Curriculum Vitae
Lars Kasper, PhD
Lead MR Physicist, Toronto Neuroimaging Facility (ToNI)
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
This is my academic CV. My personal story through the lens of MRI can be found in this ISMRM Member Spotlight from 2023.
Brief Academic Bio
Lars received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in 2014, with a work on “Noise Reduction in fMRI Utilizing Concurrent Magnetic Field Monitoring”. During his postdoctoral research in the MR Methods and Technology Group (Klaas Pruessmann) and Translational Neuromodeling Unit (Klaas Stephan) in Zurich, Lars was working at the interface between cutting-edge imaging concepts and their applications in computational neuroscience and psychiatry. In particular, Lars’ projects included ultra-high field spiral MRI and NMR-probe based field monitoring in the context of fMRI, as well as laminar fMRI applications to investigate prediction error signaling according to the Bayesian Brain hypothesis.
From 2020 to 2023, Lars was a scientific associate in Kamil Uludag’s lab for Brain Research in Advanced Imaging and Neuromodeling - Toronto (BRAIN-TO), focusing on the translation of promising MR sequence and reconstruction concepts into the clinics, e.g., for spiral diffusion MRI.
Currently, Lars is the Lead MR Physicist of the Toronto Neuroimaging Facility (ToNI), overseeing operations of the facility that hosts a state-of-the-art Siemens 3T Prisma MRI and is highly specialized on functional imaging for cognitive neuroscience and psychiatric applications.
Academic Positions
- Since 2023: Lead MR Physicist, Toronto Neuroimaging Facility (ToNI), University of Toronto
- 2020-2023: Scientific Associate III, BRAIN-To Lab, Techna Institute, University Health Network, Toronto
- 2016-2019: Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University of Zurich & ETH Zurich
- 2014-2016: Postdoctoral Fellow, High-Resolution fMRI & Field Monitoring, ETH Zurich
- 2008-2014: PhD Student, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich
Career Breaks
- 2017-2019: 1.5 years part-time (80%) for childcare
- 2019-2020: 6 months unpaid leave for family relocation to Canada
- 2023: 3 months parental leave for second child
Education
- PhD (Dr. sc.), ETH Zurich (2008-2014)
- Thesis: “Noise Reduction in fMRI Utilizing Concurrent Magnetic Field Monitoring”
- Supervisors: Prof. Klaas P. Pruessmann, Prof. Klaas Enno Stephan
- Master’s Degree in Physics (Diplom-Physiker), University of Göttingen (2003-2008)
- Thesis: “Quantitative MRI of the Mouse Brain at Ultra-high Field”
- Supervisors: Prof. Jens Frahm, Dr. Susann Boretius
- High School (Abitur), Gymnasium “Georg-Cantor”, Halle (Saale), Germany (1993-2002)
Project Management Experience
- Facility Management and Operations at Toronto Neuroimaging Facility, University of Toronto** (since 2023)
- Translation of MR technology advancements to clinical MR systems (3 Tesla), UHN, Toronto (2020-2023)
- Co-Investigator, pioneering layer fMRI study at ultra-high Field (7 Tesla), ETH Zurich (2016-2019)
- Software Maintainer, TAPAS Software Suite, University of Zurich (2016-2018)
Teaching Experience
- Invited Workshops on the PhysIO Toolbox (since 2013)
- University Course Instructor Methods & Models for fMRI Analysis, ETH Zurich (2012-2018)
- Instructor and Tutor at the Annual SPM for fMRI Course, Zurich (2009-2016)
- Conference Faculty, HBM Educational Courses on fMRI preprocessing (2015, 2016)
- Conference Faculty, ISMRM Educational Courses (2016, 2020, 2024)
Supervision of Students
As staff scientist, I have not been a formal supervisor to students. But I have taken on roles as main day-to-day supervisor (including thesis project design and management) in my previous appointments.
| Type | Institution | Number of Students |
|---|---|---|
| Master’s Students | ETH Zurich | 3 |
| PhD Students | ETH Zurich | 1 |
| Master’s Students | Krembil Brain Institute, UHN, Toronto | 1 |
| PhD Students | Krembil Brain Institute, UHN, Toronto | 1 |
Invited Talks
- MR in Radiation Therapy Study Group Virtual Meeting (ISMRM, 2026) The Importance and Benefits of Open Science: Practical Lessons for Sustainable MR Research (Slides)
- MRITogether, ESMRMB (Online, 2023) – PhysIO, UniQC, and a TAPAStry of Tools (Video)
- Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC, 2022) – PhysIO Toolbox (Online)
- Krembil Neuroimaging Rounds, UHN, Toronto (2022, 2020) – PhysIO & Spiral Imaging
- ISMRM 2020 Weekend Course: fMRI Across Spatial & Temporal Scales (ISMRM Annual Meeting, 2020) - fMRI Denoising Techniques (Video)
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin (2017) – The PhysIO Toolbox
- invited talk and bring-your-own-data two day workshop
- ISMRM 2020 Weekend Course: Introduction to functional MRI (ISMRM Annual Meeting, Singapore, 2016) - Analyzing Data Using the General Linear Model(Video)
- selected for the ISMRM MR Academy Vault, Outstanding Teacher Award 2016
Service and Leadership
- Governing Committee of the Open and Reproducible Research Study Group (OR2), ISMRM (2025-2028 Cycle Secretary/Vice-Chair/Chair/Past Chair)
- Co-Chair, MRITogether24 Workshop by ESMRMB (2024)
- Member, MRITogether Working Group of ESMRMB (since 2025)
- Member, EDI Committee, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto (since 2023)
- Member, EDI Task Force, ISMRM (2023-2026)
- Founding Member, Ad-hoc ISMRM Family Committee (2019-2020)
Skills
- Technical:
- transferable: MR physics, biomedical engineering, signal processing, research software engineering (Matlab, Julia)
- domain-specific: magnetic field monitoring, image reconstruction, fMRI analysis, physiological noise in MRI, Siemens IDEA Pulse Programming Course (2021)
- Languages: German (native), English (fluent), French (beginner)
Awards
- ISMRM Highlights of the Conference Recognition (2020)
- ISMRM Junior Fellow (2017)
- ISMRM Magna Cum Laude Abstract Award (2017)
- ISMRM Summa Cum Laude Abstract Award (2016)
- ISMRM Outstanding Teacher Award, ISMRM (2016)
- German National Merit Foundation Scholar (2000-2008)
- 1st Prize Mathematical Olympiad (2001, 2002, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany)
Selected Publications
- Jaffray et al. (2024) – GIRFReco.jl: An Open-Source Pipeline for Spiral Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) Reconstruction in Julia (JOSS)
- Renton et al. (2024) – Neurodesk: an accessible, flexible and portable data analysis environment for reproducible neuroimaging (Nature Methods)
- Kasper et al. (2022) – Advances in spiral fMRI: A high-resolution study with single-shot acquisition (Neuroimage)
- Frässle et al. (2021) – TAPAS: An Open-Source Software Package for Translational Neuromodeling and Computational Psychiatry (Front Psychiatry)
- Kasper et al. (2017) – The PhysIO Toolbox for Modeling Physiological Noise in fMRI Data (J. Neuroscience Methods)
For a full list of publications, see my Google Scholar Profile.