My aim is not to be the first and only female President this decade and I feel really privileged to take on this role at this exciting time for IPEM. I’m really looking forward to my presidency and to pushing forward on important matters like equity of opportunity, diversity of thinking and inclusion across academia, industry and public healthcare.
Dr Anna Barnes FIPEM, Principal Research Fellow in Healthcare Technologies, London Institute for Healthcare Engineering
12 October 2023
Dr Anna Barnes appointed first woman president of IPEM
Dr Anna Barnes has been appointed to the role of President of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) September 2023-2025.
Dr Barnes is the first woman to become president since the organisation changed its name in 1997 and only the second woman since the creation of the Institute of Physical Sciences in Medicine in 1984 from which IPEM originated.
The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine is the professional organisation that represents a diverse workforce across academia, industry and the NHS who have dedicated their careers to improving healthcare and healthcare delivery.
Dr Barnes, who is a principal research fellow in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences at King’s College London, Director of the King’s Technology Evaluation Centre, and an honorary Consultant Clinical Scientist in Medical Physics at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, has been involved with the Institute throughout her career.
Dr Barnes was one of the first two trainees in the new Scotland training scheme, specialising in biomedical engineering and equipment management. She then went on to have a career in medical imaging, graduating with a PhD in 1999 from the University of Glasgow followed by two research positions at New York University and Columbia University in the USA, focussing on the mathematics of brain mapping using multi-modal brain imaging data.
Dr Barnes then pursued a research fellowship at the University of Cambridge Brain Mapping Unit before joining University College London Hospital nuclear medicine department as the lead Clinical Scientist for the newly installed Siemens mMR Biograph PET MRI scanner. During this time, she was awarded two NIHR research fellowships to validate, evaluate and deploy imaging biomarkers in oncology and was appointed Chief Healthcare Scientist for the South-East for NHS England 2020-2022.
Throughout her career, Dr Barnes has been a strong supporter of mentorship in the sector, “I have made it a priority to mentor, nurture and supervise students from primary school to post-graduate education in the hope that I can encourage just one of them to follow a career in STEM.”
Congratulations to Dr Anna Barnes on this exciting appointment. Her dedication to advancing the application of physics and engineering to medicine is evident through her career and mentorship. I support her ambitions to strengthen equity, diversity, and inclusion within IPEM.
- Professor Sebastien Ourselin FREng FIPEM FMedSci, Head of School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences
The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine is a charity and is the professional body for physicists, clinical and biomedical engineers and technologists working in medicine and biology. IPEM has around 5,000 members working in hospitals, academia and industry across the UK, Europe and internationally.
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Professor of Healthcare Engineering