Winok Lapidaire - Dual Msc in Brain and Mind Sciences

Job title: Postdoctoral Researcher
Employer: University of Oxford

Who did you find inspiring at UCL and why

Dr Adam Liston for his dedication to provide a broad yet thorough understanding of neuroimaging to a small group of students.

What is your fondest memory of your time here?

My fellow students changing from familiar faces to life-long friends. Trying to navigate the culture and learning the language in Paris whilst completing a degree was a real bonding experience.

Tell us a bit about the work you’re doing now...

I have followed the traditional academic path from Msc to PhD to postdoc. My current research focuses on the cardiac-vascular-brain axis in young adults born preterm, using MRI. We investigate how exercise affects the structure of the heart and brain in young adults predisposed to hypertension and stroke. In addition, I use computational modelling on multi-organ multi-modality data to develop affordable imaging-based tools that can monitor cardiovascular disease progression in low-resource settings.

How did your UCL degree help you get to where you are now?

My research project at UCL helped me to receive a studentship to pursue a PhD at the same lab. Through this project, I came in contact with researchers at the University of Oxford. When a postdoc position in their lab came up, I applied and was fortunate enough to be able to start working there. I have worked there for three years now and recently obtained a fellowship to continue for another three years.

What have been your career highlights?

This is a difficult one. Getting selected for my postdoc job before finishing my PhD was great, particularly since the work aligned very well with my research interests and I joined a wonderful team. My recent fellowship award from St. Hilda’s College has also been fantastic, as it has allowed me to start carving out my own research path and the college has a close-knit community.

What would be your advice for current students?

When choosing a research project, think about what skills you would like to learn and who would be a good supervisor first and the research topic second.