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Researcher Profiles
Up one levelShort CV and Research Interests
Anya Topiwala
Anya graduated in physiological sciences (neuropharmacology, neuroscience and circulation) and medicine, is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a CT3 specialist trainee in general psychiatry. Previously, she has collaborated with the Oxford Centre for Suicide Research and Forensic Psychiatry groups. In August she will take up the post of Clinical Lecturer in the Department and will start working on the MRC-funded study "Predicting MRI abnormalities with longitudinal data of the Whitehall II Substudy", which will image 800 participants in the Whitehall II study. During this time she plans to complete a doctorate as well as her higher specialist training in psychiatry.
Charlotte Allan
Charlotte graduated from the University of Leeds with BA (hons.) in health-care ethics in 2004 and MBChB (hons.) in 2006. She undertook an academic foundation programme in Leeds, and moved to Oxford in 2008 as an Academic Clinical Fellow and Core Trainee in psychiatry. Under the supervision of Prof Klaus Ebmeier she has worked on systematic reviews of TMS and ApoE4. She is the Royal College of Psychiatry Core Trainee of the Year 2011. She was awarded an IPA Junior Research Award in Psychogeriatrics 2011. She is currently planning a doctorate on late life depression and vascular risk factors, in conjunction with the Whitehall II study.
Claire E Sexton
Claire graduated from the University of Manchester with BSc (Hons) Neuroscience in 2006. She then worked as a Research Assistant at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, investigating the role of neurogenesis in depression. Under the supervision of Prof Klaus Ebmeier and Dr Clare Mackay, she used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the role of structural and functional connectivity in late-life depression, bipolar disorder, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. After completing her DPhil, she has just started her new job as post-doc in Heidi Johansen-Berg's Lab at FMRIB (http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/systems-plasticity/people), but continues to collaborate on the Whitehall study, and the NIHR funded study "Enhancing brain plasticity and increasing resilience against dementia with exercise".
Clare E. Mackay
Clare’s interest in brain imaging using MRI began at the Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre (MARIARC) during her undergraduate degree. Her PhD research (Prof Neil Roberts & Dr John Downes) was to relate structure to function in patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and involved setting up a tertiary clinical service for the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery. She moved to Oxford in 2000 to take up a post-doc position on Prof Tim Crow's MRC program grant to investigate developmental brain correlates of psychosis. In this post she led the acquisition of structural and functional MR data a large cohort of patients with Psychosis (Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder) and co-supervised three DPhil students and several MSc students. In 2002 she was awarded a Young Scientist Award, at the 11th Biennial Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia Research. In 2004 she became Head of Neuroapplication at the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR). She managed all neuroscience projects, as well as two members of staff and supported set-up, running and analysis of research projects. In 2008 Clare became a Senior Research Fellow in the Dept of Psychiatry and is pursuing her interest in imaging to understand risk factors for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease.
David E Welchew
I take a novel approach to identifying and modelling frontal connections of the brain by studying how different tasks affect the degree of correlation between regions. I have developed new statistical techniques to measure how greatly these connections are altered by disease conditions, through drugs, or by training. My aim is to create a more complete model for the function of the basal ganglia, which will lead to new insights into the processes underlying diseases such as Parkinson's, as well as providing us with new means to examine schizophrenia, autism and Alzheimer's disease. I also worked on a new tool for multivariate analysis called PolyPEMON, with potential applications in both fMRI and other related disciplines. I am now a Psychiatric Academic Clinical Fellow and Speciality Training Registrar 3 (ACF/ST3) in Oxford.
Enikő Zsoldos
After graduating in psychology and methods of psychological research in Glasgow, Enikő has started in January as research assistant responsible for organizing the 5-year MRC-funded study "Predicting MRI abnormalities with longitudinal data of the Whitehall II Substudy", which involves recruiting 800 participants of the Whitehall II study at University College London and imaging them in Oxford. If she continues with her current pace and enthusiasm, we will be finished in two years time.
Jane Fossey
Jane Fossey consultant clinical psychologist responsible for psychological services within the Oxford Health Foundation NHS Trust and a long-term collaborator and member of the Old Age Psychiatry Team. Her primary interest is in the management of behavioural and psychiatric symptoms in dementia. She has published key studies pertaining to the assessment and treatment of these symptoms in nursing-home residents. Her particular interest is in alternative interventions for psychosocial care in dementia, in particular as it can replace pharmacological management of behavioural changes in demented patients.
Klaus Ebmeier
Klaus is the clinical head of the research group. He qualified from Bonn in medicine in 1981 and trained in psychiatry in Aberdeen before spending four years as a lecturer in the Department of Mental Health in Aberdeen learning about neuroimaging and psychophysiology in dementia, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease. After completing his M.D. he went to Edinburgh in 1989 as a Clinical Scientist and Consultant at the MRC Brain Metabolism Unit, where he helped set up the SPECT scanning facility to examine the pharmacology and in vivo brain activity of psychiatric disorders. He was appointed Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh in 1997 and moved to Oxford in 2006. He is interested in brain-behaviour relationships in ageing, and the psychiatry of old age, especially cognitive impairment and depression.
Louisa Coulson
Louisa is a post-doc in the Department of Psychiatry. Her interest in neuropsychological research began during her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Louisa's DPhil involved the use of MEG to evaluate the interaction of mood and emotion. The aim was to develop behavioural paradigms capable of exploring the spatial and temporal activation patterns of neural processing associated with neuropsychological function during various states of mind for use with functional brain imaging techniques including MEG and fMRI. She is particularly interested in the application of MEG to psychiatric disorders such as depression and treatments including mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and deep brain stimulation. After successful defense of her thesis she is now concentrating on writing up as many papers as possible resulting from the last few years research.
Nicola Filippini
Nicola Filippini is a postdoctoral researcher (The HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust) in the Department of Psychiatry and FMRIB Centre at the University of Oxford. He finished his DPhil program in 2010 with a thesis entitled “Brain structure, function and connectivity associated with APOE genotype: what changes when?” His main interests are Alzheimer’s disease and genetic risk factors that he explored using a wide range of neuroimaging techniques. In particular, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and structural MRI (sMRI) and arterial spin labelling (ASL). He is currently involved in a series of projects that aim: 1) to define the effect of APOE on the brain; 2) to identify the biological meaning of resting state networks; 3) to define MRI markers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. See DPhil Thesis "Brain structure, function and connectivity associated with APOE genotype" on left <--
Philip Wilkinson
Philip Wilkinson is a Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry with Oxford Health Foundation NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer with the University of Oxford. He trained in cognitive therapy with Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre and teaches and writes on the use of psychological treatments with older people. His research interests are maintenance treatments in late life depression, specifically the use of cognitive therapy interventions including group cognitive therapy and mindfulness based cognitive therapy.
Ricarda Menke
Ricarda Menke is a postdoctoral researcher in the FMRIB Centre at the University of Oxford. After having finished her physics studies (Department of Particle Physics, University of Münster, Germany, 2004) she studied language processing in healthy subjects as well as training-induced reorganisation of the language system in patients who suffered from aphasia after stroke by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) during her PhD (2004-2008, Department of Neurology, University of Muenster). In December 2007, she started her position in Oxford where she is searching for MRI markers for Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, and Mild Cognitive Impairment employing volumetry, quantitative T1/T2 imaging, and DTI.
Rupert McShane
Rupert McShane is clinical lead for the Thames Valley Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases local research network. As well as being a PI on several dementia trials, he has led studies of diagnostic tests based on olfactory function, willingness to pay for care, assistive technology, and ketamine as a treatment for depression. He is the Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group.
Verena Heise
Verena is a DPhil student investigating the relationship between APOE genotype, brain structure and function and cognitive impairment. During her undergraduate degree in molecular cell biology at the University of Heidelberg she developed her interest for brain science. She worked as a student assistant in the Department of Psychopharmacology at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim where she helped to develop animal models for drug abuse research. After completing her BSc she came to Oxford in 2008 for the MSc course in Neuroscience. In her first research project (supervised by Dr Chris Summerfield) she investigated the biological basis for decision-making in humans. The second project brought her to Clare Mackay and the Neurobiology of Aging Group where she now undertakes her DPhil project funded by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.
Vyara Valkanova
Vyara graduated in Medicine from the University of Varna. She then started her specialty training in Psychiatry in Bulgaria, where she also taught medical students. In 2011 she graduated from the Open University after 3years with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology. Under the supervision of Prof. Ebmeier she is currently working on a systematic review on vascular risk factors and late life depression
