Mathias K. Hauglid
We congratulate Mathias K. Hauglid for successfully defending his PhD dissertation and achieving the PhD degree in Law at UiT The Arctic University of Norway on April 26th 2024.
We congratulate Mathias K. Hauglid for successfully defending his PhD dissertation and achieving the PhD degree in Law at UiT The Arctic University of Norway on April 26th 2024.
His thesis, "Bias and Discrimination in Clinical Decision Support Systems Based on Artificial Intelligence", explores and systematizes different types of biases and their sources, focusing on the extent to which biases in clinical decision support systems based on artificial intelligence can amount to ‘discrimination’ as defined in EU law.
The title of Hauglid's trial lecture, "The Role of European Human Rights Law in Relation to AI systems: Past, Present, and Future".
Supervisors:
Evaluation committee:
One of the most promising utilisations of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare is Clinical Decision Support (AI-CDS) systems: AI systems that support clinical assessments and decision-making by producing relevant classifications and predictions that may be relied on by clinicians and patients. However, an oft-cited concern is that AI systems can be ‘biased’ – a nebulous term often used to describe certain undesirable side-effects of AI. There exists a widespread apprehension that the use of AI to aid decision-making might, due to the presence of ‘bias,’ produce results that amount to discrimination. In response to various risks associated with AI systems, the EU legislature has proposed a common European regulatory framework for AI systems – the Artificial Intelligence Act. While facilitating innovation and trade, the AI Act aims to ensure the effective protection of the safety and fundamental rights of EU citizens, including the right to non-discrimination. Particularly, the proposed AI Act will require that certain preventive measures are taken to ensure compliance with applicable requirements before AI systems can lawfully be deployed in the EU. These preventive measures may, in one form or another, require that discrimination in AI systems must be assessed before deployment. The assessment of discrimination in an AI-CDS system before its deployment invokes the need for development of appropriate assessment methodologies. The objective of the thesis is to develop certain methodological elements of assessing discrimination in these systems in a pre-deployment setting. More precisely, the thesis sets out to develop considerations, principles, criteria, and methods that ought to be included in a pre-deployment discrimination assessment based on the non-discrimination principle in EU law. As a foundation for the development of these methodological elements, the thesis explores the issue of ‘bias’ in AI-CDS systems and the mechanisms through which equality-related biases may occur in these systems.
The Visual Intelligence Annual Report 2025, highlighting the centre's progress, activities, achieved innovations, staff, funding, and publications for 2025, is now available to read on our websites.
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Congratulations to Centre Director Robert Jenssen, who received UiT's Research and Development Award at the university's annual celebration.
Visual Intelligence researchers contributed to the Pioneer Centre for AI workshop on Electronic Health Records research. The aim was to strengthen ties between the two centres on EHR-related research.
Tre av studentene i sivilingeniør i Kunstig Intelligens ved UiT skal delta i NM i KI. Slik gikk det da de ble intervjuet ved hjelp av kunstig intelligens (News article on nordlys.no).
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Rami Al-Belmpeisi is a PhD Research Fellow in the Visual Computing section at DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark. He visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from November 2025 to February 2026.
Visual Intelligence researchers came to the UiT Open Day to inform the students about UiT's study programme, and inspire them to pursue AI-related studies and career paths.
Congratulations to our colleague Michael Kampffmeyer, who received the Fridtjof Nansen Prize for Young Researchers in 2026.
We happily welcome Rahul Baburajan as a new PhD Research Fellow at SFI Visual Intelligence's hub in Tromsø.
Congratulations to our colleague Sarina Thomas, who has been recognized as one of Norway's Top 50 Women in Tech!
Elisabeth Wetzer forsker på hvordan maskiner kan lære å analysere medisinske bilder – og samtidig forstå hva legene faktisk ser etter (Norwegian news article on dagsavisen.no)
Visual Intelligence researchers organized a preparatory course for UiT AI students who are attending this year's Norwegian AI Championship.
We happily welcome Veronica Lachi and Qing Liu as new Associate Professors at SFI Visual Intelligence.
Artur Radzivil is a PhD Research Fellow at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. He visited Visual Intelligence in Oslo from September to November 2025.
Congratulations to Marius Aasan, who successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Oslo on February 10th.
We had the pleasure of talking to UiT students about the career opportunities at SFI Visual Intelligence and UiT at TEKdagen 2026.
Centre Director Robert Jenssen met with Sigrun Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, alongside UiT and Aker Nscale representatives to give an update on Aker Nscale's AI Giga Factory in Narvik, Norway.
Zheming Xu is a PhD Research Fellow at Beijing Jiaotong University. She visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from September 2025 to January 2026.
Få kvinner søker seg til fag innenfor kunstig intelligens. Det kan skape blindsoner, mener ekspert (Norwegian news story in NRK.no).
Visual Intelligence was represented by Centre Director Robert Jenssen, Associate Professor Kristoffer Wickstrøm, and VI Alumna Sara Björk at the Arctic Frontiers side session "How can AI and satellite collaboration strengthen Arctic resilience?".
Petter Tømmeraas, Director of Data Center Services at Aker Nscale, visited SFI Visual Intelligence to learn more about our research projects and AI startups established by former UiT students.