About me

My main research focus is on the application of image processing, computer vision and machine learning techniques in medical imaging, as well as the statistical interpretation of results retrieved in medical imaging problems.

Currently, I am working as a researcher at the Neurobiology Research Unit at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, and I hold an appointment as Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen. I co-lead the Lab for Neuroimaging and Neuroinformatics (LNN) @ UCPH.

At the moment I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, together with my husband, our daughter and son. Previously, I have lived several years in the United States (Boston, MA, Madison, WI and Tenino, WA) as well as some months in the United Kingdom (Cambridge and London). Originally I hail from the beautiful south-western part of Germany, called Baden, where I studied and grew up.

Background

I am originally from Southern Germany, the beautiful area of the Black Forest, but have lived several years in the U.S. and Denmark. Since 2014 my home has been Copenhagen, Denmark, where I live with my husband and two children.

Regarding my university education, I received my M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany (2007). From March 2008 until May 2011 I completed my Ph.D. studies at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. My supervisors were Mads Nielsen, Marleen de Bruijne and Sami Brandt, and I collaborated with Nordic Bioscience Imaging & Synarc Imaging Technologies (now BiomedIQ).

After finishing my PhD, I worked five months for Medicsight PLC in London as a research and development intern, supervised by Greg Slabaugh. From 2011–2013, I spent two years as an external PostDoc at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging (MGH/Harvard), MA, USA, under the supervision of Koen van Leemput. From January 2014 to April 2017 I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Neurobiology Research Unit at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, with Gitte Moos Knudsen.

Experience

  • Since September 2021: Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, and researcher, Neurobiology Research Unit, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • May 2017–August 2021: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, and researcher, Neurobiology Research Unit, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • 2014–2017: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Neurobiology Research Unit, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark (Gitte Moos Knudsen).
  • 2011–2013: Research Fellow in Radiology, Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Radiology, MGH @ Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, USA (Koen van Leemput).
  • May–September 2011: Research and Development intern, Medicsight PLC (Greg Slabaugh), London, UK.
  • 2008–2011: Ph.D. in Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen (Mads Nielsen, Marleen de Bruijne, Sami Brandt), Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Jul–Aug 2010 & Oct–Dec 2009: Visiting student, Microsoft Research Cambridge (Pushmeet Kohli), Cambridge, UK.
  • 2002–2007: M.Sc. in Physics, University of Karlsruhe (Ulrich Nierste, Frank Petriello), Karlsruhe, Germany.
  • 2005–2006: DAAD Research Fellow, University of Wisconsin (Frank Petriello), Madison, USA.

Awards & grants

  • DIKU 2025 Dissemination Award (2026), recognizing public engagement and science communication – including being selected by the Lundbeck Foundation to meet H.M. King Frederik X during the 2025 BrainPrize celebration.
  • DIKU Teacher of the Year Award (2021).
  • Project funding by the Lundbeck Foundation for "TRUSTMIND: AI in Mental Health – Ensuring Evaluation, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Considerations", DKK 20,000,000; PI (2025–2030).
  • Project funding by the Elsass Foundation for "NeuroImaging of Babies during natural Sleep to assess typical development and Cerebral Palsy (NIBS-CP)", DKK 9,999,800; Co-PI (2022, PI: Kathrine Skak Madsen).
  • Project funding by OpenNeuroPET, an NNF research infrastructure grant, 10,144,473 DKK; Co-PI (2020–2027).
  • Project funding by the Independent Research Fund Denmark for "Bias and Fairness in Medicine", with Aasa Feragen and Sune H. Holm (DKK 2,699,194); Co-PI (2020–2023).
  • Project funding for BrainDrugs, a thematic alliance in precision medicine for epilepsy and depression, by the Lundbeck Foundation (PI: Gitte Moos Knudsen); responsible for WP5 – Mining neuroimaging data (~2.5 mio DKK of a 40 mio DKK total budget; 2019–2027).
  • Project funding by Elsass Fonden for the 3-year project "How can you avoid to put children with cerebral palsy in general anesthesia while they are in a brain scanner?" (DKK 3,897,000).
  • Nvidia Academic Program grant for a free Quadro P6000 GPU (approx. DKK 50,000).
  • Travel grant, Lundbeck Foundation, to attend NeuroHackweek 2017 (DKK 9,000).
  • Travel grant, Jubilæumsfonden and the Lundbeck Foundation (2017), to attend the Pattern Recognition in Neuroimaging workshop (DKK 9,000).
  • PostDoc project funding at the Neurobiology Research Unit by the Lundbeck Foundation (2015) for "Exploring a multimodal serotonin atlas with the help of machine learning methods" (DKK 700,000).
  • "Research in Pairs" grant, Mathematical Research Institute Oberwolfach – with Ender Konukoglu (2014) – for "Permutation test for binary classification".
  • 1 year of PostDoc funding at the Neurobiology Research Unit by the Carlsberg Foundation (2013) for "Using sparse regression methods to identify important regions in multimodal neuroimaging data" (DKK 550,000).
  • 2nd year of PostDoc funding at Martinos Center by the Lundbeck Foundation (2011) for "Age and disease-associated alterations in gray and white matter signal intensities in the brain and its substructures" (DKK 678,000).
  • 1st year of PostDoc funding at Martinos Center by the Alfred Benzon Foundation (2011) for "Age and disease-associated alterations in the texture of the brain" (DKK 350,000).
  • Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship Recipient (2010) (EUR 7,000).
  • Scholarship for visiting research at Microsoft Research Laboratory, Cambridge, UK, by Oticonfonden (2009).
  • Scholarship by the German National Academic Exchange (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst / DAAD) (2005–2006).
  • Scholarship by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) (2002–2007).