Professor Aldo Faisal is a Professor of AI & Neuroscience jointly at the Dept. of Bioengineering and the Dept. of Computing at Imperial College London, where he leads the Brain & Behaviour Lab. Aldo is also Director of the Behaviour Analytics Lab at the Data Science Institute. He is also Associate Investigator at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and is affiliated faculty at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit (University College London). Aldo serves as an Associate editor for Nature Scientific Data and PLOS Computational Biology and has acted as conference chair, area chair, program chair in key conferences in the field (e.g. Neurotechnix, KDD, NIPS, IEEE BSN), in 2016 he was elected into the Global Futures Council of the World Economic Forum. Aldo received a number of awards and distinctions, including being scholar of the German National Merit Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutsche Volkes; Undergraduate PhD), a Fellow of the Böhringer-Ingelheim Foundation for Basic Biomedical Research, elected as a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (Wolfson College), and research prizes such as the Toyota Mobility Foundation award in 2018 ($50,000). Aldo's lab featured regularly across global media (such as BBC, CNN, WIRED, TED, TEDx, New Scientist, Guardian, Times of India, etc.) and Scientific American voted his research on gaze-based control as 1st of 10 most transformative ideas for 2016.
Professor Mauricio Barahona joined the newly formed Department of Bioengineering at Imperial as a Lecturer in 2001 and became a Reader in Biomathematics in 2004. In 2011, he moved to the Department of Mathematics as Chair of Biomathematics. Since 2016, he has been Director of the EPSRC Centre for Mathematics of Precision Healthcare.
Professor Sophia Yaliraki is Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Deputy Head in the Department of Chemistry. She joined Imperial after studies at Harvard and MIT and is the founding Director of DigiFAB and the MSc in Digital Chemistry. She has recently been appointed as a co-Director of I-X. Her research focuses on developing graph-based methods with applications to biomolecular, healthcare and social problems.
Dr Nick Croucher completed his PhD in microbial genomics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, before undertaking a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of Public Health, and then a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship in the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial. He now studies the epidemiology of Streptococcus pneumoniae, focussing on its evolution in response to vaccination and antibiotic consumption.
Dr Elita Jauneikaite is an Advanced Research Fellow in Bacterial Genomics and Epidemiology. Currently, Dr Jauneikaite is the Research Lead for the Priority Pathogens theme at the National Institute of Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance at Imperial College London. Elita’s research focuses on evolution, transmission and antimicrobial resistance of vaccine preventable, and healthcare associated bacterial infections. As her major research programme, Elita is investigating the disease-causing Group B Streptococcus (GBS) using large-scale genomic epidemiology in both high- and low-income country settings, bioinformatic analyses and molecular biology techniques to inform on evolution, mother-to-baby transmission, and emergence of antimicrobial resistance patterns of this pathogen. As Research Lead for Priority Pathogens, Elita leads genomics work investigating healthcare-associated infections, as well as outbreaks and pathogenicity of a range of bacterial pathogens including E. coli, K. pneumoniae, carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales, staphylococcal and streptococcal species.
Dr Anand Shah is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London. He completed an MRC clinical PhD research fellowship in 2012-2015 in the Armstrong-James laboratory at Imperial College London analysing the effects of calcineurin inhibition on the human macrophage response to Aspergillus fumigatus. He took up a Consultant position at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in October 2016, working in the adult Cystic Fibrosis and Host Defence departments.
Dr Bernard Hernandez received his BSc degree in Telecommunications (5 years) and Computer Science (3 years) from the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) in 2013. Simultaneously, he received his MSc degree in Machine Learning (2 years) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). He then moved to Imperial College London (ICL) where he worked as a Research Assistant in the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology, obtaining his PhD degree in 2019. Currently, he is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Antimicrobial Optimization (CAMO) and his research interests include the development of point-of-care decision support systems that leverage the existing data and resources to provide personalized, accurate and effective diagnostics focusing on diagnosis and management of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance surveillance.
Dr Tim Rawson is an Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology trainee and an honorary clinical lecturer at Imperial College London. He is Research Lead for the Precision Prescribing Theme at the HPRU in HCAI and AMR. Tim completed his PhD in 2018 working between the departments of Medicine, Bio-engineering, and Chemistry. His research interests surround precision use of antimicrobial agents. His research focuses on biosensor technology, antimicrobial dose optimisation, and machine learning. In 2017, Tim was awarded the British Infection Association (BIA) Barnet Christie Award for Excellence in Original Research. In 2022, he received the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Young Investigator Award recognising his research achievements.
Dr Anna Barnard carried out her PhD in Chemistry with Professor David Smith at the University of York before post-doctoral positions with Professor Andy Wilson at the University of Leeds and with Professor Ed Tate at Imperial, before starting a Junior Research Fellowship at Imperial in October 2015. Anna started her current Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale fellowship in April 2019 to work on targeting bacterial toxin proteins.
Dr Jesus Rodriguez Manzano holds a BSc in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Advanced Microbiology, and a PhD in Microbiology and Biotechnology, all earned from the University of Barcelona. Following his doctoral studies, he pursued post-doctoral positions in esteemed institutions, including the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London. Dr. Rodriguez Manzano's expertise led him to his current role as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London, where he contributes to advancing the field of Molecular Diagnostics to tackle infection and antimicrobial resistance. Moreover, he holds the position of Deputy Director at the Centre for Antimicrobial Optimisation (CAMO) at Imperial, and he is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ProtonDx Ltd, an Imperial spinout company dedicated to developing diagnostic solutions that guide treatment decisions, optimise antimicrobial use, and support infection control interventions. His academic and professional journey has fostered a strong interdisciplinary background in microbiology, molecular biology, and bioengineering. Dr. Rodriguez Manzano's research interests span various areas, including clinical diagnostics, machine learning applied to healthcare, and single-molecule technologies, with a specific focus on point-of-care applications and low- and middle-income countries.
Professor Darius Armstrong-James is Chair in Infectious Diseases and Medical Mycology at Imperial College London. He leads the Imperial Fungal Science Network. His research is focussed on fungal disease, spanning host-pathogen and intermicrobial interactions, as well as cohort-based multiomics and precision medicine and immunotherapies.
William Bolton: William Bolton is a PhD researcher at Imperial College London as part of the AI for Health CDT programme. His research under the supervision of Professor Pantelis Georgiou, Professor Alison Holmes, and Dr Tim Rawson focuses on creating artificial intelligence (AI) based clinical decision support systems, that utilise routinely collected electronic health record data, to optimise antibiotic prescribing, improve infection management and ultimately tackle the emerging global threat of antimicrobial resistance. His work also focuses on ensuring responsible and ethical AI and improving infection management in complex multimorbid patients. He has a passion for entrepreneurship as well as the regulation, evaluation, and integration of AI healthcare technologies.
Dr Nina Zhu is the Research Lead for Population Health & Policy Theme in the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Healthcare Associated Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance at Imperial College London. She specialises in assessing infection and AMR transmission across patient pathways, and evaluating clinical and economic outcomes of health interventions and policies through data linkage. She also works with hospital and regional health agencies to improve surveillance data quality and integration.
Dr Damien Ming is an infectious diseases clinician within the London Deanery. He completed his PhD at the Centre for Antimicrobial Optimisation examining the application of machine learning to acute febrile illnesses within low- and middle-income settings. His current research interests include digital health implementation and use of novel biosensing in the healthcare.
Dr Azad Hussain is an experienced engineering professional with over 20 years of industrial and academic research experience. He completed his PhD studies in 2004 at Queen Mary College, University of London, in the field of biomechanics, biomaterials and tribology. Upon his PhD completion, Azad worked as a research scientist on an interdisciplinary and collaborative project with industry, focused on the research, testing and analysis of implants using new materials and designs.
In 2006, Azad held a R&D engineering role at Smith and Nephew Orthopaedics. He gained valuable experience in the areas of laboratory set-up, NPI (New Product Introduction) and managing a UKAS (UK’s National Accreditation Body) accredited QMS, the first of its kind in the field of orthopaedic bioengineering. Following a career break, Azad returned to work with the Functional Materials Group at Coventry University, where he worked on various high-performance materials projects in the electronics and automotive industry, as well as teaching engineering students. Following on from this role he worked at the University of Birmingham, supporting companies in the Med Tech arena in identifying and developing their regulatory strategy, specific to their innovation to get the technology to market. His prior work and experience in the med tech arena led him to the University of Oxford, where he helped to develop a regulatory tool, Reg-Metrics, aimed at helping manufacturers new to the field of medical technology to aid them in identifying what medical device regulations that they need to be aware of to aid them in the research and development of their technology.
During the Covid 19 pandemic, as the regulatory specialist, he was involved in the University of Oxford & King’s College collaboration in developing a rapidly manufactured ventilator, as part of the UK ventilator challenge. This has now spun out as OxVent Ltd, where he worked as Head of Regulatory Affairs, subsequently as CEO, with the aim of producing a low-cost ventilator to meet the needs of LMICs.
Azad’s experience includes manufacturing methods and process improvement, with applied experience in setting up Quality Management Systems to ISO 17025, Good Laboratory Practice, ISO 13485, Good Manufacturing Practice, and working in manufacturing sites accredited to these standards for Class II Class III medical devices.
He now works at the MHRA, as Devices Regulatory Specialist, looking at the future regulation and policy of Software and AI as medical devices in the Innovative devices group.
