Robert Finnegan.
Translational Cancer Research Fellow.
Learn a bit more about me.

About Me

science

I love doing science, reading science, talking science, and sharing science with others. I currently work as a translational cancer research fellow. There's no "typical" day for me, but you can find me designing, implementing, and validating new ideas, developing software, and discussing clinical and research questions with an amazing, dedicated, multidisciplinary group colleagues. I really love image and data processing and analysis; from deep learning to Fourier transforms and deformable image registration to predictive modelling - I have spent over a decade working across a broad range of areas in science.

cancer research

I am particularly interested in radiotherapy - cancer treatment using high-energy beams of electrons, photons, protons, and other radiation! Modern radiotherapy is full of intesting and amazing technologies, including imaging (which by now you know I love!). For 6 years I have been developing sophisticated algorithms to create digital models of patients' hearts. My team and I have developed an AI-based approach to investigate how to reduce risks of cardiac damage to patients, and in the future we aim to use our software to make radiotherapy even safer!

other stuff!

I love to learn, build things, and get outside. I fill up my weekends with hiking, cycling, spearfishing, building electronic projects and repairing vintage bikes. I make a killer veggie curry, and enjoy a craft beer or two once the clock hits five. I love open-source software. It amazes me every day that almost all of the software I use to do a job I absolutely love is free so I've worked hard to make some really cool image processing software I wrote open-source, so if you are into that kind of stuff check out PlatiPy. Even this website is open-source!

Experience & Education

Timeline

  • 2009-2012

    B.Sc. Physics & Applied Mathematics

    Graduated with Physics Achievement Prize (Level III). Undergraduate projects include measuring the mass of the Milky Way using the SRT radio telescope at UWA and imaging of nearby star clusters using the SPIRIT II optical telescope, also located at UWA.

  • 2013-2015

    M.Phys. Astrophysics

    Refining Photometric Redshifts in the GAMA Survey
    This degree was a split of postgraduate coursework and a dissertation. This dissertation followed recent work on creating a catalogue of gravitationally bound galaxy clusters, by using this catalogue to improve measurement of the distances to galaxies. The successful completion of this dissertation provided new knowledge and capabilities for astronomers, as well as a suite of programs and data manipulation tools for easier and faster application of work in the future.

  • 2016-2020

    Ph.D. in Medical Physics

    I have recently finished a PhD in medical physics at the University of Sydney, undertaking research at the Ingham Institute with linkage to Liverpool Hospital. My research aimed to develop tools to help characterise and understand the link between cardiac radiation dose and toxicity. This work was implemented in the clinical systems, and has been used by other researchers. It is also open-source! See my GitHub page for more details.

Resume

You can download my resume as PDF!.