MSCA-IF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics.

Professor Antonio M. Lallena, from the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2020 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/0aNV).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the UGR’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding.

UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://sl.ugr.es/0aw0). The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places the UGR in 268th position in the world and as the 4th highest ranked University in Spain, reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings, the UGR is outstanding in Documentation (ranked in the 36th in the world) or Food science technology (ranked 37th in the world), Mathematics and Computer Science (ranked among the top 76-100 in the world).

The UGR has 4 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list in the Computer Science area. With regard to broader subject fields, the UGR is ranked in 45th position in the universities worldwide in the discipline of Engineering. It is also well recognized for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i) taking 36th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe. Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last two Framework Programmes, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 18.02 million euros, and for H2020, 80 projects with total funding around 20.6 million euros.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

Our research group, Fundamental Physics and Applications (FFAp), is formed by Drs. Marta Anguiano, Antonio M. Lallena and Daniel Rodriguez, professors at the Department of Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear of the Universidad de Granada, Drs. Damián Guirado, Salvador García-Pareja, José M. de la Vega and Luis I. Zamora, medical physicists working in hospitals of the Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Junta de Andalucía), and the Ph. D. students Manuel J. Gutiérrez (FPU), Francisco Domínguez (PTA-MCIU), Joaquín Berrocal (FPU), Julio F. Almansa (Medical Physicist) and Rafael Guerrero (Medical Physicist).

The research work developed in FFAp is organized in three main lines:

• Monte Carlo simulation in Medical Physics

• Theoretical Nuclear Structure

• Precision Experiments with Ion Traps and Lasers.

We collaborate with different research groups in Spain (Universities of Granada, Sevilla, Barcelona) and abroad (University of Salento-Italy, Essen-Germany, Orsay-France).

Project description

The candidate is expected to incorporate to the research line: Monte Carlo simulation in Medical Physics. We started this research line in 1999 and Monte Carlo techniques have been a common tool for the solution of the different problems that have been considered. Currently, the main questions under study are the following:

• Study of the viability of a new in-vivo dosimetry system based on photodiodes and phototransistors as radiation sensors. An experimental evaluation as well as a Monte Carlo simulation of these devices are being carried out in order to decide about the possibility of developing a prototype of the dosimetry system. This work is the main topic developed in collaboration with the group ECsens of the Department of Electrónica of the Universidad de Granada.

• Monte Carlo calculation of correction factors for ionization chambers of clinical use. A systematic procedure to determine the kQ,Q0 factor for different ionization chambers is being developed and applied to a variety of such devices with a wide range of active volumes. This work is carried out in collaboration with Dr. Brualla (NCTeam, Strahlenklinik, Universitätsklinikum Essen, Germany), Dr. Sempau (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) and Dr. Erazo (Instituto del Cáncer – SOLCA, Cuenca, Ecuador).

• Study of the response of different devices used for quality control of clinical beams used in radiotherapy. Here various of these devices (StarTrack, QuickCheck, StarCheck, IC Profiler, …) are compared in order to evaluate their performance and capabilities as basic tools in quality assurance programs developed for clinical linear accelerators. In this topic we acknowledge the availability offered by the Medical Physics services of the hospitals “San Cecilio” and “Virgen de las Nieves” (Granada), and “Carlos Haya” (Málaga).

Research Area

Physics (PHY)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Antonio M. Lallena (lallena@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)