A method and system for characterizing cell motion comprising: receiving image data corresponding to a set of images of a cell culture captured at a set of time points; segmenting, from at least one image of the set of images, a cell subpopulation from the cell culture; determining a resting signal for the cell subpopulation; determining a single-peak motion signal based upon the set of images, the set of time points, and the resting signal; detrending the single-peak motion signal of the cell subpopulation based upon the resting signal; determining values of a set of motion features of the cell subpopulation, thereby characterizing cell motion; and clustering the cell subpopulation with at least one other cell subpopulation based upon at least one of the single-peak motion signal and a value of the set of motion features.