Thea Brüsch
Image:
Private

Thea Brüsch

My Research Stay at Visual Intelligence: Thea Brüsch

Thea Brüsch is a PhD student at the Section for Cognitive Systems at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). She visited the UiT Machine Learning Group from January to June 2024.

My Research Stay at Visual Intelligence: Thea Brüsch

By: Petter Bjørklund, Communication Advisor at SFI Visual Intelligence

Thea Brüsch is a PhD student at the Section for Cognitive Systems at the Technical University of Denmark. She is working with biomedical time series data from different perspectives, focusing mostly on self-supervised learning as a tool for learning powerful representations from unlabelled biomedical time series. Brüsch visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from January to June 2024.

What's your name and current affiliation?

My name is Thea Brüsch. I am a PhD student at the Section for Cognitive Systems at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). I have been visiting the Machine Learning Group at UiT from January to June 2024.

Can you tell us about your PhD project?

During my PhD, I have been working with biomedical time series data from different perspectives. Most progress in deep learning has been made in computer vision and natural language processing with less emphasis on time series. However, time series data is important for many medical tasks, and assisted decision making could alleviate the burden from many doctors. In the beginning of my PhD, I have focused mostly on self-supervised learning as a tool for learning powerful representations from unlabelled biomedical time series. Recently, I have shifted my focus towards explainability for time series.

Why did you choose Tromsø and Visual Intelligence for your research stay?

In the spring of 2023, I was looking for a place to do my external stay. My supervisor already knew Robert Jenssen and suggested that Tromsø might be a good place. I was intrigued by the idea of living in Norway, since I have always loved the nature here. I also had a really good impression of the group based on their published work. I therefore came for a short visit in September 2023 to ensure that our interests aligned. During my visit, I met with a lot of people from the group and brainstormed ideas for projects. I wanted to shift my research focus to explainability, and it became clear that both Robert and Kristoffer had a lot of expertise in this areas and that our interests overlapped.

What has been the outcome of your research stay?

During my stay, I have had the opportunity to work with professor Robert Jenssen and associate professor Kristoffer Wickstrøm on masking based methods for explainability. This has resulted in two completed manuscripts, one with Kristoffer in the lead, and one with myself as first author, as well as a lot of ideas for extensions. I also became involved in a project with Suaiba and Magnus on visualizations using t-SNE methods. All have been very fruitful collaborations that I hope to continue building on.

How was life in Tromsø?

I came to Tromsø during the dark time in January and got to experience the northern lights. The spring was filled with a lot of skiing – both cross country and skitouring. And finally, summer time offered hiking under the midnight sun. The entire group has been extremely welcoming towards me and invited me to all sorts of social activities – something that I am extremely grateful for. I am leaving Tromsø with a lot of new friends and great collaborators. All in all, my stay has been everything that I wished for and much more!

Latest news

Visual Intelligence evaluated by international experts: "The centre operates at an excellent level"

April 29, 2025

After four years of operation, an international AI expert panel was appointed to assess Visual Intelligence's progress and results. The evaluation was characterized by its excellent remarks on the centre's scientific quality and innovation output.

Visual Intelligence at Norsk Radiografforbund's mammography symposium

April 24, 2025

Senior Researcher Fredrik Dahl recently gave a talk about Norsk Regnesentral's work on developing AI algorithms for automatic analysis of image quality and cancer detection at Norsk Radiografforbund's mammography symposium in Oslo.

Michael Kampffmeyer receives UiT's Young Researcher Award

April 4, 2025

Michael Kampffmeyer is one of UiT's youngest professors and has already distinguished himself through his contributions to AI research. He has now won UiT's award for young researchers at the university's annual celebration.

Visual Intelligence Annual Report 2024

April 2, 2025

The fifth Visual Intelligence annual report, showcasing the centre's activities, results, staff, funding and publications for 2024, is now available on our web pages.

uit.no: UiT er vertskap for landsdekkende KI-konferanse

April 1, 2025

I juni møtes det norske KI-miljøet i Tromsø for å presentere ny forskning og diskutere nye retninger innen feltet. KI-forskere inviteres til å delta og vise fram forskningen sin under konferansen.

Successful Industry Pitch Day at UiT

March 20, 2025

Visual Intelligence and the Digital Innovation Lab invited industry professionals to present ideas for master's projects to computer science and machine learning students at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Dagens Næringsliv: Norges eldste fagmiljø innen KI

March 18, 2025

Kunstig intelligens (KI) endrer måten vi løser komplekse problemer på. Ved UiT Norges arktiske universitet leder professor Robert Jenssen Visual Intelligence, et senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon som utvikler neste generasjons KI-metoder.

Visual Intelligence at the UiT Open Day in Tromsø

March 13, 2025

Visual Intelligence researchers had the great pleasure of talking to high school students about the AI study programme at UiT The Arctic University of Norway during the UiT Open Day‍‍.

Visual Intelligence represented at CuttingEdgeAI seminar

March 11, 2025

Director Robert Jenssen represented Visual Intelligence at the CuttingEdgeAI seminar "KI anno 2023: I offentlighetens interesse?" at the University of Bergen on March 7th.

forskning.no: Derfor fungerer KI dårligere på kvinner

March 8, 2025

Det hender at kunstig intelligens behandler menn og kvinner ulikt. Hvordan skjer dette? KI-forsker Elisabeth Wetzer forklarer hva som ligger bak skjevhetene i teknologien (Popular science story in forskning.no and sciencenorway.no)

Visual Intelligence at TEKdagen 2025

February 11, 2025

We had the pleasure of talking to students about the exciting career opportunities at Visual Intelligence and UiT The Arctic University of Norway during TEKdagen 2025

School visit from Breivang upper secondary school

February 5, 2025

Last week, we welcomed students from Breivang upper secondary school to a full-day practical session on AI and programming at UiT The Arctic University of Norway