We are seeking to appoint a highly motivated Senior Research Associate in Mulitphysics Modelling of Brain Health, to work within the recently established Podium Institute for Sports Medicine at the University of Oxford. The Podium Institute sits within the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME) in the University’s Department of Engineering Science and is supported by a £25m 10-year donation to the University.

You will be part of an interdisciplinary team of pioneering researchers, with the primary aim to understand the impact of age, trauma, and neurodegenerative diseases on the brain’s unique form and function. We pose that brain shape changes result from continuously evolving microstructure that may be affected by neurodevelopment, age, degeneration, and injury. We seek to uncover fundamental mechanisms of healthy and accelerated brain aging by coupling neurobiology and mechanics to create multiphysics-informed predictive models of the brain. Specifically, our approach combines finite element modelling, mechanical characterization of brain tissues, and medical image analysis. The group’s long-term vision is to impact clinical practise by identifying characteristic manifestations of age, trauma, and disease on the brain’s form and function.

You will be expected to dedicate your time to the field of Brain Health Across the Lifecycle. Examples of areas of research are: i) identify physiological manifestations and physics-based biomarkers that allow to differentiate between healthy and accelerated brain aging; ii) create multiphysical constitutive models of cortical tissues degeneration during aging and injury; iii) utilize longitudinal medical image data to infer brain aging and injury mechanisms; and iv) study the potential relationship between exposure to head impacts and the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and related dementias later in life.

Please contact us with any questions you may have at johannes.weickenmeier@eng.ox.ac.uk.

The official job posting is here: https://tinyurl.com/bdhtz5vu

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