The PhD defence will be partially digital, in Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus and streamed directly using Zoom. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation.
Ex auditorio questions: the chair of the defence will invite the attending audience at Kristen Nygaards sal to ask ex auditorio questions.
Trial lecture
“The role of ventricular geometry and fiber orientation in cardiac electromechanics”
Time and place: October 2, 2025 11:15 AM. Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus / Zoom
Main research findings
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect, yet many aspects of how these hearts function remain poorly understood. To improve both research and treatment, we need better ways to describe them and better data to inform models. In my PhD, I worked on these two challenges independently but in a complementary way. First, I developed CobivecoX, a new coordinate system for the ventricles. This tool provides a precise framework for comparing patients and for including clinically important regions that are often affected by surgery and scars. It can be seen as the grammar that structures our descriptions of the heart. Separately, I generated the first high-resolution dataset of heart muscle fibers in single ventricle CHD, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). These data reveal how fibers are reorganized or missing in diseased hearts, giving us the vocabulary to enrich and validate models. Together, these contributions open new opportunities: CobivecoX makes descriptions and comparisons more robust, while the fiber data provide new biological insight. In the long run, this combination strengthens our ability to understand, predict, and ultimately improve therapy for children with severe heart defects.
Adjudication committee
- Associate Professor Nele Vandersickel, Ghent University, Belgium
- Researcher, PhD, Jason Bayer, L’Institut des Maladies du Rythme Cardiaque (liryc), IHU Liryc Hôpital Xavier Arnozan, France
- Professor Carsten Griwodz, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Supervisors
- Senior Researcher Hermenegild Arevalo, Simula Research Laboratory
- Professor Andrew McCulloch, University of California, San Diego
- Professor Aslak Tveito, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
- Professor James C. Perry, University of California, San Diego
Chair of defence
- Professor Özgü Mira Alay-Erduran, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
Contact information at Department: Pernille Adine Nordby