Prof Tim Cootes

After completing a degree in Mathematics and Physics at Exeter, Tim Cootes did a PhD in Civil Engineering, monitoring a storm sewer overflow in Sheffield. During this project he was introduced to the delights of computer vision, and shortly after completing it, he took up a research position at the University of Manchester. He has remained there ever since.

His research has focused on statistical models of shape and appearance, and how they can be used to understand variations across populations and to locate structures in new images.

The algorithms that he and colleagues invented have been adopted world-wide, and applied to many different application areas, including interpreting images of faces and medical image analysis. Tim was appointed as a lecturer at the University in 2001, and eventually became a Professor of Computer Vision in 2006.

He has been involved in a range of activities to translate research into real-world solutions.  His current focus is on applications of the technology in the musculoskeletal domain, particularly looking at diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.