Laura Igual
Short Bio
Laura Igual is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of Universitat de Barcelona. She received the B.Sc. in Mathematics from Universitat de Valencia (2000) and the PhD Degree “Cum Laude with European Mention” on Image Processing from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2006). Her research was partially supported by the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the company THALES (France). In 2002, she spent a semester at the Centre de Mathématiques et de Leurs Applications at l’École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (France). She received the competitive “Juan de la Cierva” postdoctoral research fellowship at the Computer Vision Center of Barcelona awarded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (2008).
In 2009, she spent 6 months as a research stay at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University funded by the “José Castillejo” grant. Since 2009, she has been a Lecturer (2009-2013) and Associate Professor (2013-present) at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Universitat de Barcelona. In 2015, she did a 2 months research visit at the Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB) (UK). Currently, she is a member of the Machine Learning and Data Science Lab at UB, DataScience@UB Group and a consolidated research group of Catalonia.
Research
Her research interests include medical imaging analysis, computer vision, machine learning, and data science. She has published more than 25 papers in SCI-indexed journals and has more than 15 years of experience in working on computer vision and machine learning and its applications to several fields.
She has participated in more than 25 national and international competitive research projects (funded by Spanish Micinn and European H2020 programs, IMSERSO, FIS, Avança, Consolider-Ingenio, La Marató de TV3), projects with companies (Given Imaging i CNES) and with other research centers (Fundació Privada Barcelona Digital Centre Tecnològic, Hospital General de la Vall d’Hebron, Corporació Sanitària Parc Taulí, Fundació IMIM). She is a reviewer of scientific journals (MIA, JBHI, TPAMI, ) and international conference and she has been member of the program and scientific committee of several international conferences and workshops. She is member of the Editorial Board at the International Journal of Biosciences and Technology.
Teaching
Courses:
- Introduction to Object Oriented Programing: Computer Science Engineering Degree (UB).
- Computer Vision course in the Master on Artificial Intelligence (UPC-URV-UB).
- Data Science For Health in the Master on Fundamental Principles of Data Science (UB).
- Courses in the Postgraduate Introduction to Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (UB).
Present PhD Student
- Lidia Garrucho, PhD Student. Co-direction with K. Lekadir (UB).
- Lucas Gago, PhD Student. Co-direction with Beatriz Remeseiro (University of Oviedo).
Past PhD Student
- Maria del Mar Vila, Co-direction with Maria Grau (UB).
Selected publications
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Deep-stratification of the cardiovascular risk by ultrasound carotid artery images (2024)
Vila, M.; Gago, L.; Pérez-Sánchez, P.; Grau, M. Remeseiro, B.; Igual, L.. Biomedical Signal Processing And Control vol. 91. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2024.106035. -
An end-to-end framework for intima media measurement and atherosclerotic plaque detection in the carotid artery (2022)
Lucas Gago, Maria del Mar Vila, Maria Grau , Beatriz Remeseiro, Laura Igual.. omputer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 2022, ISSN 0169-2607.. -
High-resolution synthesis of high-density breast mammograms: Application to improved fairness in deep learning based mass detection (2022)
Lidia Garrucho, Kaisar Kushibar, Richard Osuala, Oliver Diaz, Alessandro Catanese, Javier del Riego, Maciej Bobowicz, Fredrik Strand, Laura Igual, Karim Lekadir.. Frontiers on Oncology vol. 12, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2022.1044496.