This International Women in Engineering Day, the Medical Physics Athena SWAN Committee are delighted to invite you to join us for an engaging and insightful conversation with four female scientists sharing their experiences of working in a male-dominated environment.
This event will take place online via Zoom Webinar. To receive the joining link, please register via the ‘Book now’ button.
Meet the panel
Prof Clare Elwell, Professor of Medical Physics
Clare Elwell is a Professor of Medical Physics at University College London and Vice Dean for Impact for UCL Engineering. She develops functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) techniques to image the human brain and her research projects include studies of infant brain development, autism, acute brain injury, migraine and malaria. She currently leads the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project which delivered the first brain images of infants in Africa.
Clare is Past President of the Society for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy and current President of the London International Youth Science Forum. She has won numerous awards for her research, teaching and science communication. She was a 2018 British Science Association Media Fellow at the Financial Times and is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the RSA. She was awarded a Brocher Foundation Fellowship in 2023 to investigate the responsible use of neuroimaging in disorders of consciousness. She is Founder and Trustee of the charity Young Scientists for Africa.
Prof Karin Shmueli, Professor of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Physics
Karin Shmueli is a Professor of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Physics. She is internationally recognised as a pioneer of and leader in the field of quantitative magnetic susceptibility mapping (QSM): a technique to calculate pathophysiologically relevant maps representing tissue composition (e.g. iron content, calcifications and myelination) from the phase of the MRI signal often discarded in conventional MRI. Since (re)joining UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering as a Lecturer in MRI in January 2012, Prof. Shmueli has built and leads an
MRI physics research group and a collaborative research programme involving scientists and clinicians in the UK and worldwide. She currently holds a European Research Council Consolidator Grant and a Cancer Research UK Multidisciplinary Award.
Dr Charlotte Hagen, Principal Research Fellow
Charlotte Hagen is a Principal Research Fellow in UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, developing x-ray micro-computed tomography (CT) systems. Her work focusses on the interplay between innovative scanner designs, acquisition schemes and reconstruction methods to maximise the information that can be deducted from a micro-CT scan while minimising its costs (scan time, radiation dose). She is also interested in operational aspects and in this context develops methods for high-throughput imaging and minimised user involvement during complex scanning sequences. Hagen has joined the department as a PhD student in 2010, then in 2014 accepted a postdoctoral position, and in 2018 took up a Research Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering. She has been the chair of the departmental Athena Swan committee (self-assessment team) since late 2020.
Sirine Bhouri, Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student and President of UCL Women’s Engineering Society
Sirine Bhouri is second year Biomedical Engineering student at UCL. Her main interests lie in the prototyping of innovative medical devices and in the use of machine learning to help diagnose and monitor accurately medical conditions. After being the treasurer for over a year, she is now the president of UCL Women’s Engineering Society. Through this position, she hopes to further expand the reach of UCLWES and make it a hub for all engineering students, regardless of gender, to celebrate, support and empower women in STEM.
Cover image from the Royal Academy of Engineering ‘ThisisEngineering’ campaign via Unsplash
