Dr Ben Cardoen MSc PhD

Dr Ben Cardoen

School of Mathematics
Research Fellow

Contact details

Address
School of Mathematics
Watson Builting
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Cardoen's current interests lie at the intersection of digital twins, functional discovery, image analysis, and long tail or sparse evidence from complex high-dimensional data. In the context of ageing and inflammation he designs algorithms that recover the minimal causal signature for pathologies.

Personal webpage

Qualifications

  • BSc in Computer Science, University of Antwerp, 2015
  • MSc in Computer Science, University of Antwerp, 2017
  • PhD in Computing Science, Simon Fraser University, 2024

Biography

After receiving a BSc (2015) and MSc (2017) from the University of Antwerp, Dr Cardoen moved to Canada to complete his PhD (2024) at Simon Fraser University. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of British Columbia (2025), he started a fellowship position at the University of Birmingham (2025).

Postgraduate supervision

Topological analysis, biomedical image analysis, long tail/imbalanced machine learning.

Research

Research themes

  • Topological analysis
  • Streaming graphs
  • Biomedical image analysis
  • Long tail/imbalanced statistical learning
  • Belief theory
  • Digital twins
  • Simulation

Research activity

Dr Cardoen focuses on designing scalable, interpretable algorithms to enable novel scientific discovery from biomedical imaging data at multiple scales ranging from diffuse optical tomography (DOT) to confocal and superresolution microscopy (SRM, STED, SMLM, dSTORM). He leverages and extends concepts from several fields: fuzzy computing (belief theory, information fusion) to simulation (discrete event simulators, agent based simulation), graph algorithms, vector fields, recurrent neural networks, and structural causal discovery from complex data.

Application domains range from degenerative (Alzheimer, ALS, ageing) to metabolic (diabetes) and infectious disease, with a specific focus on elucidating subcellular function from complex data. Whenever possible he prefers to design algorithms that push beyond the empirical resolution limits of modalities and that are adaptive or robust to complex noise models.