D.Phil PROJECTS

Please contact me if you would like to discuss research D.Phil opportunities in MRI neuroimaging relevant to our research activities.

I'm sorry, I am not able to offer research internships, shadowing or work experience placements.

Sources of Funding

• Medical Research Council
• British Medical Association
• HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust

Updated V4 of our online self-paced Oxford Clinical Neuroimaging Course is now live. Registrations open until early Spring 2025.

If you are a clinical trainee, work with clinical populations, or generally have some experience with imaging and would like to learn more about the very practical uses of MRI in clinical settings, please do click on the link to see the full programme.

Research Summary

Our translational research uses non-invasive MRI brain imaging techniques to understand how disease and damage affects brain function. Our main area of research is patients who are undergoing brain surgery to treat a brain tumour. 

Our goal is to develop a better understanding of how the functional networks of the brain, and their underlying structural pathways, support function. Such understanding may enable us to identify patterns of brain activity that predict individual risks and recovery potential after neurosurgical treatment. This multidisciplinary research, based at the FMRIB Centre, is conducted in close collaboration with the Oxford Neuro-Oncology Surgery service and Glioma research group and the Oxford Epilepsy Surgery Programme as well as colleagues in the Department of Engineering.

Additional interests include the effects of head trauma on the brain, especially in children. This is a project spearheaded by Consultant neurosurgeon Tim Lawrence (more details on the TBI research group page).

Biography

I am an Associate Professor at the FMRIB Centre (part of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging). 

I studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford (1999-2002). I then completed a D.Phil at the FMRIB Centre (2002-2005) under the supervision of Prof. Paul Matthews focused on Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.  Following a post-doctoral position with Prof. Tipu Aziz’s Deep Brain Stimulation research group, I spent 3 years as imaging scientist at the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Imaging Centre (now Imanova). There, we assessed the sensitivity of multi-modal neuroimaging measures as early markers of efficacy for drugs targeting memory impairment among others.  In 2009, I moved to the MNI to work in the NeuroImaging of Epilepsy laboratory for a short post-doctoral fellowship. I returned to the Oxford FMRIB Centre on a MRC Fellowship later that year.