CV

Profile

Bioscience Engineer with an additional Master’s in Artificial Intelligence, combining expertise in life sciences with computational skills. I have applied AI across diverse domains, from medical imaging in ophthalmology to biosignal and activity recognition, with a focus on improving disease detection, monitoring, and decision-making. My interdisciplinary research integrates deep learning, image analysis, and signal processing, with experience in foundation model fine-tuning, multimodal data fusion, and development of custom loss functions. I bring strong problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, developed through interdisciplinary research.

Skills

Computer Vision: semantic segmentation (SwinV2), activity recognition (YOLOv8 + motion detection), disease classification (Alzheimer, Glaucoma), annotation platforms (Lirot.AI) video, hyperspectral imaging, feature extraction (e.g. texture)

ML/AI: theoretical foundation in ML, DL, NLP, CV (CNNs, ViT, VLM), following latest research in CV (e.g. DINOv3) and open-source models (HuggingFace)

Communication & Languages: scientific writing & presentations, cross-disciplinary teamwork (Life sciences & computer science); Dutch (native), English (fluent)

Software Engineering: Python (PyTorch, OpenCV), testing (pytest); CI/CD (Git/GitLab), model export (ONNX)

Research Experience

Interdisciplinary research between Research Group Ophthalmology and Biomedical Signal Processing (KU Leuven) – Jan 2024-present

Multimodal retinal imaging for early Alzheimer’s disease detection

• End-to-end pipeline (IQA, preprocessing, feature extraction, multimodal classification); best model achieved AUC 0.84
• Found novel texture biomarkers in hyperspectral retinal imaging
• Assessed repeatability and reproducibility of image biomarkers

Multi-Source Domain Adaptation for Glaucoma Classification

• Addressing domain shift across different imaging devices and demographics by leveraging Vision Foundation Models (VFM) pre-trained with self-supervised learning
• Using multi-source domain fine-tuning and implementing domain adaptation techniques

Artery and vein segmentation in fundus image and video data & subsequent parameter extraction

• Implemented custom loss functions to preserve correct topology, ensuring temporal consistency in video segmentation
• Assessed repeatability of extracted vascular parameters (PVBM toolbox)

Research Internship Clouds of Care, Gent – August – September 2023

• Research on the bi-directional link between sleep and dementia
• Developing 1D-CNN for sleep spindle detection in EEG sleep data

Education

• Master of Science: Artificial Intelligence, KU Leuven, 2022-2023
  • Thesis: Developing an automatic seizure detection algorithm to facilitate treatment of patients with epilepsy using multimodal wearable sensor data (EEG, EMG, ACC)
• Master in Bioscience Engineering: Human Health Engineering, KU Leuven, 2020-2022
  • Thesis: Developing a camera-based activity recognition algorithm by combining object detection (YOLOv8) with motion detection (GMM)
• Bachelor in Bioscience Engineering, KU Leuven, 2017-2020
  • Undergraduate Thesis: researched bacterial protein aggregates, their induction, localization, and impact on cellular function (Selected as a finalist for the Student Research Awards)

Publications

• M. Ghesquiere et al., “Seeing the light: Hyperspectral retinal imaging as a surrogate marker for early stage Alzheimer’s disease,” Acta Ophthalmologica, vol. 103, no. S284, 2025, doi: 10.1111/aos.17369.
• Willems, S., Ghesquiere, M., Liu, D., Mounir, M., & Norton, T. (2022). ‘Development of a camera-based hybrid approach for the early detection of poultry red mite-related behaviors in individual laying hens’. Department of Biosystems, KU Leuven, Belgium

Conferences

• European Glaucoma Society (EGS) 16th congress – 1-4 June, 2024
• European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER) congress – 3-5 November, 2024

Volunteering

• Manager of the Faculty Bar, LBK, Leuven
  • Managing a team of 15+ people, communicating with external organizations, and solving any problems pertaining to the bar’s function
• Leader & Board Member, KLJ Hagelstein
  • Animator and active member of the KLJ youth movement organization