"My aim is to enhance healthcare, particularly for the most fragile newborns, by using the power of medical image analysis to deepen our understanding of early brain development."

Gaby van Iersel is a PhD candidate at the University of Utrecht.  She studies early brain development through the analysis of 3D fetal ultrasound data. In collaboration with the Developmental Psychology department at the University of Utrecht and the Signal Processing Systems group at the Eindhoven University of Technology, she co-designs and improves deep learning models for the automated and rapid segmentation of the brain. Her PhD project is part of the CHAMP (Child Health through Artificial Intelligence Models and Predictions) project, which received the NFG AiNed Fellowship grant. The CHAMP project aims to extract valuable insights on early brain and social-emotional development from images and videos within the YOUth cohort study. YOUth is a large scale, longitudinal cohort following the development of nearly 4000 children from pregnancy until early adulthood.

Gaby van Iersel completed her master's degree in Medical Engineering in 2023 from the Eindhoven University of Technology. During her studies, she specialized in medical image analysis and undertook various projects related to neonatal research, an area that deeply interests her. Her bachelor's end project focused on the automatic quantification of intraventricular brain hemorrhages in preterm infants. During her master's, she worked as an intern at the Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis, focusing on the detection of retinopathy of prematurity. In her current role as a PhD candidate, Gaby follows her passion for neonatal research, particularly concentrating on advancing the understanding of early brain development.