Thomas Primidis to present his PhD project at Westminster

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Taking place in March at Westminster, London is the annual STEM for BRITAIN poster competition for early-career researchers which aims to offer opportunities for scientific exhibitions, networking and discussions among early career scientists and members of parliament. The competition was an initiative of Dr Eric Wharton back in 2006 and continued as STEM for BRITAIN from 2009 until today.

Thomas, a physics PhD researcher and member of the QUASAR Group will present his latest work on simulations of a highly mobile, multi-source, medical 3D X-ray imaging system made by Adaptix Ltd.

Through simulations, Thomas aims to optimise the system’s performance by offering data unavailable through experiments or data challenging to get due to lack of equipment or due to the high cost of performing such experiments.

Thanks to the High Performance Computing facilities at the University of Liverpool, realistic simulations of the system and of human anatomy are built in-silico (in a computer program) and these challenges can be overcome.

Thomas will present his findings on what the 3D image quality of this multi-source system will be when it is built and how this will be affected by the system’s performance, be it perfect across all of the sources or with various scenarios of underperformance. During the competition, he will have the opportunity to communicate his findings and the importance of HPC in search for improved healthcare in the future.

STEM for BRITAIN is split into 5 scientific categories: Biosciences, Chemistry, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics. In each of the categories, the researchers who best communicate high level science to a lay audience are awarded with a medal and a cash prize of up to £3000.

The Westminster Medal in memory of Dr Eric Wharton is awarded to the overall winner.

During the event, the researchers will present their posters and discuss their research among themselves, MPs and with the judges. This is a unique opportunity for everyone to see what is the research profile across the United Kingdom, what are the future prospects and how UK universities and their national and international collaborations shape it. It will also be an opportunity for Thomas to share the work done by the rest of the QUASAR group members which spans from antimatter physics all the way to proton therapy.

Thomas’ project is an industrial collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Adaptix Ltd and is funded by the Accelerators for Security, Healthcare and Environment program launched by the UK Research and Innovation Science and Technology Facilities Council.