Category: Academic staff

Professor Eiman Kanjo, Provost’s Visiting Professor, Department of Computing

“My extensive network within international tech companies and community groups enables me to foster collaboration and advocate for change in the broader engineering community.”

My primary mission as Provost’s Visiting Professor in the Department of Computing  is to fully immerse myself in the academic community and contribute significantly to the research and teaching efforts of Imperial. I firmly believe that this role will provide me with the resources, support, and collaborative environment I need to take my research to the next level and make a meaningful impact. I am committed to sharing my extensive connections with end-user organisations and industry by mentoring PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers, helping them bridge the gap between academia and the professional world for real-world impact and knowledge exchange.  (more…)

Professor George Constantinides, Professor of Digital Computation, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

“Outside of my role at Imperial, being a school governor has been transformational for me. I got to learn the very different skills of a non-executive director and gained a huge amount from working with a diverse group on strategic planning.”

I first joined Imperial as an undergraduate in 1994 on the Information Systems Engineering course (now called Electronic and Information Engineering), and I’ve been here ever since! As an undergrad I encountered an inspirational lecturer, Peter Cheung, who convinced me to stay as his PhD student (jointly supervised by Wayne Luk), and I’ve never really looked back. I became a lecturer in 2002, and over the last two decades I have had various roles including director of the undergraduate course I took as a student, research group head, and currently I am Associate Dean (Academic Workload) for the Faculty of Engineering.

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Professor Julie Makani, Provost’s Visiting Professor of Haematology, Department of Immunology and Inflammation

“As a Provost’s Visiting Professor, I hope to work with colleagues here to develop a platform for coordination, health, advocacy, research, and training in Africa.”

I trained in medicine at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, graduating in 1994. During my medical training, I did a student elective at the Royal Free Hospital in London. While at this placement I decided that I would like to specialise in internal medicine. At that time in Tanzania there were limited opportunities for specialist training as people were encouraged to go into public health. There also were no active haematology  specialisation programmes because there were only two haematologists in the whole country.

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Alessandra Luati, Provost’s Visiting Professor of Statistics, Department of Mathematics

“With no hesitation I decided to apply to the Provost’s Visiting Professor programme as I totally share the aims of the initiative”

I joined Imperial in November 2022, as a Provost’s Visiting Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics, so I have been working at Imperial for about five months now and I am very happy to be here. I come from the University of Bologna in Italy, where I am Professor of Statistics. I have a Ph.D. in statistics awarded by the University of Bologna, though I mainly studied in Denmark at the University of Aarhus where I developed a thesis on statistical inference for finite dimensional quantum systems. I then got a fellowship in time series so my main research interests, since then, are in mathematical statistics, time series and recently nonlinear dynamic models.

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Dr Stephanie Wright, Lecturer in Environmental Toxicology, School of Public Health 

“Being able to work in the lab on important environmental health issues, surrounded by amazing brains who are genuinely nice people, is a privilege.”

I wouldn’t say my career journey was entirely conventional. Academic, yes, but I skipped an MSc and went straight from PhD to my first fellowship. These were considerable achievements, but establishing both my independence and my own research niche so early on was challenging. I also weaved through disciplines, from marine biology to ecotoxicology to physical and analytical chemistry, to exposure and air pollution science and back to toxicology. These have given me a solid, holistic understanding of the research I do. Now I’m a lecturer and lead a research team and I can’t wait to watch them flourish and make discoveries in the emerging field of microplastics and health.  

Over the last few months, I’ve presented remotely to a group of European consortia, and to College students on the other side of the world. The students were on a programme at the University of Akron, and as part of one of their modules, I was invited to give a lecture.

I also presented in-person to science enthusiasts at the New Scientist Festival in Manchester, and to toxicologists in San Diego at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, my first international conference off UK soil in two years.   (more…)

Dr Marisa Miraldo, Associate Professor in Health Economics, Business School  


“The impact I value the most is making a difference to the lives and careers of my students.”

I am an economist by training. Early in my career I realized that I wanted to contribute to improving society and wellbeing, so I opted to focus on health economics and policy.  

The core of my job is conducting research with social impact, with an emphasis on policies and interventions to promote population health at global level. My work has been featured at the World Economic Forum and has informed the development of health policies internationally, for example the introduction of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages to curb obesity. During the pandemic I led a project that created a tool to help governments decide which patients should be seen first in hospitals given their capacity constraints. If implemented, it has the potential to save years of life globally.   

My work on diversity and inclusion has impacted the lives of Imperial staff through initiatives to mitigate gender pay gaps and prevent bullying and harassment. I chair the Diversity Committee and have been awarded a Julia Higgins award for my contribution to equality, diversity and inclusion.  

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Dr Gbemi Oluleye, Lecturer in Energy and Environmental Technology and Policy, Centre for Environmental Policy 


“I develop decision-making tools to support integration and uptake of industrial decarbonisation concepts”

My educational journey started in Nigeria and continued in the United Kingdom where I completed a PhD in process integration. My professional career has followed the same pattern. I worked as a process engineer in both countries and consulted for industrial partners before moving into research and academia. 

My career choice was initially influenced by my interest in designing industrial processes. This expanded into looking at whole industrial systems – minimising resource and energy use, and decarbonisation.  

I joined Imperial in 2019 and my research develops and applies concepts at the interface of engineering, economics, and policy to address industrial decarbonisation. I develop modelling and decision-making tools to support cost-effective integration and uptake of industrial decarbonisation concepts such as advanced materials and energy efficiency, fuel and technology switching, carbon capture utilisation and storage, and greenhouse gas removal.  

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Dr Anne ter Wal, Associate Professor of Technology & Innovation Management, Imperial College Business School 

“The invisible webs of connections that we all have bear a strong influence on the ideas we develop and promote.”

I joined Imperial over twelve years ago, straight after finishing my PhD in the Netherlands, where I grew up. Currently, I lead an EU-funded research program titled “Networking for Innovation” to study how networking enables entrepreneurs and innovators to achieve business and innovation success. Together with a diverse team of postdocs and PhD students, as well as local and international collaborators, I seek to understand how individuals go about building the connections they need and assess how different approaches to building and mobilizing these connections help individuals to innovate. 

Networks are a fascinating field of study. Behind the scenes, the invisible webs of connections that we all have bear a strong influence on the ideas we develop and promote, but some people are better able to build and exploit strong networks than others. We observed, for example, how some R&D scientists and R&D managers closely working together excelled at innovation, because they “mirrored” each other’s networks: they gained useful input from similar but non-overlapping connections which they used to challenge one another in productive ways.  

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Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Reader in Design Engineering and Robotics, Dyson School of Design Engineering

“We use robotics to understand how animals solve survival problems in their natural environment, like how mountain goats survive on steep cliffs.” 

“I am the director of the Morph Lab. We use robotics to understand how animals solve survival problems in their natural environment. For instance, we conduct experiments on soft robotic hoofs to understand how mountain goats survive on steep cliffs. We have discovered that the hoof works like a brain to convert slips against the cliff to vibrations that automatically create a braking action. This is similar to how an automobile’s anti-lock braking system (ABS) works.   

“Before the pandemic I enjoyed demonstrating the Morph Lab’s work to the public. It is rewarding to hear people say that our work helped them to understand a complex issue.  

“I began my studies in Sri Lanka before going to Japan and the US. When the civil war ended, I returned home to Sri Lanka to set up a bio-inspired robotics lab to support landmine detection work. Before joining the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial in 2017, I also worked at Harvard, MIT and King’s College London. 

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