Biography

Since my retirement in October 2021, I have been an Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen. I previously held a Chair in Biomedical Physics at the University (2002-21), where I researched and taught MRI Physics, starting when I joined Jim Hutchison’s team in 1983.

My research was concerned with the development of MRI technology and its bio-medical applications, most recently in the area of Fast Field-Cycling MRI, which was pioneered by the group that I led. Whereas standard MRI scanners operate at a single magnetic field (e.g. 1.5 T or 3 T), FFC scanners have the ability to switch magnetic field rapidly during a scan, thereby obtaining information on the variation of the NMR relaxation times with magnetic field strength. Results indicate that this can provide a valuable new contrast mechanism for clinical MRI.

During my career I obtained research grants totalling over £11.1m as Principal Investigator. In 2015 a consortium of seven research laboratories and two companies, coordinated by me, secured €6.60m (£5.92m) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 scheme to develop FFC-MRI as a clinical imaging modality; the “IDentIFY” project ran for 4 years from January 2016.

I have given over 100 invited, keynote and plenary lectures at conferences and workshops world-wide. I am author of 86 peer-reviewed papers, 8 book chapters as well as more than 280 conference abstracts.

My CV can be found here and my bibliography is available here.

External Memberships

I am Past Chair of the Communications and Publications Committee of the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP), having been Chair from January 2020 to February 2022.

Prizes and Awards

In 2017 I was awarded the Academic Gold Medal of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM).
In 2021 I was awarded Senior Fellowship of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM).
In 2022 I was given an Honorary Doctorate (D.Univ., honoris causa) by the University of the Highlands and Islands.