Master Students

Mahdis is a Postgraduate student at the German Sport University of Cologne, studying M.Sc. Human Technology in Sports and Medicine. She works as a research assistant at the Institute of Biomechanics and Orthopedics and is trying to automate lower body bone (Femur, Pelvis) segmentation in both MRI and CT scans using Deep Learning. Mahdis is co-supervised by Prof. Uwe Kersting, Dr. Cynthia Fantini Pagani, and Dr. Bhushan Borotikar.

Caitlin is currently a Masters student at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in the Division of Biomedical Engineering. Her research aims to develop methods for image-based characterisation of the TMC joint (thumb) using the CT scans of participants (healthy volunteers and participants diagnosed with TMC Osteoarthritis) to ultimately determine the effects of three image-derived factors on the onset and progression of TMC OA. The three factors of interest - namely shape, pose, and intensity - will be extracted from the CT data and used to develop and validate dynamic multi feature-class Gaussian process models (DMFC-GPMs) representing both the control and OA affected datasets, as well as the combined dataset. Additionally, this project aims to make use of the models to determine if correlation exists between the shapes of the first metacarpal and trapezium bones; between the shape and pose feature classes; and between the shape and intensity feature classes. The results of this project may aid future research in the understanding of how joint function relates to the onset and progression of TMC OA. Future applications may include personalised preventative and treatment strategies; enhanced prosthesis design; bone quality estimation; and the prediction of subject-specific joint kinematics for surgical planning. Caitlin is co-supervised by Assoc. Prof. Tinashe Mutsvangwa of the UCT, Prof. Evie Vereecke from KU Leuven, Belgium, and Assoc. Prof. Bhushan Borotikar.