PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Koen Van Leemput

Koen Van Leemput is a professor of AI-Health at Aalto University whose group develops generative probabilistic models for measuring and interpreting brain MRI scans. After an MSc in 1997 and a PhD in 2001 in electrical engineering at KU Leuven, he worked at Helsinki University Central Hospital from 2002 to 2007, at MIT from 2007 to 2010, at the Martinos Center and Harvard Medical School from 2007, and at the Technical University of Denmark from 2011. He is one of the instigators of the BRATS brain tumor segmentation challenge, and in 2020 he coauthored SynthSeg and a lesion-segmentation extension of the SAMSEG tool in FreeSurfer. In February 2023 he joined Aalto, where he leads the Medical Image Computing group and is principal investigator of the EU project CLAIMS on AI-assisted care. He is Professor of AI-Health in the departments of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering and of Computer Science.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1997–2001

    Engineering degrees at KU Leuven

    He earns an MSc in Electrical Engineering in 1997 and a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2001, both at KU Leuven in Belgium.

  2. 2002–2007

    Research scientist in Helsinki

    From 2002 to 2007, he works as a research scientist at the Helsinki University Central Hospital.

  3. 2007–2010

    MIT and the Martinos Center

    He works as a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2007 to 2010. In 2007, he also joins the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

  4. 2011

    Joining the Technical University of Denmark

    He joins the Technical University of Denmark in 2011.

  5. 2018

    The BRATS tumor challenge

    He is one of the instigators of the Multimodal Brain Tumor Segmentation Challenge (BRATS), held yearly with the MICCAI conference. In 2018, he is a coauthor of a study that assesses the machine learning methods used in the BraTS challenge instances from 2012 to 2018.

  6. 2020

    SAMSEG and SynthSeg

    In 2020, he coauthors SynthSeg, a deep learning strategy for contrast-agnostic segmentation of unpreprocessed brain MRI, and a contrast-adaptive method that segments white matter lesions and brain structures together; the second method is part of FreeSurfer's SAMSEG tool. Methods he has developed are included in the open-source packages FreeSurfer and SimNIBS.

  7. Since February 2023

    Professor of AI-Health at Aalto

    In February 2023, he joins Aalto University's Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering as a professor, with an affiliation in the Department of Computer Science, and leads the Medical Image Computing group. From June 2023, he is principal investigator of the EU project CLAIMS (CLinical impact through AI-assisted MS care), and in 2023 he coauthors a lightweight generative model for interpretable subject-level prediction. As Professor of AI-Health, he invites applications in 2026 for two fully funded PhD positions in his group.

Career

  1. Since 2023Aalto UniversityProfessor of AI-Health
  2. From 2011Technical University of Denmark
  3. 2007–2010Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyResearch scientist
  4. From 2007Mass General Brigham
  5. From 2007Harvard Medical School
  6. 2002–2007Helsinki University Central HospitalResearch scientist

Education

  1. 2001KU LeuvenPhD
  2. 1997KU LeuvenMSc

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Aalto University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Aalto University. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Aalto University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Koen Van Leemput's Homepage users.aalto.fi. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Identifying the Best Machine Learning Algorithms for Brain Tumor Segmentation, Progression Assessment, and Overall Survival Prediction in the BRATS Challenge arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Samseg (cross-sectional, longitudinal, MS lesions) - FreeSurfer Wiki surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. A Contrast-Adaptive Method for Simultaneous Whole-Brain and Lesion Segmentation in MS arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. A Learning Strategy for Contrast-agnostic MRI Segmentation arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Koen Van Leemput decodes medical scans with artificial intelligence | Aalto University aalto.fi. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Koen Van Leemput - Aalto University's research portal research.aalto.fi. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. A Lightweight Generative Model for Interpretable Subject-level Prediction arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.