29 Jan 18. Martin Connell Obituary

The service is being held at the Old Gourock & Ashton Parish Church, Gourock.

A Memorial Service for Martin Connell is being held on Tuesday 30 January.

Martin Connell passed away suddenly while getting ready for his retirement.  

Working within the NHS Medical Physics department, most of his time over the past many years was spent in supporting the development of high level imaging-based assessment of diseases, ranging from neurology to cardiology and respiratory medicine.

"He was a truly brilliant mind, who would challenge the validity of statements and research studies. Often, he would follow this up by demonstrating his own findings, and as such, he often served as the person who would hold us to account to ensure the best possible research (and patient applications) could be realised.

Martin spent four decades applying his formidable computing skills to solving image analysis problems in medical research. He had a special interest in cardiac and lung studies, and was developing methods to improve the images from Edinburgh’s new PET-MR scanner. 

During his career he worked with hardware ranging from a room-sized departmental computer that had less processing power than today’s washing machines, through to the latest University supercomputer facility running thousands of computational jobs simultaneously. Very much at home with Unix and command line syntax, he remained wary of modern graphics-based systems. He was always ready to share his knowledge with colleagues and students.

Quiet and modest about his personal and professional achievements, Martin could nonetheless surprise colleagues by talking enthusiastically about Irish rugby and his skiing adventures.  He will be missed by all.”

 

Memorial Service:

Martin’s family extend a warm invitation to friends and colleagues who are able to attend.

The service is being held at the Old Gourock & Ashton Parish Church, Gourock, PA19 1PW at 12.45 on Tues 30th January.

Directions available http://ogachurch.org.uk/  

There will be a retiring collection at the Church split between the RNLI and the local Ardgowan Hospice.