![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/files\/2026\/09\/Vea-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What is your name?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Vea Marita Bley<\/p>\n
Where are you from?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Florida, USA<\/p>\n
Which class do you belong to?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
MSc Translational Neuroscience, Class of 2026<\/p>\n
Where and what did you study before joining Imperial College London?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
I studied Biology at the University of Florida<\/p>\n
How did you find your Master\u2019s experience at the College?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
I found my Master\u2019s experience both challenging and incredibly rewarding. The programme constantly pushed me outside my comfort zone, whether through the academic content, clinical exposure, research, or learning new technical skills. It was intense at times, but that was also what made it so fulfilling. I came away from the year with a much clearer sense of the kind of scientist I want to become<\/p>\n
Which research project did you work on?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
My research project investigated using wearable technology to assess upper-limb motor impairment after stroke. Using movement data collected during the Fugl-Meyer Assessment, I applied machine-learning techniques to identify the kinematic features and motor tasks most predictive of impairment and compared the performance of a consumer-grade Apple Watch with the research-grade Xsens motion-capture system. Professor Aldo Faisal supervised my project. I conducted the clinical research at Charing Cross Hospital<\/p>\n
Where are you now?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
I am currently in London, exploring the next stage of my research career and opportunities to continue working at the intersection of neuroscience, wearable technology and human performance<\/p>\n
What are you working on?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
I am developing ideas for a potential industry-partnered PhD at Imperial. I am particularly interested in applying what I learned from studying movement and motor function in clinical neuroscience to human performance, including motorsport. I would like my future research to bridge neuroscience, wearable sensing and real-world performance<\/p>\n
What is the most important lesson you learnt as a Master\u2019s student?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
One of the most important lessons I learned was to stop focusing so much on doing everything perfectly and instead learn to enjoy the process of being challenged. There is something incredibly valuable about being pushed outside your comfort zone and grappling with things you do not yet understand. Over the course of the MSc, I began to see that challenge differently: being surrounded by people who know more than you, being confronted with difficult questions, and even feeling slightly overwhelmed by how much there is still to learn are all privileges. Imperial taught me to embrace that discomfort rather than fear it, because that is often where the most meaningful learning happens<\/p>\n
How did the Master\u2019s programme help you get to where you are now?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
The MSc expanded my perspective on where a career in neuroscience could take me. It gave me the opportunity to work directly with patients while developing skills in wearable technology, data analysis and machine learning, and showed me how neuroscience can be applied to real-world challenges beyond traditional research settings. Most importantly, the programme encouraged me to think across disciplines and explore how the skills I developed could translate into areas such as human performance. This experience has shaped the direction I hope to take next: pursuing an industry-partnered PhD that builds on my work at Imperial and combines neuroscience, technology and real-world application<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is your name? Vea Marita Bley Where are you from? Florida, USA Which class do you belong to? MSc Translational Neuroscience, Class of 2026 Where and what did you study before joining Imperial College London? I studied Biology at the University of Florida How did you find your Master\u2019s experience at the College? I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/alumni-brains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}