I am very excited about this fellowship. For the next few years, this will give me the support and academic freedom to start a research group at King’s and work on my research goals. The great thing about a fellowship is the long-term funding support and freedom to follow my ideas all the way through to clinical implementation.
Dr Isabel Dregely, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences
20 September 2019
Faculty researchers awarded Future Leader Fellowships
Two researchers from the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine have been announced among the latest recipients of the Future Leaders Fellowship from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Dr Isabel Dregely, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences and Dr Katie Sheehan, School of Population Health & Environmental Sciences are among 78 other researchers and innovators from across the country to receive a portion of a £78 million from the UKRI.
Dr Dregely’s project is titled ‘DIFFERENCE: DIFFusion magnetic resonance imaging with Enhanced Resolution ENCoding - Precision Imaging in Cancer’ and aims to use computer simulations to understand MRI signal models in healthy and cancer tissue to develop optimised MRI image acquisition and processing techniques. Ultimately, this will allow them to extract ’tumour function’ information from robust clinic-ready imaging to better characterize each patient’s cancer.
Dr Sheehan’s project titled ‘Development of a stratified model of care for acute rehabilitation after hip fracture’ aims to improve patient and caregiver outcomes of acute rehabilitation after hip fracture. Katie will lead the first team to capitalise on rich national data and a strong patient voice to inform a stratified approach to rehabilitation.
This fellowship provides a fantastic opportunity to dedicate time to tackle a difficult challenge with the novel application of national data to inform rehabilitation. I believe this has the potential to push the frontiers of knowledge and understanding of the organisation and delivery of rehabilitation for hip fracture in the acute setting, for other admitting diagnoses, and for older adults in other healthcare settings.
Dr Katie Sheehan, School of Population Health & Environmental Sciences
Future Leaders Fellowships are helping universities and businesses in the UK recruit, train and retain the world’s best researchers and innovators, regardless of their background. They can apply for up to £1.2 million over four years, with the ability to extend to up to seven years.
Applications for round four of the Futures Leaders Fellowships are now open and UKRI is particularly encouraging applications hosted by, or collaborating with, businesses.
Universities Minister Chris Skidmore said “Delivering on our research and innovation ambitions means putting people first, whether they are just starting out in their career or are leading major projects in academia or industry.
These inspirational Future Leaders Fellows will generate the ideas of the future, helping to shape science and research for the 21st century. But to realise the full potential of these discoveries, their ideas need to be taken out of the lab and turned into real products and services, where they can actually change people’s lives for the better."
The Future Leaders Fellowships will enable the most promising researchers and innovators to become leaders in their fields, working on subjects as diverse as climate change, dementia and quantum computing. UKRI is committed to creating modern research and innovation careers and our Future Leaders Fellowships aim to support and retain the most talented people, including those with flexible career paths.
Professor Sir Mark Walport, UK Research and Innovation’s Chief Executive
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Visiting Professor of Rehabilitation