People of AXTI

Pim van den Berg

Pim van den Berg is a PhD candidate at the Advanced X-ray Tomographic Imaging Group (AXTI) headed by Ioannis Sechopoulos, in Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen.

He studied Applied Physics at the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e), with minors in theoretical classical mechanics and modern physics. After graduating in 2020, he moved to Nijmegen to obtain his MSc degree in physics at the Radboud University, specializing in solid state physics through the Physics of Molecules and Materials (PMM) program. For his internship of 60 ECTS, he performed experimental research at the High Field Magnet Laboratory (HFML) on the novel topological nodal line semimetal ZrSiSe. This included extended usage of the 38T Bitter magnet, but also the development of a high performance data processing toolkit, obtaining his diploma cum laude. Together with a recently graduated PhD colleague, he moved to the University of Twente to start a PhD track in quantum electronics in 2023. Here, he worked inside the MESA+ cleanroom to fabricate quantum dots inside nanowires of the novel 2H hexagonal phase of Si/Ge, grown by the Erik Bakkers lab at the TU/e. Halfway 2024 he ultimately decided this particular project and its logistics did not bring him happiness. This led him to search for a job in academia where he could apply his analytical and programming skills on impacting the wellbeing of people. In november 2024 he joined the AXTI lab, working on enhancing mammography. His PhD project is investigating the effect of specializing generic breast models to each patient by making use of a 3D scanner addon developed by Siemens Healthineers.