Past visitors

Amber Collingwood

Amber worked as the Project Manager for a five-year MRC-funded Programme of Clinical Epilepsy Research at King’s College London, led by Professor Mark Richardson, Vice-Dean for the Division of Neuroscience. After earning a BA in Anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2010, Amber coordinated various paediatric and adult epilepsy research projects involving patients and their families. She previously managed a busy Research & Development team for Medway NHS Foundation Trust.With a keen interest in the social, economic, and political dimensions of clinical research ethics, Amber recently completed a Master’s degree in Bioethics and Society at King’s College London within the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine.

She is now the Senior Research Manager for the UK Motor Neuron Disease Research Institute (UK MND RI), a national network of MND centres.

Dimitris Sakellariou

Dimitris worked as a neural informatics postdoctoral researcher at King’s College London. He has a background in physics, signal processing and methods development obtaining a PhD in Clinical neuroinformatics, MRes in Neurosciences and BSc in Physics and Signal Processing. His main interest is the investigation of epilepsy biomarkers in neurophysiological data using advanced computational technologies, including brain connectivity, graph theoretic models and machine learning. Dimitris has more than eight years of experience in computational analysis of EEG related to epilepsy and sleep and has previously worked as a research assistant and research associate in national and EU-funded programmes.

He is actually the Founder/CEO of @ Piramidal (YC W24).

Isabella Premoli

Isabella graduated in Pharmacy from the University of Pavia (Italy) and pursued a Ph.D. in Behavioural Neuroscience at the University Hospital of Tübingen (Germany) in collaboration with the International Max Planck Research School. Her PhD focused on the investigation of GABAergic (inhibitory) neurotransmission by combining TMS and EEG under the administration of drugs with well-known and specific modes of action. In 2014, after joining the Richardson Lab at King’s College London, she established a new TMS-EEG facility within the Clinical Research Facility (CRF) of King’s College Hospital. Her work showed that TMS-EEG can measure GABA-mediated inhibitory processes and the pharmacological effects of several anti-epileptic drugs. Isabella’s main work focused on the development of a novel technique named TMS-EEG which enables the assessment of human brain excitability in health and neurological conditions.

She is actually working as a Clinical Scienstist and Biomarker Expert at Synendos Therapeutics AG in Basel, Switzerland.

Eugenio Abela

Eugenio is a clinical neurologist from Switzerland interested in using advanced neuroimaging techniques to better understand, diagnose and treat epilepsies. He worked at King’s College as a Clinical Research Fellow from 2018 to 2021. After obtaining his medical diploma and doctorate from the University of Zurich, he was a resident at the Deparments of Neurology of the Kantonsspital St. Gallen and the University Hospital Bern.

He is actually working as a Co-Head and Senior Physician at the Centre for Neuropsychiatry/Intellectual Disability in Windisch, Switzerland.

Anthony Shek

Anthony was awarded with a PhD student in Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College London where he was applying state-of-the-art data analytics to electronic health records, in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of care pathways and outcomes for patients with neurological disorders.

He is actually working as a Lead Data Scientist/NLD engineer at Guy’s and St Thomas’​ NHS Foundation Trust and his current work involves creating and deploying state of the art natural language processing (NLP).

Jonas Duun-Henriksen

Jonas was a Visiting Researcher from Denmark. He is interested in ultra-long-term EEG recordings and how they can be utilized for seizure treatment optimization as well as patient empowerment and potentially seizure prediction.

He is Senior Director Epilepsy Science & AI at UNEEG medical A/S.

Chirag Mehra

Chirag is a London-based Paediatric Doctor and PhD student. His research focuses on understanding brain-network changes, using EEG, in people with co-occurring autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy. His work is part of the AIMS-2-TRIALS study

Amy Shakeshaft

Amy was awarded with an MRC funded PhD student in the Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders at King’s College London. Her research involved identifying EEG and neuropsychological endophenotypes of JME and investigate their use in genome-wide association analysis.

She is now a Research Associate at Cardiff University.

Harry Clark

Harry worked as a research associate at King’s College London, Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, under the supervision of Prof. Mark Richardson. He was specifically working on TMS-EEG research projects. He previously spent 2 years taking part in the North Thames Clinical Research Network Graduate Scheme, completing an MSc in Clinical Trials at UCL and working on placement for NIHR funded clinical trials across North London. He has spent the last 3 years working in mental health research teams at CNWL and C&I NHS Foundation Trusts, with a specific focus on delivering rTMS for people with treatment resistant depression as part of the BRIGhTMIND clinical trial.

Harry is now a PhD student at Glasgow University.

Chayanin Tangwiriyasakul

Chayanin (Chin), holds a diverse academic background. In 2001, he earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand. He continued his academic journey by pursuing a master’s degree in the same field at Hamburg University of Technology, focusing on investigating the mechanical properties of medical implants fabricated through laser freeform fabrication techniques. In 2009, he achieved a professional doctorate in engineering mathematics for industry from Eindhoven University of Technology. Following this, in February 2010, Chin commenced his PhD project in collaboration with the Biomedical-Signals-and-Systems group and Clinical-Neurophysiology group at the University of Twente. His doctoral research centered on the development and evaluation of a motor imagery neurofeedback system for stroke rehabilitation. He worked as a postdoctoral research at the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience from Dec 2014 to Feb 2020 .

He is currently serving as a Research Fellow in the Biomedical Engineering Department.

Siti Nurbaya Yaakub

Siti obtained her PhD in neuroscience under Professor Mark Richardson’s supervision, focusing on modeling brain networks in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. After completing her PhD, Siti continued her academic journey as a research assistant and postdoctoral researcher from 2017 to 2020. Prior roles include research assistant at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and neuroimaging trainee at GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Imaging Centre. She holds a BEng in Chemical Engineering from the National University of Singapore.

Currently, she’s a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth, investigating decision-making mechanisms with transcranial ultrasound stimulation and neuroimaging techniques.

Suejen Perani

Suejen is a psychologist with a keen focus on epilepsy. After completing her bachelor’s in Psychological Sciences, she pursued an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience, where she first encountered epilepsy. Her initial interest revolved around mapping brain networks associated with rolandic alpha and beta frequency bands using simultaneous IcEEG-fMRI—a cutting-edge technique.

She expanded her expertise by applying simultaneous EEG-fMRI in both children and adults with focal epilepsy, aiding in identifying epileptogenic zones and enhancing the pre-surgical evaluation process through general linear modeling and source localization. During her PhD, Suejen assembled a unique cohort of newly diagnosed, drug-naïve patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy, delving deeper into understanding brain network mechanisms and their interaction with medication. Her research involved utilizing structural and functional brain measures, as well as advanced graph theory modeling. She also explored endophenotypes of treatment response in idiopathic generalized epilepsy, leveraging pre-treatment states to pinpoint markers of drug response.

Currently, she serves as the Business Development Director at Skope Magnetic Resonance Technologies, combining her expertise in psychology, healthcare, and diagnostics with her passion for innovation.

Pierre Gilbert Rossini

Pierre Gilbert Rossini is a psychotherapist who worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King’s College London from July 2017 to April 2019. He used TMS-EEG to assess the cortical effects of a new antiepileptic drug (XEN1101, Xenon Pharma). He also employed EEG-fMRI techniques to evaluate epileptic patients and their relatives. Pierre’s role encompassed data acquisition and analysis, participant recruitment, research management, literature review, and delivering critical presentations.

Toni Moreby

Toni served as the Neuroscience Divisional Coordinator and Executive Assistant to Professor Mark Richardson (Vice Dean of Neuroscience and Professor in Epilepsy) from 2014 to 2017. In this role, she managed all administrative aspects of the Division of Neuroscience, including overseeing Professor Richardson’s schedule, finances, and events. Additionally, Toni provided essential administrative support to the team, ensuring adherence to College procedures throughout their tenure at KCL. With 13 years of experience in university settings, Toni has held various administrative roles, including reception, student-focused tasks, grant management, and her most recent position as Coordinator and Executive Assistant.

Currently, she is employed as a Contract Administrator at the University of Greenwich

Sara Carlesso

Hello, my name is Sara Carlesso. I obtained the BA degree in Psychological Science and the MD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Padua, Italy. My interests are in Clinical psychology; and EEG. As part of my BA degree, I performed a clinical internship at the Mental Health Service (Bassano del Grappa, Italy). In addition I have been involved in a research project, which was aiming to investigate the joint action of cognitive tasks and body position (sitting or bedridden) on resting state cortical activity, with a particular focus on Delta activity. I am currently a research trainee (March – August 2015) at the Richardson Epilepsy Lab. I am investigating, together with Dr Isabella Premoli, antiepileptic drug activity by combining TMS and EEG recording.

Dr Wei Liao

Hello, my name is Dr Wei Liao and I work at Hangzhou Normal University. My interests are:

• Human Brain Network: Mapping of the intrinsic/anatomical connectivity network and functional covariance networks using resting-state fMRI, diffusion tensor imaging tractography and structural morphology.
• Directed Influence Brain Network: Studying the network architecture of the directed influence brain network at modular and large-scale using Granger causality analysis.
• Dynamic Brain Connectome: Development of an open-source MATLAB toolbox DynamicBC for tracking brain dynamics using functional MRI.

I visited the Richardson Lab at the end of 2014 to plan future research collaborations.

Tay Netoff

My name is Tay Netoff. I am a visiting professor from University of Minnesota on my sabbatical. I came to work with Professors Mark Richardson and John Terry to study network approaches for identifying a seizure focus from stimulated intracranial EEG recordings in patients with epilepsy. The focus of this study is to generate models, based on patient data, of how activity initiated by stimulation propagates through the brain. Then, we aim to use that model to identify areas that are both highly excitable and influential as potential markers of the seizure focus. I have had a great time working with both Prof. Terry’s team at the University of Exeter and Prof. Richardson’s team at KCL, as well as enjoying Exeter and London with my family.