From the moment I arrived, Berlin’s unique blend of history, creativity, and science left a lasting impression. Each day felt like a new layer unfolding, academically challenging, culturally rich, and personally empowering.

Back at VICOROB, within the iToBoS project, my research focused on developing machine learning models for the early diagnosis of skin cancer. Our aim was to create models that could eventually be used in clinical settings, supporting dermatologists with faster and more accurate decisions. But clinical deployment isn’t just about accuracy, it’s also about trust. Models need to be not only effective but also transparent and safe. This challenge led me to HHI, where I focused on building multi-modal vision-and-language models that could explain their predictions at a professional level, rather than just output a diagnosis.

The first step was to explore and benchmark existing models designed for similar tasks, understanding where they performed well and where they fell short. With those insights, I began adapting and improving them to better serve the needs of dermatological applications. Throughout this process, I had the privilege of collaborating closely with other PhD students and researchers at HHI. Their expertise in vision-language models and Explainable AI, as well as their openness to share knowledge, made a huge impact on the development of my work.

Beyond the technical growth, the experience of working in a new environment was refreshing and energizing. I noticed the differences, and appreciated the commonalities, between VICOROB and HHI, which helped me grow not only as a researcher but also as a team member in a broader scientific community. And there was something quietly magical about the routine itself: each morning on my way to the office in Charlottenburg, I passed the Brandenburg Gate. No matter how many times I walked by, it never failed to inspire me with its grandeur and historical presence.

Outside of work, Berlin offered so much more than I expected. The city’s energy, diversity, and openness created space for learning far beyond the lab. As a woman in tech, I found particular inspiration in the local community. Through the BLISS e.V. initiative, I joined career development events designed for women in machine learning and computer vision. There, I met a number of accomplished women whose stories of resilience and success deeply resonated with me.Another standout moment was attending “Redefine Possible,” an event hosted by Google Developers Berlin to celebrate International Women’s Day. Surrounded by driven young women from across Germany, we reflected on how far the field has come, and how much more we can do to foster equity and inclusion in science and tech. These experiences reminded me of the importance of community, visibility, and mentorship.

Overall, my stay in Berlin was an incredibly enriching experience, both academically and personally. Working at Fraunhofer HHI deepened my research and helped me grow as a scientist, while the diverse events and inspiring people I met along the way expanded my vision of what’s possible in my field. I returned home not only with valuable progress on my PhD, but also with renewed confidence, fresh ideas, and a stronger sense of belonging within the global research community. This stay has left a lasting impact on me, and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity.

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Aquest any, la doctoranda del programa en Tecnologia Uma Lal-Trehan serà l’encarregada de representar la Universitat de Girona (UdG) a la final interuniversitària de la 8a edició d’aquest concurs, impulsat per la Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRi). L’esdeveniment tindrà lloc el proper 3 de juliol a Girona. Lal-Trehan ha estat la candidata més ben valorada pel tribunal de la fase prèvia celebrada a Girona, organitzada per l’Escola de Doctorat.

A la final, Uma Lal-Trehan presentarà la seva tesi titulada “Intel·ligència Artificial i Imatge Cerebral: simplificant la complexitat”, on aborda l’aplicació de la Intel·ligència Artificial en el camp de la Medicina, amb un émfasi especial en la detecció d’ictus. “Explicar la teva tesi en quatre minuts pot semblar una tasca senzilla, ja que portem molts anys treballant en la nostra recerca, però la veritat és que comprimir tota aquesta informació i extreure’n les idees més importants per tal d’explicar-la a un públic no especialitzat porta molt de temps”, ha declarat Lal-Trehan.

Aquest concurs representa una oportunitat única per donar visibilitat a la recerca que es realitza a les universitats catalanes i posar en valor la capacitat de comunicació dels doctorands. Des de Vicorob, ens sentim orgullosos de comptar amb talents com el de Lal-Trehan i li desitgem molta sort en aquesta final.

Participants i jurat del concurs “Presenta la Teva Tesi en 4 Minuts”. (UdG)

Podeu consultar més informació:

https://tesi4minuts.fundaciorecerca.cat/index.html 

https://www.udg.edu/ca/udg/detall-noticies/eventid/53244

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Enguany, el repte “SUBMERGED” va posar el focus en el món submarí, inspirant als participants a desenvolupar solucions tecnològiques per afrontar els reptes que plantegen els oceans.

Més enllà del seu caràcter lúdic, la FIRST LEGO League és una oportunitat única per inspirar les futures generacions. Aquest esdeveniment no només connecta els joves amb disciplines STEAM, sinó que també els ensenya habilitats fonamentals com el treball en equip, la resolució de problemes i la creativitat.

Enguany, el repte plantejat és “SUBMERGED”, una temàtica que explora solucions tecnològiques i creatives per abordar els reptes del món submarí. Això connecta directament amb la recerca a VICOROB, que aprofita aquesta oportunitat per inspirar els joves i compartir coneixements sobre el nostre entorn marí.

Com a grup de recerca, la nostra implicació en aquest tipus d’esdeveniments no només reforça la nostra missió científica, sinó que també ens permet contribuir activament al creixement de vocacions científiques. Estem orgullosos de compartir coneixements i experiències amb els joves i d’ajudar-los a veure el món submarí com un camp ple de possibilitats i reptes fascinants.

Foto: L’equip REM JR en un moment de la Fist Lego League a Girona / Adrià Soler

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He holds a Ph.D in Signal Processing with his thesis on “Study of early stages of Alzheimer’s disease using magnetic resonance imaging” (Dec-’19) under the supervision of Dr. Verónica Vilaplana at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Prior to that, he obtained a Telecommunications Engineering degree (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2009-2015) and a MSc. in Signal Processing (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, 2014-2015).

Adrià Casamitjana at the laboratory

During his first postdoctoral stay at University College London (2020-2022), he joined the ERC project “Building Next-Generation Computational Tools for High Resolution Neuroimaging Studies” (PI: J.E.Iglesias) . There, he developed NextBrain, a probabilistic atlas from the 3D histology reconstruction of 5 hemispheres containing 333 ground-truth labels – check https://github-pages.ucl.ac.uk/NextBrain/#/home for more details. After that, he was awarded with a “Margarita Salas” grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science, University and Innovation that allowed him to visit two different labs at University of Barcelona: BCN-AIM (PI: Karim Lekadir) and BIG (PI: Roser Sala-Llonch). There he investigated the multimodal and longitudinal modeling of different brain diseases.

His main interest is in using artificial intelligence tools for image analysis to support decision-making systems. Currently, in VICOROB, he is working on brain image analysis to study dementia-related diseases (Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, etc.), with focus on image fusion methods for multimodal analysis. Moreover, in collaboration with the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, he is working on AI-based tools for automatisation of routine clinical processes.

Researchers from the medical imaging laboratory of the VICOROB group

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La jornada va incloure la participació destacada d’antics membres de Vicorob, actualment vinculats a empreses rellevants com Nvidia, Continental, PAL Robotics i Emesent. Professionals d’aquestes empreses varen oferir xerrades inspiradores i varen compartir les seves experiències i avenços des del seu pas per Vicorob.

Ferrarons, A; 2023; Moments de la celebració dels trenta anys del grup de recerca Vicorob.

El moment més rellevant de l’acte va ser la taula rodona moderada per la directora de l’Escola Politècnica Superior, Maria Àngels Pèlach, titulada “El camí cap a la transferència: oportunitats i reptes”. Representants de les empreses nascudes de Vicorob: Tensormedical, Iqua Robotics, Opsis Vision Technologies, Coronis Computing, Dset i AQsense- varen exposar els seus èxits i reptes en la transferència tecnològica.
La cloenda de l’acte va ser a càrrec del fundador de Vicorob i exrector de la UdG, Joan Batlle, conjuntament amb l’actual rector i membre del mateix grup de recerca, Quim Salvi.

Ferrarons, A; 2023; Taula rodona amb Nvidia, Continental, PAL Robotics i Emesent.

24 milions en 30 anys

Vicorob és un grup de recerca de la Universitat de Girona dedicat a la visió per computador i la robòtica. El grup centra els seus esforços en el desenvolupament de sistemes de visió per computador, la intel·ligència artificial, l’anàlisi d’imatges i la robòtica submarina. Durant el transcurs dels 30 anys Vicorob el grup ha aconseguit 24.906.078 euros de finançament provinent de projectes d’R+D+i, contractes i serveis. Més concretament, el 63% del finançament s’han obtingut 108 projectes de recerca, 34 dels quals amb el suport de fons europeus.

Actualment, Vicorob té 45 membres, tretze dels quals és personal permanent. El grup disposa de quatre patents registrades i en explotació, quatre tecnologies llicenciades, i ha creat sis empreses de base tecnològica que han sortit d’iniciatives de membres de Vicorob.

Durant el transcurs d’aquests 30 anys, el grup ha guanyat premis tant en l’àmbit de la robòtica com de l’anàlisi d’imatges i robòtica educativa. En concret, en robòtica submarina ha guanyat competicions internacionals d’àmbit europeu com Sauc-e (2006, 201 i 2011), Eurathlon (2014) i la European Robotics League (2017).

En l’àmbit de la imatge mèdica Vicorob ha guanyat reptes relacionats amb la detecció de lesions i/o detecció d’objectes, com: MS Segmentation (2016), 3D object detection (2017 i 2019), Lesion detection in DBT (2021), FL Breast Density Estimation (2022), TopCow CoW segmentation, Tumour Segmentation i Fetal Head Segmentation Challenge (2023). Finalment, en l’àmbit d’educació, el grup ha rebut premis relacionats amb els projectes que ha dut a terme, guardons com el Best Practices in Education Award atorgat per Informatics Europe (2019) i Education 1st Prize per Federico Mayor Zaragoza (2017).

Notícia a la premsa escrita:

Ferrarons, A; 2023; foto de grup amb tots els participants.

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The event unfolded at La Talaia, a mere 20-minute drive from Campus Montilivi, providing team members with a unique opportunity to strengthen bonds and cultivate a more collaborative atmosphere.

The day commenced with a warm welcome and presentations from different research labs, offering a comprehensive overview of the innovative work occurring within the group.

A standout moment was a team-building activity strategically crafted to bolster cohesion and inspire collaboration among team members.

The day wrapped up with a laid-back lunch, fostering a relaxed setting for personal interactions and the cultivation of closer relationships among colleagues.

In summary, the “Jornades Institut VICOROB” proved to be a resounding success, highlighting the spirit of connection and collaboration within the research group. This day was not merely about fortifying personal ties; it also played a crucial role in fostering a deeper understanding and teamwork across the various research areas.

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Roger Pi obtained his B.Sc degree in Computer Engineering in 2017 at Universitat de Girona.
Then, in the same 2017, he began the Erasmus Mundus master’s in computer Vision and Robotics (VIBOT) , a joint master’s degree from the University of Burgundy, University of Girona, and Heriot-Watt University. In his Master Thesis, he mounted for the first time a dual-arm setup in the Girona500 and developed a motion planning algorithm for it. This work was awarded with the “Best Master Thesis Award” of the academic year 2019.

In June, 2019, he was awarded an FI grant to pursue his Ph.D. thesis in the context of autonomous underwater manipulation, supervised by Dr. Pere Ridao and Dr. Narcís Palomeras. In this line, he has developed projects such as “TWINBOT”, where two Girona500 cooperatively performed a pick, transport, and place operation of a long pipe, or part of the “ATLANTIS” project, where a dual-arm Girona500 performs cathodic protection inspection on a wind-float structure. Moreover, he has participated in operating the robot in biological or oceanographic projects such as ResCap, PLOME, or DEEPERSENSE.

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Through her education, Uma acquired the necessary skills to approach medical needs through the analysis and processing of images. She first learned about the VICOROB group during her master’s program, where some professors exposed the main research being conducted in their group.

The master program allowed Uma to study in different countries and to do an international stay of 8 months at the School of Biomedical Informatics of the University of Texas in Houston (UTHealth SBMI). It was during this period that her passion for research in brain imaging developed, leading her to complete her master’s thesis, supervised by Dr. Luca Giancardo, on quantifying the infarct core signal using CT imaging in acute ischemic stroke. This work resulted in a publication in NeuroImage: Clinical (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2022.102998) and earned Uma two awards: the “INnovate & Inspire” EIT Health Spain Biomedical Engineering “Patient-focused Vision Award” (https://caseib.es/2021/eit-health-biomedical- engineering-award/) and the best master thesis award in the category “Research, Innovation and Development” from “Premis Patronat Politècnica” of University of Girona (https://patronateps.udg.edu/entrga-27-eidico-premis-patronat/).

After finishing her stay in Houston, Uma returned to Catalunya and spent 4 months working at the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Barcelona. Deciding to further her education, she contacted Dr. Xavier Lladó, a researcher in brain imaging in the VICOROB group, to pursue a PhD under his supervision due to positive memories of his classes during the master program and interest in his research.

Currently, Uma is in her first year of her PhD, with an IFUdG grant, under the co-supervision of Dr. Xavier Lladó (VICOROB, UdG) and Dr. Luca Giancardo (UTHealth SBMI, Houston).

Her research is focused on acute ischemic stroke and the development of models to predict the reperfusion success in patients treated with endovascular therapy using pre-operative brain imaging and clinical variables, with the goal of informing better patient clinical management.

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Eduardo Ochoa is the computer vision specialist on the current cruise. He is responsible for taking images of the hydrothermal vents and then creating 3D models of these structures. The 3D models are used to study changes over time. On this cruise, the images will be taken by the DSV Alvin, WHOI’s manned deep-sea research submarine. This submarine is famous for its involvement in the 1986 exploration of the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

As part of his activity, Eduardo dived aboard Alvin on a mission that took more than 8 hours, reaching the bottom of the ocean at a depth of 2500 meters. The images he collected are spectacular, both from the seabed and from inside the submarine.

For more information:

EPR science cruises : https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/map-epr/

AlVIN:  https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/explore/underwater-vehicles/hov-alvin/

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Her career started in Cali, Colombia, where she graduated as a biomedical engineer in 2014 from the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. Afterward, Liliana was working in a large hospital where she was in charge of device management.

In 2017, Liliana joined the Erasmus Mundus master in Medical Imaging and Applications (MAIA) doing her studies at the University of Burgundy – France, the University of Cassino – Italy- and the University of Girona -Spain-. When she got to Girona in 2018, she joined the administrative staff of MAIA master being a student at the same time. Liliana decided to stay in VICOROB group, with the medical analysis team, for her master’s thesis related to brain segmentation. The thesis was directed by Prof. Xavier Lladó. Once she finished the master’s program, Liliana decided that she wanted to stay longer in Girona and go for a Ph.D. with the same team she was working with during the master’s thesis.

Since 2019, Liliana is being working on her Ph.D. dedicated to synthesizing brain magnetic resonances using Artificial Intelligence. Her main interest is to work on strategies that can be used in clinical practices and especially in the pipelines developed by the research team in Multiple Sclerosis. She participated in the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis –ECTRIMS– congress in 2021 with a poster related to the evaluation of the synthetic images in Multiple Sclerosis pipelines. Recently, together with the lab team, she published an article about this work in the Brain Imaging Methods journal.

In parallel to her Ph.D., Liliana is working with tensormedical. A spin-off from the group led by Sergi Valverde.

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