Johan Verjans

Associate Professor Johan Verjans

Associate Professor

Australian Institute for Machine Learning - Operations

Division of Research and Innovation

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Associate Professor Johan Verjans is a clinician-scientist with a research focus on cross-disciplinary translational research with a track record in leadership. In his role as a deputy director at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), a world-renowned institute in Machine Learning, and as platform leader artificial intelligence at SAHMRI, he combines experience in molecular medicine and clinical research with vast experience working with engineers for advanced imaging techniques, and computer scientists to apply machine learning to medical problems to translate research into the clinic.

He graduated in medicine from Maastricht University via an MD-PhD track after being awarded the DiPalma Fellowship to work with the renowned Professor Narula in Philadelphia and UC Irvine. During cardiology training, he was awarded a prestigious Rubicon Fellowship by the Dutch Science Foundation to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, followed by a clinician-scientist award at the University Medical Centre Utrecht during his cardiology training. He was recruited by the University of Adelaide in 2017.

Since then, he has formed the Medical Machine Learning group at AIML and using his combined clinical, biomedical and technical expertise to lead a rapidly growing group of clinicians, biomedical researchers and computer scientists with the objective to make the University of Adelaide a global leader in AI in Healthcare, using existing globally renowned AI expertise at AIML. The group has grown to over 20 members, won international technology challenges and has contracts with pharma and technology companies. He is an associate investigator of the ARC Centre for Nanoscale Biophotonics.

His research has been published in leading cardiology journals (Circulation (IF 23.6), JACC (IF 20.6: incl editorial), Nature Reviews Cardiology (IF20.3), Basic Research in Cardiology (IF12.6). He has published six articles in the number 1 ranked imaging journal, JACC CV Imaging (IF12.7), including Front Cover Image+Editorial), in addition to other prestigious journals, such as Light: Science and Applications (IF 15) and IEEE Transaction in Medical Imaging (IF13.94). The most significant achievement in computer science is that his team won the global Medical VQA challenge organised by the NIH. VQA is one of the most challenging areas in machine learning, whereby a the computer is programmed to answer open-ended questions from medical images.

He has given presentations at all major cardiovascular conferences, including several young investigator award sessions. He was chair of the Australian Society for Molecular Imaging Conference, and member of the Publications Committee of the Society for Cardiac MR evaluating clinical imaging guidelines and consensus statements. He was lead author on a chapter in the first book of AI in Medicine (Springer/Nature) and contributed to several other chapters, including an international expert group to standardise machine learning methods in Medical Imaging. He is an Associate Editor of the Netherlands Heart Journal (IF 1.9), editor at Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine (IF 4.79) and a member of the publication committee in a leading imaging society, Society of Cardiac MR. He has reviewed articles for leading cardiology journals JACC, EHJ, JACC CV imaging, and 30+ other journals and is national and state leadership boards in Cardiology and Data & Analytics, including the Big Data Flagship of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance.

In the past, he has been national chair of Dutch Medical Students, and has represented students in the national medical student association board, followed by a national chair position of Dutch early/mid-career cardiovascular researchers, supported by the Dutch heart Institute and Dutch Heart Foundation.

Research interests - Machine Learning, Translational Research, Clinical Innovation, Digital health

Pre-clinical 
-Noninvasive (Molecular) Imaging of Atherosclerosis, Myocardial infarction, Heart Failure (PET/SPECT, Optical, MRI, CT) 
-Intravascular Imaging of Atherosclerosis (OCT, Hybrid Fluorescence/OCT Catheters)

Clinical (CT, MR)
-Noninvasive imaging of atherosclerotic disease (CT, MRI)
-Noninvasive imaging of interstitial changes after myocardial infarction (SPECT/PET, MRI)
-Population Imaging

Medical Machine learning 

-Image analysis (segmentation, classification)
-Prediction
-Multimodal learning (genomics, metabolomics, imaging)

-Sensors

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2023 Principal Supervisor Learning to Reason and Generalise Using Multimodal Approaches Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Luke Thomas Heffernan
    2023 Principal Supervisor Photonics and Machine learning approaches to Detect Environment, Physiology and Disease Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Madeleine Cochrane
    2023 Co-Supervisor Explainable and Semantically Meaningful Deep Learning Models for Medical Risk Prediction and Diagnostics Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Townim Faisal Chowdhury
    2019 Co-Supervisor Lipidomics in the Study of Atherosclerosis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Jake White
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Anomaly Detection in Computer Vision and Medical Imaging Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Yu Tian
  • Board Memberships

    Date Role Board name Institution name Country
    2021 - ongoing Advisory Board Member AI in Health Hub SA Government Australia
    2021 - ongoing Board Member Innovation Board Netherlands Heart Registry Australia
    2019 - ongoing Advisory Board Member Big Data Advisory Board Australian Cardiovascular Alliance Australia
  • Editorial Boards

    Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
    2016 - ongoing Associate Editor Netherlands Heart Journal Springer Australia
    2015 - ongoing Associate Editor Netherlands Heart Journal - Netherlands
  • Position: Associate Professor
  • Email: johan.verjans@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Australian Institute for Machine Learning
  • Org Unit: Australian Institute for Machine Learning - Operations

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