Tieme is a psychiatrist with a background in biology. As a psychiatrist he treats people with a severe mental illness. He works in an assertive community treatment team in Franeker at GGZ Friesland. 

Next to his clinical work he is a PhD student at the Animal Behaviour and Cognition Group of Utrecht University (NL) studying mental illness in human and non-human primates.

Tieme received his bachelors degree in life sciences at the University of Groningen, after which he switched to medicine. In 2017 he finished medical school at University of  Groningen. He completed his residency at Parnassia Groep Rotterdam and the University center of psychiatry Groningen. 

His interdisciplinary research is on the interface between ethology and psychiatry. 

He is studying the nature and prevalence of severe mental illnesses in primates. Currently his focus is on the nature and prevalence of major depressive disorder in various macaque species living in social conditions. 

His aim is to understand more of the evolutionary history of mental illness and to validate ethological methods to diagnose mental illnesses in human and non-human primates.