Philippe Després, PhD

Philippe Després is a full professor in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Optics at Université Laval. He is also a member of the Université Laval Cancer Research Centre , a medical physicist at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval , and a researcher at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute-Université Laval (IUCPQ-UL). After earning a master’s degree in Physics from Université Laval (2000) and a doctorate in Physics from Université de Montréal (2005), he completed a postdoctoral fellowship (2005-2007) at the University of California, San Francisco, in the field of biomedical engineering and molecular imaging. His research projects focus primarily on medical imaging, particularly tomographic reconstruction and the use of artificial intelligence for detection and classification. He was a pioneer in high-performance computing on graphics processing units (GPUs), leading to the development of innovative applications in medical physics, including an ultra-fast GPU-based Monte Carlo radiative transport code. He is also interested in data valorization in the medical field, particularly the infrastructure, standards, and best practices (including the FAIR principles) necessary for the responsible use of clinical information. In this capacity, he serves as co-lead of CIRRUS, the 
Centre for Integration and Governance of Health Information for Secondary Use at IUCPQ-UL. He is also the director of the Centre for Research in Big Data (CRDM) at Université Laval and a researcher at the 
International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology . He sits on the Research Council of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada and directs the NSERC CREATE program in Responsible Data Science in Health (sdrds.org).