Dave Barry
BioImage Analysis Lead, Francis Crick Institute
Imaging × machine learning × research data
About Work & Leadership Talks & Training CV Publications Contact
I lead bioimage analysis at the Francis Crick Institute, where my team develops scalable, reproducible analytical pipelines — increasingly powered by machine learning 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 leadership. 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.
20 years in the field • 1,700+ citations across 30+ papers • 600+ researchers trained • reviewer for 20+ journals
Work & Leadership
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 across 17 imaging platforms, 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: 16 analysts across 10 UK institutions, developed as a proposed component of the Euro-BioImaging UK Node, widening access to expert image analysis.
- CBIAS — Crick BioImage Analysis Symposium — Founder and lead organiser since 2020 of an annual international symposium (200+ 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.
- BioFAIR — Member of the BBSRC/MRC review pool assessing proposals for national research-data infrastructure.
- Open-source tools — I develop and maintain open analytical software for the community, including GIANI for automated 3D microscopy analysis.
Talks & Training
All slides and training materials are openly available under a CC-BY licence on Zenodo — please reuse.
- Promoting Reproducibility in Biomedical Research • 22 July 2025
- Introduction to Image Analysis • 26 June 2025
- Introduction to Image Analysis • 14 April 2025
- Promoting Reproducibility in Biomedical Research through Image Analysis • 29 January 2025
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
1,700+ citations across 30+ papers. Selected:
- Barry, D. J. et al. (2022). GIANI — open-source software for automated analysis of 3D microscopy images. Journal of Cell Science.
- Marcotti, S., Gerontogianni, L., Kelly, G. & Barry, D. J. (2026). Practical statistics for bioimage analysis. Journal of Cell Science.
- Sivagurunathan, S. et al. (2024). Bridging imaging users to imaging analysis — a community survey. Journal of Microscopy.
- Jones, R. A., Renshaw, M. J. & Barry, D. J. (2024). Automated staging of zebrafish embryos with deep learning. Life Science Alliance.
For a full, up-to-date list: Google Scholar • ORCID