The Advisory Board Members

Alex Casson is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Manchester. He is a specialist in non-invasive bioelectronic interfaces: the design and application of wearable sensors, and skin-conformal flexible sensors, for human body monitoring and data analysis from highly artefact prone naturalistic situations. This work is highly multi-disciplinary, spanning ultra-low power sensing, signal processing and machine learning in power constrained rich environments, and real-time data analysis towards closed loop systems for remote monitoring and digital therapeutics. He has research experience in manufacturing, ultra-low power microelectronic circuit and system design at the discrete and fully custom microchip levels, sensor signal processing and machine learning for power and time constrained motion artefact rich environments, as well as using bespoke and off-the-shelf wearable devices in a wide range of environments. 

Since 2018 Annette has been the very driven and inspiring Director and ‘Chief Collaboration Officer’ of the N8 Research Partnership- the strongest university research alliance in the UK. As one of the UKs foremost experts in research culture she has become a regular, compelling and in demand speaker on the subject.  

A graduate of Oxford University where she achieved a first-class degree and D.Phil in Materials Science, her particular niche is bringing people from different backgrounds to work together on research that has a tangible, genuine and long-lasting impact on the world. It’s fair to say N8’s successes in this arena are both as fascinating as they are many.  

For over 20 years now she’s guided scientists and engineers of all disciplines at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation) with great skill, inclusivity and creativity.  

When not excelling in her profession Annette is also a gifted artist in the medium of embroidery and acrylic, and again to the highest accolade. She holds the Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery from the Royal School of Needlework with Distinction and has exhibited countrywide. 

As if all that isn’t impressive enough – her current side hustle is studying for a Professional Diploma in Group Sound Therapy. 

Professor Dexter joined Parkinson’s UK on the 1st of March 2017 and became Direct of Research on the 1st of April 2023. David has 37 years research experience in Parkinson’s, 24 years of which was spent at Imperial College London where he was Professor of Neuropharmacology and Deputy Head of The Division of Brain Sciences. His research team made significant contributions into understanding the molecular mechanisms that cause Parkinson’s and in the development of novel therapeutics and founded the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank in 2002. At Parkinson’s UK he manages the charities grants funding programmes, external research communications and involvement of people affected by Parkinson’s in research. David also manages Parkinson’s UK’s strategic partnerships such as the Critical Path for Parkinson’s etc. and is the biology lead in the Parkinson’s UK Virtual Biotech programme. 

Dympna O’Sullivan is the Academic Lead for Digital Futures Research Hub at TU Dublin. Prior to joining TU Dublin, she worked as a lecturer in Computer Science at Aston University in Birmingham and as a Senior Lecturer in Health Informatics at City, University of London. She completed her post-doctoral work with the Mobile Emergency Triage research group at the University of Ottawa. She holds a BSc and PhD in Computer Science from University College Dublin. Her research is in Health Informatics and in Computing Ethics.  

In Health Informatics, her research interests are in the design, development and evaluation of Decision Support Systems to support clinician and patient decision making. This work involves research across many aspects of the domain including electronic and personal health records, machine learning and intelligent algorithms, explainable AI, sensors and smart home technologies, accessible user interfaces and theories of health behaviour change. 

Her research in Computer Ethics focuses on the societal impacts of emerging technologies, which includes artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision-making and the associated privacy, fairness, transparency, and bias implications of AI. She develops methodologies for Explainable AI which aim to enhance the intelligibility of AI systems for end users. This research is underpinned by governance and legislation to ensure Trustworthy AI. 

Helen has been a driving force behind the charity since it was formed over 17 years ago and has been instrumental in progressing some of the most promising and valuable research into finding a cure. Helen is well-known and highly engaged with the Parkinson’s community and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the helm. 

Hubert is a Professor of Visual Computing and the Director of Research of the Department of Computer Science at Durham University, specialising in modelling spatio–temporal information with responsible AI. He has authored over 180 research publications in the fields of Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Machine Learning and Biomedical Engineering. He is a Co-Founder and the Co-Director of Durham University Space Research Centre. He has led research projects as the Principal Investigator awarded by EPSRC, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Society and Innovate UK. He has also been a Co-Investigator in NortHFutures, a £4.17 mil EPSRC project to establish a new digital health hub in North East England. To engage academic and industrial networks, he has chaired international conferences such as Pacific Graphics, BMVC, ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics SCA and ACM SIGGRAPH MIG. 

Martijn Muller, PhD, is a Senior Scientific Director for the Critical Path for Parkinson Consortium. Prior to joining C-Path, Martijn was Research Associate Professor of Radiology and Co-Director of the Clinical and Neuroimaging Resource Cores of the Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s disease Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Muller has a diverse research background with an established publication record in neuropsychology, biomechanics, and neuroimaging. He performed his PhD research at the University of Pittsburgh and was a researcher at the University of Michigan for nearly 15 years. Most of Dr. Muller’s research focused on in vivo neuroimaging correlates (particularly PET) of cognitive and mobility problems in Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Muller is particularly interested in how to incorporate wearable technology in a meaningful patient-oriented manner in Parkinson’s disease clinical trials. 

Tim McCarthy is VP & Head of Biomeasures, Endpoints and Study Technologies in Translational Clinical Sciences at Pfizer. His team works across the organization to develop biomarker plans and deliver key data to support the transition of assets across steps of the discovery and development process. The team has deep technical and operational knowledge and covers all biomarker and diagnostic technologies (circulating, imaging and digital). The team is enabled through key resources, such as the Clinical Biospecimens, Clinical Biomarker and Pfizer Innovation Research (PfIRe) Laboratories.  

Tim has a background in Positron Emission Tomography, which he obtained during his time as a faculty member in Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. In 2001 Tim joined Pfizer to pursue his interests in applying translational imaging as a biomarker in drug development. During his time at Pfizer, his interests and responsibilities have expanded to cover digital health technologies, circulating biomarkers and the development of novel clinical endpoints across the organization. He is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tim received his B.Sc. (Hons) and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, UK and has an MBA from Washington University in St Louis. He served as the President of the Academy of Molecular Imaging (now World Molecular Imaging Society) between 2008 and 2011.   

Walter Maetzler is a professor for neurogeriatrics and deputy director of the neurology department of the University Hospital in Kiel, Germany. His main clinical interest is on Parkinson’s disease and other age-related disorders, and geriatric conditions associated with functionally relevant movement and cognitive disabilities. He leads a research group focused on the analysis and validation of parameters that can be extracted from wearable sensor technology in supervised (“lab- or clinic-based”) and unsupervised (the home environment of the patients) assessments, and then be used to quantify movement, mobility, and human behaviour in these usual environments. He is contributing to new technology development, such as magnetoelectric sensors. He continues to be involved in multiple projects investigating the potential of mobile sensor technology to improve the understanding of disease progression and treatment response in age-related diseases. 

Zuzana is a Portfolio Manager in Healthcare Technologies theme at EPSRC. She particularly looks after the ‘Digital Health’ and ‘Improving population health and prevention’ portfolios. She is also interested to hear more about opportunities and challenges within ‘Supporting knowledge and skills in health technologies’ space, which is one of the enablers outlined in the current EPSRC Health technologies strategy.