Ⓒ European Association of Thermology
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On behalf of the European Association of Thermology (EAT) and our hosts at the Royal Free Hospital, London, I am delighted to invite you to a one-day symposium on Thermal Imaging in Medicine and Biology.
Event Highlights:
Call for Presentations:
We look forward to welcoming you to London for a stimulating day of discussion and networking within our thermology community.
We are delighted to congratualate our Member, Prof Graham Machin, to his election as Fellow of the Royal Society. This highly prestigious and competitive award by the Royal Society was made in recognition of his career spanning more than 30 years in the field of temperature measurement, most of them at the UK's National Physical Laboratory, NPL.
The NPL writes:
"With his NPL research team, Professor Machin has had a significant global impact on the definition and measurement of temperature, including redefining the unit of temperature, the Kelvin, and developing new standards and methods for high temperature measurement, as well as developing temperature measurement solutions in fields including space, nuclear decommissioning and medicine. He is a founder member of the UK Body Temperature Measurement Group (UKBTMG), which aims to reduce avoidable deaths and improve health service triaging. He also serves as the UK member on the International Weights and Measures Committee for Thermometry (CCT)."
Read the full text on the NPL's pages
Kurt Ammer, who passed away at his home in Vienna on 20th October 2024, will be fondly remembered by everyone involved in the science of thermology.
Kurt was awarded the degree Dr med univ from the University of Vienna in 1975, and was certified as a General Medical Practitioner in 1978. He became a consultant for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 1989, then adding a specialism in Rheumatology in 1994. He was senior researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Research Unit for Physical Diagnostics between 1988 and 2004. From 1985 until his retirement in early 2013, he was Vice-Director of the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Hanusch Hospital in Vienna. It was this background in both research and clinical medicine that drove Kurt’s passion for evidence-based and reproducible thermological methods.
Kurt became interested in medical thermography in 1988, and was appointed as Secretary and Treasurer of the European Association of Thermology in 1990. He served on the EAT Board continuously until his retirement due to ill health in 2024. In 1991, he founded the Journal “Thermologie Österreich,” and he remained editor-in-chief of that publication for over three decades as it evolved and expanded to become, ultimately, “Thermology International.”
In April 2000 Kurt was awarded his PhD from the University of Glamorgan School of Computing for work entitled “Thermological Studies in Rehabilitation and Rheumatology Using Computerised Infrared Imaging,” and in 2002 he was appointed as External Professor at the university’s Medical Imaging Research Unit. Over his career Kurt published more than 200 papers on medical thermal imaging and over 100 publications related to physical medicine, rheumatology and rehabilitation. Along with his great friend Prof. Francis Ring, he authored “The Thermal Human Body: A Practical Guide to Thermal Imaging” in 2019, which is widely regarded as the most authoritative textbook on modern medical thermography.
Kurt was an energetic proponent of research and publication in thermology. He organised a very popular symposium on thermography which took place each November in Vienna, often in the opulent surroundings of the SAS Radisson Palais Hotel. He served for many years as the chair of the scientific committee for the EAT Congress, overseeing peer review of the abstracts submitted. His emphasis was always on assisting new researchers to improve their submissions, and in this regard it is fitting that the “Best poster” prize at each EAT congress now bears Kurt’s name. Kurt also contributed to teaching many of the EAT’s thermology courses across a wide part of Europe, where his focus was on the promotion of evidence-based physiology and medicine, underpinned by credible and reproducible techniques. He was always keen to point out to students and colleagues that thermography could not diagnose a pathology but, used in the correct manner, it could often provide evidence for the physician to make a more accurate diagnosis.
Kurt could be a fierce interlocutor during scientific sessions at congresses and seminars, and he was rightly unimpressed by any over-embellishment or lack of rigour in presentations. Equally, however, we remember a man who, once the socialising began, was warm and supportive even to those he could not fully agree with professionally. With a great interest in music and a sharp sense of humour, Kurt was a very popular colleague at all EAT events.
In the weeks prior to his death, Kurt gave permission for copyright on the entire “Thermology International” archive to be transferred to the EAT. We are now proud to host this archive on the EAT’s website, where it will be offered as an “open access” free resource to researchers. These documents, which are undoubtedly the largest online repository dedicated specifically to temperature measurement in biomedicine, will serve as a fitting legacy to one of the most important figures in thermology of the last 30 years.
We've not been able to meet in-person since the XIV EAT Congress in London in 2018, so it was fantastic to see our members again at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences for XVI Congress at the start of September. We were blessed with some of the warmest September weather in Poland for nearly 50 years, and Maria Soroko-Dubrovina and her team organised an exceptional event, with one-and-a-half days of scientific sessions and a vibrant social programme. I want to express my thanks to Maria's team for all their hard work, following on from the success of the online XV Congress in 2021, which was also managed by the team in Wrocław.
The programme of presentations and posters was one of the strongest we have seen, so thank you to all delegates for your high standard of work at XVI Congress.
The EAT Congress takes pride in a rigorous review process for all submissions, ensuring that everyone who submits work is supported to improve their abstracts to the highest standard possible.We are able to do this thanks to the efforts over many years of Prof. Kurt Ammer in developing our Scientific Committee and review process. Sadly Kurt was unable to chair the Scientific Committee this year, but I am very grateful to Kurt for the legacy his work has left us. It was very straighforward for me to step in as acting Scientific Committee chair this year thanks to Kurt's organisation. I do now appreciate, however, how much work is required in overseeing the review process!
We also elected a new Board at the EAT General Assembly in Wrocław. Three members retired from the Board at the General Assembly: Kurt Ammer, Ricardo Vardasca and Anna Jung.
Many, many thanks to Kurt, Anna and Ricardo for their support of the EAT down the years.
These are all hard shoes to fill, but I'm delighted that Peter Plassmann (UK), Jose Ignacio Priego Quesada (ESP) and Maria Soroko-Dubrovina (POL) were elected to the Board at the General Assembly. Peter takes on the role of Treasurer, and existing Board members Manuel Sillero-Quintana and Adérito Seixas become Vice-President and Secretary respectively.
You can read the profiles of the new Board here. This is an energetic and experienced team, and I look forward to working with you all over the next three years to develop the EAT for its members.
We have some photos from the XVI Congress sessions and social events on our gallery page here.
The website of the XVI Congress is now archived here.
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Ⓒ European Association of Thermology
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