About
The importance of microscopy and imaging data analysis is growing rapidly as new hardware and techniques enable researchers to produce ever more complex datasets. There is now a clear need for a trained and better-organised community of image analysts who will support this growth, as evidenced in a series of surveys in recent years (for example Miura 2021, Waithe 2021, Jamali et al. 2021).
In the bioimaging sector, recent initiatives like the European COST funded NEUBIAS network (2016-2020) have achieved great strides in establishing the need for better organisation and training of data analysts in imaging. Inspired by this community, the RMS Image Analysis Focused Interest Group (IAFIG) was formed in 2018, led by Dominic Waithe, to support and continue these efforts, both in the UK and internationally. The Data Analysis in Imaging (DAIM) section of the RMS followed on from the IAFIG, officially becoming a full scientific section of the RMS in 2021. As part of this transition, the DAIM committee has broadened its scope to include physical sciences to ensure that all areas of the RMS remit are represented, hoping to network and share ideas across the different fields.
The RMS is committed to being a welcoming, inclusive Society and encourages diversity across all activities and in the membership of our committees and groups.
If you are interested in joining any of the committees in the future, please visit our Join a Committee page.
Data Analysis in Imaging related events
External
RMS Section Awards
Launched in 2014, the Section Awards (formerly known as the Medal Series) recognise those who have made significant contributions to the field of microscopy. The RMS Section Awards celebrate outstanding scientific achievements across all areas of microscopy and flow cytometry with each RMS Science Section able to select a winner for their own award.
Find out more
Committee
Martin Jones
Martin is currently Deputy Head of Microscopy Prototyping in the Electron Microscopy Science Technology Platform at the Francis Crick Institute. His work focuses on developing new software and hardware tools for dealing with the deluge of data coming from modern microscopes. His background is in experimental quantum optics from the University of Sussex. After postdoctoral research and teaching fellowships in physics, he moved to the Vascular Biology Lab led by Holger Gerhardt at Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute to work on microscope development and image analysis. From there he moved to the LRI’s Electron Microscopy core facility, led by Lucy Collinson, which subsequently moved to its current home at the Francis Crick Institute. Martin now works closely with the Crick’s Scientific Computing Science Technology Platform to work on methods for analysing large complex imaging datasets and has a strong interest in training.
Alice Pyne
Alice Pyne is a Lecturer in Polymers/Soft Matter & MRC/UKRI Innovation Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Alice has over a decade of experience in scanning probe microscopy, spanning high-speed and high-resolution imaging, probe development and cantilever sensing. Alice’s current research aims to understand how variations in DNA structure can affect fundamental biological processes such as replication and transcription. She uses high-resolution AFM to observe variability in structure and conformation in individual DNA molecules and to understand how these variations influence interactions with oligonucleotides and proteins, with a long-term view to improved development of therapeutics.
Peter Bankhead
Peter completed his PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, focussing on the analysis of retinal images and calcium signals in retinal arterioles. He then moved to Germany, becoming a postdoc in the Nikon Imaging Center at Heidelberg University where he spent much of his time helping microscope users interpret their imaging data using open-source software. During this time he started writing a bioimage analysis handbook for biologists, which has since evolved into bioimagebook.github.io.
Upon returning to Belfast as a postdoc at the end of 2012, Peter encountered digital pathology for the first time. After applying existing open software tools to whole slide images with limited success, he wrote his own: QuPath. After a short time in industry, Peter is now a Reader at the University of Edinburgh, where his group is dedicated to developing open AI and bioimage analysis methods and software.
David Barry
Dave is a bioimage analyst with over 15 years’ experience of developing algorithms and open-source software in life science research. After completing his undergraduate studies in Electronic Engineering at University College Dublin (2004), Dave did his PhD at the Dublin Institute of Technology (now TU Dublin) with Dr Gwilym Williams, using image analysis to relate the morphology of filamentous microbes to their metabolite yield in fermentations (2010). He then spent six years as a post-doc in the lab of Dr Michael Way at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (which became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015), where he used live cell imaging and developed software to analyse cellular and sub-cellular processes. Since 2017, Dave has worked as a dedicated image analyst at the Francis Crick Institute and is now Deputy Head of the Crick Advanced Light Microscopy Science Technology Platform.
Laura Clark
Since 2022, Laura is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of York, where she is developing 4D-STEM imaging of beam-sensitive materials (https://www.york.ac.uk/physics-engineering-technology/people/lauraclark/).
Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Leeds working in the LEMAS facility within the School of Chemical and Process Engineering, to develop 4D-STEM imaging of beam-sensitive materials.
She received her BSc and MSc in Physics from the University of York, before completing her PhD in the EMAT lab of the University of Antwerp. During her PhD she developed methods to generate and quantitatively analyse electron vortex beams in transmission electron microscopes. Subsequently she held postdoctoral positions at Monash University and the University of Glasgow, where she developed differential phase contrast STEM imaging methods, before holding an ESTEEM3 postdoctoral position at the University of Oxford, and then a subsequent Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at the University of Leeds, developing 4D-STEM data analysis methods.
As the representative from the IOP’s electron microscopy and analysis group (EMAG) on the RMS-ECR committee, she aims to improve integration between the two communities.
Stephen Cross
Stephen is a bioimage analyst at the University of Bristol’s Wolfson Bioimaging Facility. Light microscopy has been the common theme throughout his academic career; prior to obtaining his current position, Stephen completed a PhD focused on the construction of a novel fluorescence-based magnetic tweezers microscope (York) and a postdoc position combining patch clamping techniques with fluorescence microscopy (Bristol). These led Stephen to his current position, where he develops custom analysis workflows across a multitude of imaging modalities and research fields for internal and external collaborators. It’s this exposure to a wide range of bioimaging problems that motivated his main research interest into development of open-source modularised image analysis tools for Fiji, which allow the rapid construction of pipelines without the need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ on a daily basis. Stephen also co-runs a series of image analysis workshops in topics such as ImageJ/Fiji and MATLAB.
Siân Culley
Siân is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at King’s College London, working on developing new image analysis methods driven by real biological questions. Previously she was a postdoctoral research in Ricardo Henriques’ lab at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, UCL, working on analytical methods for improving super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Prior to joining Ricardo’s group, she did a PhD in Optical Microscopy and an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences, both at UCL. In addition to research, Siân is also passionate about creating open source teaching material, outreach work, and driving towards better diversity and representation in the microscopy community.
Rocco D'Antuono
Rocco D'Antuono studied Physics in the Laboratory for Advanced BioSpectroscopy (LABS, Milan, Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Giuseppe Chirico.
After his studies, in 2011 he joined the FIRC Institute for Molecular Oncology (IFOM, Milan, Italy) as image analyst and microscopist specialised in live-cell imaging, TIRF, and confocal microscopy. In 2014 he moved to the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB, Bellinzona, Switzerland), running the microscopy and intravital facility; there he had the opportunity to work also with flow cytometry and help in the setup of the mass spec service.
In January 2018 he joined the Crick Advanced Light Microscopy facility (CALM, London, UK) as senior microscopist, supporting microscopy projects with the use of advanced fluorescence techniques and image analysis.
He promotes the training in bioimage analysis through the activity of NEUBIAS Academy.
Alan Kidger
After graduating in Applied Biology from the University of Hull, Alan spent four years employed in Pharmaceuticals as a Bioanalytical Scientist working on pharmacokinetic properties of drug delivery methods. Leaving the labs in 1998 he took on a role as technical support of the Soft Imaging Systems product portfolio for digital imaging in the UK, both in life and material science with a special focus on image analysis.
In advance of the acquisition of Soft Imaging Systems by Olympus Europa, Alan moved to Olympus UK as an Imaging Specialist in 2003 working mainly in the field of widefield, spinning disk and TIRF microscopy.
Moving into a role as Product Manager of precision automation hardware for Prior Scientific Instruments for 3 years before returning to microscopy imaging with ZEISS as Product & Application Sales Support specialist in 2014. Alan currently provides demonstration, training and user support for image analysis, widefield, confocal and automation.
Katherine MacArthur
Katherine graduated with her PhD quantitative electron microscopy (both imaging and spectroscopy) from the University of Oxford before moving to a post doctoral research position at the Ernst Ruska Centre, in the Forschungszentrum Juelich. Here she began contributing to both the Hyperspy and Atomap open source python libraries. The Atomap code is a series of tools for the analysis of atomic resolution scanning transmission electron microscope images. Hyperspy is designed for the analysis multi-dimensional microscopy data sets.
Katherine’s current role is back in the UK as a nanoanalysis technologist at Oxford Instruments, specialising in energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).
Stefania Marcotti
Stefania is a postdoc and bioimage analyst at King's College London. After a BSc and an MSc in biomechanical engineering in Milan, she obtained a PhD at the University of Sheffield focused on the mechanical characterisation of bone cells with atomic force microscopy and finite element modelling. Thanks to the possibility of combining both experimental and computational approaches in all of her projects, she developed an interest in data and image quantitative analysis. In 2018 she joined Brian Stramer's group and her current research interest lies in developing and automating analysis pipelines for biological applications. Since 2023, she also offers image analysis support to the Nikon Imaging Centre and Microscopy Innovation Centre users at KCL.
Leila Muresan
Leila Muresan is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience of University of Cambridge. She develops original methods and pipelines for the analysis of microscopy images and focuses on solutions for lightsheet microscopy data analysis as well as algorithms for single molecule localisation microscopy. Based at Cambridge Advanced Imaging Centre, she contributes with her expertise to exploit the cutting edge microscopy techniques available in the centre. Starting with 2018 she is an EPSRC Research Software Engineer Fellow.
Eric Prestat
Eric Prestat is Senior Electron Microscopy Scientist in the Materials Department of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) since 2021. Following the completion of his doctoral studies in Physics in 2013 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the Grenoble Alpes University in France, he joined the Department of Materials at the University of Manchester as a Post-doctoral Research Associate and in 2017 was appointed Lecturer in Materials Characterisation, as part of a joint-appointment with the SuperSTEM Laboratory, the EPSRC National Research Facility for Advanced Electron Microscopy. Eric has over 15 years’ experience in the application of (S/)TEM techniques in a variety of materials at the nanoscale, in particular with the use of analytical, aberration corrected or in situ gas environmental (S/)TEM techniques to uncover the structure-property relationships of materials. He is a lead-developer of the HyperSpy framework – a community-driven open-source Python eco-system, which is leading processing and analysis of hyperspectral and multidimensional electron microscopy data in the physical sciences. His current research focuses on gaining mechanistic understanding of materials degradation in fusion relevant environments to inform the design and materials qualification of fusion energy power plants.
Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro
Dr Reyes-Aldasoro is an interdisciplinary scientist with interest in Computer Science, Engineering and Life Sciences, in particular the analysis of data from Cancer, Microcirculation and Inflammation with computational techniques. He has specialised in Biomedical Image Analysis and has more than 20 years of experience in the area and has hands-on experience with several imaging techniques like light, fluorescent and multiphoton microscopy. Dr Reyes-Aldasoro is author of a book (Biomedical Image Analysis Recipes in MATLAB: For Life Scientists and Engineers, 2015, Wiley), has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, numerous conference papers, edited several conference proceedings and special issues in prestigious journals like Medical Image Analysis. He is academic editor of PLoS ONE, Immuno-Informatics and previously of Oncology News.
He has a degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (UNAM, Mexico), MSc in Electrical Engineering (Imperial College) and PhD in Computer Science (Warwick) and worked as a Research Associate and Fellow at the Department of Surgical Oncology, School of Medicine of The University of Sheffield. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science at City, University of London where he is currently supervising 5 doctoral students and has supervised 5 to completion.
Thomas Slater
Tom is a Lecturer in Electron Microscopy in the School of Chemistry at Cardiff University. His research primarily focuses on electron microscopy of nanoparticle catalysts, particularly understanding their three-dimensional structure and monitoring their evolution in reaction conditions. He has developed python packages for analysing nanoparticles from electron microscopy images and for elemental analysis using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.
He obtained an MPhys (2011) and PhD (2015) from the University of Manchester, where his PhD was supervised by Sarah Haigh. He subsequently worked as a postdoc in the group of Phil Withers at Manchester, linking X-ray tomography to 3D electron microscopy by developing correlative workflows. From 2018 – 2022, he was an Electron Microscopy Scientist at the ePSIC facility at Diamond Light Source, before taking up his current position at Cardiff University.
Dana Perry
Dana is a Microscopy Specialist at the Natural History Museum. She received her BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science from the University of Surrey, then obtained a PhD from the same university in 2023, in collaboration with The Pirbright Institute. This PhD project involved a range of microscopy techniques, including FRAP and STED, to study intracellular structures induced by HSV-1 infection. She has since moved into a core facility role at the Natural History Museum, running the Light Microscopy Facility, which includes supporting a variety of curation- and research-based projects involving basic light and confocal microscopy.
AGM
The 2024 Annual General Meeting of the Data Analysis in Imaging Section of the Royal Microscopical Society will take place on Wednesday 2 October 2024 during the Microscopy: Advances, Innovation, Impact 2024 Meeting.
All the Society’s AGMs are free to attend for both members and non-members.