Invited Speakers

IOP 2023 Thesis Prize Winner: The role of deep learning in structural and functional lung image analysis
Joshua Astley, University of Sheffield
Changing the pace: Bio-inspired pacemakers for treating heart failure
Ashok Chauhan, Ceryx Medical
MRI: technique, numbers, and democratisation
M’hamed Lakrimi, Siemens Healthineers
Translational Cardiac MR – From Model Systems to Clinical Applications and Back
Jürgen E. Schneider, Director, Experimental & Preclinical Imaging Centre (ePIC), University of Leeds
Women’s hearts are superior and it’s killing them
Hannah Smith, University of Oxford
Integrating clinical data into a personalised multi-scale whole-heart model
Marina Strocchi, Imperial College London
Multimodal translational imaging of mouse models of heart disease and therapy
Daniel J. Stuckey, University College London
Hyperpolarized MRI - A New Window on the Reactions of Life
Damian Tyler, University of Oxford

Joshua Astley
University of Sheffield

Joshua Astley obtained a degree in Mechanical Engineering and completed a PhD in Clinical Medicine at the University of Sheffield. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Pulmonary MR Image Computing Science at the University of Sheffield.

His research focuses on lung image analysis methods, primarily in MR imaging, alongside biomarker prediction in patients with lung disease. Josh has published several peer-reviewed research articles and conference abstracts on the use of neural networks in medical imaging applications, such as image segmentation, synthesis and survival analysis, with the aim of improving patient care. He has a keen interest in the scientific method and producing research that is rigorously validated and statistically sound. Josh is excited by the developing fields of explainable AI, multi-modal fusion models and uncertainty quantification.

Ashok Chauhan
Ceryx Medical

Ashok Chauhan is a Senior scientist and research lead at Ceryx Medical Ltd. He has led the research and development of their pacemaker device for treating heart-failure and establishing Ceryx Medical. His research interests include using bio-physics to reinstate physiological functions and develop novel technologies and therapies for incurable conditions.

Jürgen E. Schneider
Director, Experimental & Preclinical Imaging Centre (ePIC), University of Leeds

Jürgen E. Schneider, PhD, is a Wellcome Trust Investigator in Science and holds a Chair in Biomedical Imaging at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, University of Leeds. After completing his PhD with Dr M. von Kienlin / Prof A. Haase at the University of Würzburg in Germany in 2000, he joined Prof S. Neubauer’s group at the University of Oxford as postdoctoral research fellow. He established himself as a major driving force nationally and internationally in the development and application of experimental cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) for rapid, non-invasive and comprehensive phenotyping of the rodent heart at ultra-high magnetic fields and has published extensively in this field. He was awarded a BHF Basic Science Lectureship (2006), a BHF Senior Basic Science Research Fellowship (2010) and a Full Professorship from the University of Oxford (2016). He accepted a personal chair in Leeds in 2016, where he directs the Experimental and Preclinical Imaging Centre (ePIC). ePIC provides access to multi-modal imaging equipment, including MRI (7 Tesla), PET / SPECT / CT, optical imaging, ultrasound and μCT. Together with Prof Sven Plein, he further co-directs the clinical Advanced Imaging Centre (AIC). His research focuses on the development of (rapid) quantitative, translational imaging methods, particularly cardiac diffusion MRI, and on MRS for the assessment of (cardiac) metabolism.

Hannah Smith
University of Oxford

Hannah Smith is a physicist from the University of Oxford, currently finishing her DPhil at the Computational Cardiovascular Science Group. Her main research interests include how measures of cardiac function are affected by demographic characteristics, including sex differences, and how these tests could be made more personalised to avoid bias.

Marina Strocchi
Imperial College London

Dr Marina Strocchi has a BSc in Maths from the University of Bologna, Italy, and an MSc in Applied Maths from the University of Trento, Italy. She moved to London in 2016 to be part of the Centre for Doctoral Training Programme at the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences King’s College London. Marina completed her PhD at KCL in 2021, where she stayed as a post-doc and then a research fellow specialising in cardiac computational models. Since then, she has moved to Imperial College London, where she is a research fellow. Marina is interested in translating cardiac electrophysiology and electromechanics models in the clinic by integrating clinical data into complex simulations.

Daniel Stuckey
University College London

British Heart Foundation Senior Basic Science Research Fellow
Head of Preclinical Cardiovascular Imaging
Deputy Director UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging

I am a British Heart Foundation Senior Basic Science Research Fellow and lead pre-clinical cardiovascular imaging at UCL's Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging. I studied for a DPhil at Oxford, undertook postdoctoral training at Imperial and have been a PI at UCL since 2014. My research team specialise in using advanced in vivo imaging to guide the development of next generation multifunctional biomaterials for regeneration of the infarcted heart. I apply MRI, nuclear imaging, ultrasound, CT and photoacoustic imaging to small animal models of disease with the aim of generating imaging platforms which can be used to investigate new therapies for heart disease and accelerate their translation towards clinical trials.

Damian Tyler
University of Oxford

Professor Damian Tyler is the Director of MR Physics at the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR) and a Fellow in Medicine at Somerville College, Oxford. He has been based in Oxford since 2001 and has more than 25 years experience in the development and application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (MRI/MRS). Damian gained his MSci in Medical Physics in 1998 and his doctorate in 2001, both from the University of Nottingham. His research in Oxford has been based on the study of cardiac structure, function and metabolism in normal and diseased hearts using MRI/MRS. This has included developing techniques using high spatial and temporal resolution CINE imaging to assess heart function and localized phosphorus and carbon spectroscopy to monitor and investigate abnormalities of metabolism.