Rate My Professor Rik Vos

Dr. ir. H.J. (Rik) Vos, PhD, is an Associate Professor with ius promovendi at the Biomedical Engineering group in the Cardiology Department at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, since acquiring the right to promote PhD students in March 2024. He also serves as Associate Professor in the Medical Imaging group of ImPhys, Faculty of Applied Sciences, at Delft University of Technology. Vos holds an MSc in Applied Physics, earned with honours from Delft University of Technology in 2004, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Erasmus MC in 2010. He studied for one year at the University of Florence, Italy, broadening his perspectives, and worked at the Dutch research institute TNO, where he developed cutting-edge acoustic array sensor technology.

Vos's research centers on biomedical engineering applications in cardiology, including high-framerate echocardiography, ultrasound contrast agents, and transducer development. His interests encompass measuring heart muscle stiffness, relating heart motion to blood perfusion and flow within the left ventricle, utilizing advanced ultrasound systems like Ultrasonics, Verasonics, and Zonare. He directs major projects such as AMPHORA, an ERC-OPEN-FET project developing acoustic contrast agents for radiation dose detection; EFFECTS, advancing non-invasive ultrasound for early heart failure diagnosis via tissue stiffness; MIFFY, for infant brain perfusion monitoring through flow, stiffness, and anatomy assessment; and QUANTO, enabling 3D myocardial perfusion imaging during cardiac interventions. Vos has led clinical studies including bone perfusion imaging with Sorbonne University (2020), neonatal brain monitoring (2019), cardiac shear wave imaging variability (2018-2019), shear wave elastography in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients (2018), and contrast flow imaging in heart failure and abdominal aorta (2018, 2017). In 2018, he was awarded the prestigious Dutch NWO-TTW VIDI grant of one million euros for 3D heart blood perfusion imaging and contributes to additional grants totaling 1.9 million euros. Notable publications include his PhD thesis 'Single Microbubble Imaging' (2010) and 'Acoustic behavior of microbubbles and implications for drug delivery' (Kooiman et al., Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 2014). Vos founded and chairs Young@Heart, the Dutch community for young cardiovascular researchers, sits on the Erasmus MC Postdoc Network board, and co-directs the annual European Symposium on Ultrasound Contrast Imaging and Therapy. His methods deliver unprecedented functional cardiac insights, closely aligned with clinical requirements.