke (23%) caused by unstable thrombogenic atherosclerotic vascular wall lesions in the carotid artery. The choice for intervention is determined by the degree of the narrowing of the carotid artery. The degree of carotid plaque instability is barely included in the decision-making process. Better patient selection, including taking plaque instability in decision-making, will contribute to meaningful care. This project will focus on (i) optimize a combined ultrasound (US) and multispectral photoacoustic imaging (mPAI) probe for carotid artery imaging and (ii) plaque (in)stability assessment using mPAI plaque quantification.

Your role will be to (i) develop a photoacoustic imaging probe with a custom-developed ultrasound transducer and fiber-based light delivery optimized for carotid artery imaging and (ii) perform multispectral photoacoustic imaging on carotid plaque samples obtained from MST hospital.

You have at least an MSc degree in Technical Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, or Applied Physics. Applications by recently graduated PhDs will also be considered. Experience in ultrasound research and MATLAB programming is preferred for this position.

You will be offered a full-time (38 hours/week) position for a minimum of 9 months and a maximum of one year, depending on your education and relevant work experience. In accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, the gross monthly salary will be € 2.329,-- with a maximum of € 3.144 depending on your education and relevant work experience, plus a holiday allowance (8%), an end-year bonus (8,3% of the annual salary) and a number of additional benefits.