by Mohsina Yusuf

Dr. Carlo De Cecco was invited to take part in the opposition committee at the public defense of Ms. Marly van Assen to obtain her PhD. The title of her thesis was, “Quantitative cardiac dual source CT: from morphology to function.” 

The defense ceremony took place on Wednesday, September 4 in the Academy Building of the University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.

The PhD defense is a prestigious old ceremony where the PhD candidate’s research is debated among professors and international experts. Getting invited as an external expert in a PhD ceremony is not only a high honor, it also means the individual is a recognized expert in the field. 

The University of Groningen was founded in 1614 and is the second-oldest university in the Netherlands and one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. The University of Groningen belongs to the top 100 large comprehensive research universities in the world. The university's alumni and faculty include four Nobel Prize winners, five Spinoza Prize winners, multiple mayors, royalty, the first president of the European Central Bank, and a secretary general of NATO.