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

Anders Waldeland receives the Digital Trailblazer Award 2025

December 4, 2025

Congratulations to Senior Research Scientist Anders Waldeland, who was awarded the Digital Trailblazer Award 2025 at the Dig X Subsurface conference in Oslo, Norway.

sciencenorway.no: AI can help detect heart diseases more quickly

December 3, 2025

Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence that can automatically measure the heart's structure – both quickly and accurately (Popular science article on sciencenorway.no)

State Secretary Marianne Wilhelmsen visits SFI Visual Intelligence and UiT

November 26, 2025

State Secretary Marianne Wilhelmsen visited UiT The Arctic University of Norway to learn more about SFI Visual Intelligence and UiT's AI initiatives in education and research.

TV2.no: Sier Elon Musk er smartere enn Leonardo da Vinci

November 25, 2025

KI-chatboten Grok har fortalt brukere at verdens rikeste mann er både smartere og sprekere enn noen andre i verden – inkludert basketballstjernen LeBron James og Leonardo da Vinci (Norwegian news article on tv2.no)

Successful science communication workshop at Skibotn

November 21, 2025

The Visual Intelligence Graduate School gathered our early career researchers for a 3-Day Science Communication workshop at Skibotn field station outside of Tromsø, Norway.

uit.no: UiT og Aker Nscale sammen om storsatsing på kunstig intelligens

November 19, 2025

Onsdag inngikk Aker Nscale og UiT Norges arktiske universitet en ti-årig samarbeidsavtale for å utvikle og styrke kompetansemiljøene for kunstig intelligens i Narvik og Nord-Norge. Aker Nscale garanterer for 100 millioner kroner i avtaleperioden (news story on uit.no)

Two fruitful days at The Alan Turing Institute's headquarters

November 17, 2025

Centre Director Robert Jenssen and PhD Candidate Lars Uebbing had two fruitful days together with researchers at The Alan Turing Institute's headquarters in London

Anders Waldeland nominated for the Digital Trailblazer 2025 Award

November 12, 2025

Senior Research Scientist Anders Waldeland is nominated for the Digital Trailblazer 2025 Award. The winner is announced at the Dig X Subsurface conference in Oslo, Norway in December.

AI can help detect heart diseases more quickly

November 7, 2025

Visual Intelligence researchers have developed an AI to automatically measure the heart's structure – both quickly and accurately. They believe it can help doctors detect and treat cardiovascular diseases faster.

How can PET and AI help detect prostate cancer earlier?

November 5, 2025

Samuel Kuttner and Elin Kile presented research on PET and artificial intelligence at evening seminar on early detection of prostate cancer organized by the Norwegian Prostate Cancer Assocation.

Visual Intelligence represented at Svarte Natta 2025

October 29, 2025

Centre Director Robert Jenssen represented Visual Intelligence at Svarte Natta 2025 – North Norway's journalist and media conference organized by the Norwegian Union of Journalists.

My Research Stay at Visual Intelligence: Aitor Sánchez

October 5, 2025

Aitor Sánchez is a PhD candidate at the Intelligent Systems Group of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. He visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from March to June 2025.