Eline Kooi, PhD (M.E.)

Biosketch M.E. (Eline) Kooi, Ph.D. (20-02-1971), September 2024

Professor of Medical Physics, especially Vascular Imaging, dept. of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC+), Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Eline Kooi received her Master Degree in Physics in 1995 at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with the highest distinction (cum laude). She performed her PhD study in Molecular Physics at the University of Amsterdam, that included a 2-months EC-fellowship at the Institute for Non-Linear Optics (LENS), Florence, Italy. After receiving her PhD in Molecular Physics in 1999, she started her residency in Medical Physics in 1999 at department of Radiology, Maastricht University Medical Center and became a certified Medical Physicist / staff member at this department in 2004. Since 2017, she is a full  professor at Maastricht University Medical Center.

Her research is focused on sophisticated multi-modality cardiovascular imaging. Her group is at the international forefront of developing and evaluating imaging techniques to study plaque vulnerability and to translate these techniques to clinical practice. She has focused on cutting edge imaging of the hallmarks of high-risk plaques in animals and patients. She was the first to demonstrate that plaque inflammation can be visualized in humans. Her group has the unique position of multi-modality imaging of the vessel wall (PET/MRI, ultrasound, CT) in different vascular beds (carotid and coronary arteries, aorta). She is a leading member of the steering committee of a multi-center trial to determine the clinical value of plaque imaging (PARISK) and she coordinates plaque imaging in the second European Carotid Surgery Trial-2 (ECST-2). She has published >160 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals. She has successfully completed supervision of 17 PhD candidates. Currently, she is supervising 7 PhD candidates. She is frequently invited as speaker and/or moderator at the leading international conferences in her field. She has received numerous research grants and is the vice-chair of the scientific committee of a prestigious Dutch Research Grant (ZonMw NWO Vici committee).