He leads the research into new technologies for image guidance of catheter-based treatments in the cardiovascular field. Van Soest was trained as an experimental physicist (MSc University of Groningen 1997; PhD University of Amsterdam 2001), with special expertise in light transport and optical spectroscopy. He worked on remote sensing of atmospheric trace gases (KNMI 2002-2005) prior to switching to medical imaging. He joined the Thorax Centre as a postdoc in 2005, was appointed as faculty in 2010 and promoted to Associate Prof in 2015. He is one of the founders and scientific directors of the Optics in Cardiology conference. He is the author of >80 peer reviewed publications, and an inventor on three patents.