Global experts helping us build what patients need

Prof Freitag has been Optellum’s Chief Medical Advisor since 2020. A globally renowned interventional pulmonologist, he brings over 40 years of expertise in pulmonary medicine. He has held leading roles, including Chief of Pneumology at Ruhrlandklinik and professorships at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Renowned for advancing interventional pulmonology, he has developed numerous medical devices and holds over 100 patents. Additionally, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Tulane, sharing his knowledge and fostering global collaboration in respiratory care.

Prof Gleeson has played a key role in Optellum’s major clinical studies. He is Head of Academic Radiology at the University of Oxford and a consultant radiologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. With over 200 peer-reviewed papers, he is internationally recognized for his contributions to thoracic imaging and lung cancer research. His accolades include the Barclay Medal and the Roentgen Professorship. Prof Gleeson has served as President of the European Society of Thoracic Imaging, Editor of the British Journal of Radiology, and Chief Investigator for multiple UK multicenter trials, including IDEAL.

Prof Janes has advised Optellum since 2018. He is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Head of the Respiratory Research Department at UCL, as well as a respiratory consultant at UCLH specializing in lung cancer and advanced bronchoscopy. After earning a PhD in cancer cell survival, he conducted postdoctoral research at Cancer Research UK. A Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow, he has pioneered cell therapies and led national trials like the SUMMIT Study. With over 150 publications, he also serves as Vice Chair of the National Clinical Expert Group on Lung Cancer.

Dr Munden has collaborated with Optellum on numerous US-based clinical studies. He is Professor and Chair of Radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where he also completed his radiology residency. A MUSC graduate, he holds an MBA from Auburn University and completed a thoracic imaging fellowship at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. With experience in private practice, academic medicine, and hospital leadership, Dr Munden brings a unique perspective to advancing patient care, research, and education. He is recognized for his contributions to thoracic imaging and lung cancer screening.

Václav co-founded Optellum in 2016, driven by his passion for tackling some of the biggest healthcare problems with AI. Prior to this, he spent several years as a medical imaging scientist with Siemens Healthineers and then a product manager with Hocoma. In these roles, he gained deep expertise in robotics and AI, as well as how to build and manage innovative products and projects.

He holds Master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computational biology, as well as a PhD in Computer Vision from the University of Oxford.

Dr Declerck is a medical imaging expert and cofounder of Optellum. He completed a PhD in medical image processing at Université Côte d’Azur in France, after training in applied mathematics at CentraleSupélec. He held postdoctoral roles at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford, where he worked on cardiac and echocardiography motion analysis. He then took on senior scientific and leadership roles at Oxford Medical Image Analysis, Mirada Solutions, and Siemens Molecular Imaging, directing teams that delivered pioneering applications in oncology, cardiology, and neurology, and managing more than 100 intellectual property filings. At Optellum, he served as Vice President of R&D and COO, focusing on translating advanced image analysis and machine learning into regulated, clinically deployed software for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Dr Kadir is a computer vision and medical imaging AI leader and cofounder of Optellum. He worked at the University of Oxford on the Kadir–Brady saliency detector, a foundational method in feature detection, and completed doctoral research on saliency and image description at Oxford supervised by Sir Mike Brady. He has held scientific and product leadership roles spanning Siemens Molecular Imaging and Mirada Medical, where he served as Chief Science & Technology Officer. His industry focus is translating algorithms into regulated clinical products, including invited talks on moving from algorithm to 510(k) adoption. He is an inventor on multiple medical image analysis patents, covering multi-model detection, characterization, and workflow optimization for thoracic CT. His expertise spans model design, calibration, and deployment for lung imaging, with an emphasis on building clinically deployable, vendor-agnostic AI that supports risk stratification and real-world workflow integration.

Prof Zisserman is the Royal Society Research Professor of Computer Vision Engineering at the University of Oxford and a research leader at Google DeepMind. He is one of the principal architects of modern computer vision, known for foundational work in multiple view geometry. His group’s deep learning research produced the VGG family of convolutional networks that helped set early benchmarks for image recognition and transfer learning, and his current work spans large-scale machine learning for visual understanding. He cofounded Vision Factory, an Oxford spin-out focused on deep learning for visual recognition, which was acquired by Google in 2014 and integrated into Google DeepMind. His recognition includes election to the Royal Society, the Royal Society Milner Award, and the Royal Society Bakerian Medal and Lecture. He is the only person to have won the Marr Prize three times (the ICCV best paper award and one of the field’s highest honors).

Ellen is an industry advisor for Optellum with over 20 years of experience in healthcare administration and oncology service line leadership. Most recently, she served as the Vice President of Cancer Service Line Administration at Advocate Health. Her background includes senior leadership roles at UChicago Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. A Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), and she holds a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA). Ellen specializes in large-scale service line growth and introducing innovative technology into clinical workflows.

Bob has been a long-time advisor and investor in Optellum. A seasoned healthcare executive, he has held senior leadership roles at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Norton Cancer Institute, Stony Brook Medicine, and Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. With a BS in Business Administration and an MS in Healthcare Administration from Trinity University, Bob has led initiatives in clinical integration, physician development, research, mergers, and population health. He also contributes to healthcare leadership development as an adjunct faculty member and Executive in Residence at Trinity University.

Dr Weiss advises Optellum on hospital IT and informatics. He is the Medical Director of Health Informatics at Rochester Regional Health, bringing over 15 years of expertise and experience in clinical, product, and executive informatics leadership. He earned his medical degree from Oregon Health & Science University and completed his pediatrics residency at the University of Chicago. Previously, he served as Chief Medical Information Officer at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Chief Health Informatics Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Leveraging a data-driven and design-thinking approach to inform digital health strategies, he works to improve healthcare access and delivery, and health outcomes.

Hugh is a healthcare technology executive, founder and former CEO of Mirada Medical, an Oxford-based imaging software company. Over more than two decades in medical software and digital health he has focused on building and scaling AI imaging solutions used in oncology and radiology workflows, guiding product and regulatory strategy, and commercial execution. He holds a computer science degree from the University of Nottingham. He brings practical expertise in enterprise healthcare software, hospital deployment, and go-to-market strategy across US, UK, and European markets.