Dave Barry
BioImage Analysis Lead, Francis Crick Institute
Imaging • AI • FAIR Data
About Recent Projects Talks & Training CV Publications Contact
I lead bioimage analysis at the Francis Crick Institute, where we develop scalable, reproducible analytical pipelines - increasingly powered by AI and deep learning - for complex biomedical imaging across the institute's 100+ research groups. My route here was an unusual one: from electronic engineering, through years of hands-on experimental biology, into computational and research infrastructure. That arc means I work across the whole pipeline - from sample, to scalable analysis, to FAIR data - and increasingly at the intersection of imaging, AI, and spatial omics. I'm a committed advocate of open-source tools, FAIR data, and making rigorous quantitative analysis accessible to the wider community, through national infrastructure, community building, and openly licensed training.
Recent Projects
I build and lead teams, services, and community around bioimage analysis and research data:
- BioImage Analysis Lead & Deputy Head, Crick Advanced Light Microscopy - I lead the institute's image-analysis team, delivering ML and deep-learning pipelines on HPC for 100+ research groups, and help run one of Europe's largest academic light-microscopy facilities. Current focus: extending into spatial biology and spatial omics, and critically evaluating agentic AI for research workflows.
- UK-BIAS - Founder and lead of a national virtual bioimage-analysis network: 12 analysts across 10 UK institutions, developed as a component of the Euro-BioImaging UK Node, widening access to expert image analysis.
- CBIAS - Crick BioImage Analysis Symposium - Founder and organiser since 2020 of an annual international symposium (150+ attendees) bringing together researchers, analysts, funders, and industry.
- RMS-DAIM - Founding committee member of the Royal Microscopical Society's Data Analysis in Imaging section, designing and delivering training across institutions in the UK and Ireland.
- Open-source tools - I develop and maintain open analytical software for the community.
Talks & Training
My slides and training materials are openly licensed under CC-BY and deposited on Zenodo - please reuse them.
CV
BioImage Analysis Lead & Deputy Head, Crick Advanced Light Microscopy (2021–Present) • Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
BioImage Analyst (2017–2021) • Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
Postdoctoral Fellow (2010–2016) • Way Lab, CRUK London Research Institute, London, UK
PhD, Quantitative Imaging (2005–2010) • Technological University Dublin (formerly Dublin Institute of Technology), Ireland
BEng, Electronic Engineering (2000–2004) • University College Dublin, Ireland
Publications
For the full, current list: Google Scholar • ORCID