We have received 439 000$ from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation JR Evans Leader Funds Program
“Luc Beaulieu, du même département, disposera de près de 440 000$ pour réaliser son projet Development of Novel Optic-based Dose Sensors and Dose-based Treatment Guidance. ”
Source: 17 projets financés par le Fonds des leaders – Journal Le Fil
Money to acquire new state-of-the-art equipment. Will expand our research program and enable new graduate student projects.
Exciting!
New opening for MSc and PhD students in our research group
See the announcement in French and English for all the details. Our graduate program is CAMPEP accredited. Please note that formal teaching is done in French but research activities can be conducted in English.
We are located in the middle of the Old Quebec City, classified as a UNESCO world heritage treasure.
New publication by our group on Quantum Dots as radiation nano-dosimeters.
Systematic characterization of semiconductor colloidal quantum dots (cQDs) response to ionizing radiation must be performed to use them in radiation detection. In this study, the robustness of multi-shell (MS) and core/shell (CS) cQDs was investigated under irradiation. Radioluminescence (RL) measurements with kV and MV photon beams revealed a better resistance of MS cQDs to ionizing radiation, with their spectra fluctuating by barely ∼ 1 nm. A systematic signal recovery between subsequent irradiations was noticed for MS cQDs only. A beam energy dependence of the RL stability was detected between kV and MV energies. At the same point of dose cumulated, the RL signal loss for the kV beams was observed to be ∼6-7% smaller than that of the MV beam, for both types of cQDs. These results demonstrate that MS cQDs are better candidates as ionizing radiation sensors than CS cQDs, especially in the kV energy range.
Source: Robust shell passivation of CdSe colloidal quantum dots to stabilize radioluminescence emission
PLOS ONE: How Many Is Too Many? On the Relationship between Research Productivity and Impact
Clearly if you do not published, you can never be cited…However, interesting to see that the Natural sciences field seems to taper-off more quickly than the life science field.
Source: PLOS ONE: How Many Is Too Many? On the Relationship between Research Productivity and Impact
A MR Imaging primer through analogy with Guitar playing
Thanks to my colleague Jerry Battista from the University of Western Ontario, understanding the basic MR pulse sequence (a not so obvious topic especially if you have to design such a sequence) is now easier than ever. For those who do not know Prof. Battista also developed a mini-CT scanner (using non-ionizing radiation!) to teaching the basic of medical imaging from high-school all the way to university. We are using this scanner in our undergraduate laboratory.
So, check out this wonderful and accessible teaching YouTube Video: Understanding an MRI Pulse Sequence using a Guitar.
Luc Beaulieu on brachytherapy research!
Here is a BrachyTalk interview I gave during the 2016 ESTRO meeting in Torino, Italy. Get to know what I am working on and my (physics and biomedical technology) vision of the field.
Thanks to the peoples at BrachyAcademy for making me look good during that interview 😉
The CIHR gong show – a ridiculous state of affairs | Affaires Universitaires
The last month has been a pretty topsy-turvy one for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. After it rolled out the first round of applications for its new operating grant application termed “project grants,” it was all set to deliver evidence that its new systems of financial allocation and peer review were superior to the […]
Source: The CIHR gong show – a ridiculous state of affairs | Affaires Universitaires
How much time does it really take?
To present a scientific subject in an attractive and stimulating manner is an artistic task, similar to that of a novelist or even a dramatic writer. The same holds for writing textbooks.– Max Born
When a graduate student come to me with the big news that its abstract has been selected for an oral presentation, my first reaction is a big congratulations and the second is to already set a deadline for a first version of the talk. Because of the abstract, you already know the content, what needs to be presented. But crafting an effective 7, 8 or 10 minutes presentation is a complete new game.
Read the rest of this entry
Advice to new graduate students
- Invest time in learning tasks/project management – start here.
- Review all of your tasks/next action weekly
- Set time aside to review your projects/goals on a regular basis (at least monthly for projects and quarterly for goals).
- Set time aside to do something else: sport, tricot, …
Scintillation Dosimetry Book is now available!
It has been a few years in the making (from the first conceptual idea to publication) but the baby has been delivered and is now available at CRC Press.
Cool 😉
A 75 min presentation on Organizing Creativity
From the author of Organizing Creativity, Daniel Wessel, here come an overview of the book in 75 minutes!
As I have said before, this is a must for all graduate students. I cannot recommend enough that you take the time, listen to the presentation and afterward download (free!) and read the book for more in-depth information.
Quite frankly, this book is so good that I bought the printed (color) version. Yes, a paper version, call me a romantic…
Public Bench Project and other Inner Sunset Beauties
Conquer your neighbourhood, conquer your city, conquer your country, and then go after the rest of the world. That’s my mantra.
— Grandmaster Flash
Not so long ago I was reporting about my discovery of the Little Free Libraries around my adoption neighborhood. There are other beauty scatter around that neighborhood.
To “Google Scholar” or not…
The reality is simple, even if you do not want it, as a researcher you are something of a public figure. You are probably using public funds to do your research, you most probably train peoples (from undergrads to research assistants) and, sometimes, more than you think actually, you will be googled.
For all kinds of reasons you might not want to tell the world openly what kind of research you are doing (which is actually a shame) or even keep people for knowing your “at bat” scores (e.g. is your work actually being cited at all). Let me tell you a secret, unless you have never published anything, Google Scholar will find you… even if you do not want to.
So do not be shy and make your Google Scholar page public!
