Team details

Professor Alex Foss BA BMBCh MRCP MRCOphth FRCOphth MA DM MMedSci Consultant Ophthalmologist, Nottingham University Hospitals Alex Foss is the Chief Investigator for this project. He is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and is an honorary clinical professor at Nottingham University. He has a large variety of research interests including the application of computer science to modern medicine, and clinical trials methodology.

He has authored one book and many papers, and has been grant-holder for a range of awards. He is currently also Chief Investigator for the TANDEM trial, a large scale clinical trial looking at the use of Avastin in age related macular degeneration.

Rebecca Brown Project Manager and Advanced Orthoptist, Nottingham University Hospitals Rebecca is a qualified state-registered Orthoptist, having worked at Nottingham University Hospitals since her graduation from the University of Sheffield in 2003. Rebecca has experience in a variety of other areas of Orthoptics, having lead services in school screening, paediatric low vision support and provision of service at the Child Development Centre for children with special needs, before joining the I-BiT team in 2015. Rebecca is also qualified as a clinical tutor for undergraduate orthoptic students and has experience of teaching medical students and junior doctors.

Dr Richard Eastgate Technical Director of the Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham Dr Richard Eastgate is the Technical Director of the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham. He did his Ph.D on “The Structured Development of Virtual Environments: Enhancing Functionality and Interactivity”. In 1991 Richard was one of the founding members of VIRART, the Virtual Reality Applications Research Team, established to explore and develop applications of virtual reality technology. Since then he has worked on a number of research projects examining a variety of application domains.

His particular interests are the uses of VR in the transport and healthcare domains. He is currently involved in a number of research projects including I-BiT™, ManuVAR, and CoSpatial, as well as providing technical advice and support for all of the group’s projects. He also provides supervision for PhD students and MSc research and experimental work.

Dr Jon Purdy HIVE Manager Department of Computer Science University of Hull Jon Purdy is the computer games subject leader in the department of Computer Science and he has helped to develop computer games based curricula at many institutions in Yorkshire and beyond. Jon is also a senior assessor for Skillset (helping to provide national accreditation for computer games courses that meet the high standards required in the games industry.)

He started his academic life at Hull in the department of Applied Physics with a degree and then Ph.D. in magnetic materials. This was then followed by a move over the Pennines to work in Manchester and Bolton, teaching electronics and developing medical instrumentation and imaging software. He then returned to Hull and and spent much of his time developing and delivering courses in games related subjects, whilst keeping an active research interest in medical signal processing and instrumentation. His next move was to the University of Bradford where he was Head of Mathematics in the School of Computing, Informatics and Media. He has now returned to Hull where he has taken the role of HIVE Manager.

Prof Paul McGraw Details to follow

Isabel Ash Head Orthoptist, Nottingham University Hospitals Details to follow

Dr Gill Adams Gill Adams is a consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital and is a subspecialist in strabismus and paediatric ophthalmology. She is currently the Service Director for the strabismus and neuro ophthalmology service. Her practice involves paediatric and adult strabismus including the use of botulinum toxin, paediatric cataract and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening and treatment. Gill was Principal Investigator on BOSU study: Treated ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) in UK and the Prospective study: Incidence of retinal haemorrhages in intensive care admissions in Great Ormond Street Hospital. Gill is a principal investigator for this project at Moorfields.

Annie Joseph Annie Joseph is a consultant at the University Hospital of North Midlands and is a subspecialist in strabismus and paediatric ophthalmology. Her practice involves paediatric and adult strabismus including paediatric cataract and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening and treatment.
Annie is a principal investigator for this project at the Royal Stoke Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent.

Dr Peter Blanchfield Team Leader Until June 2019 Peter Blanchfield was an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, a post which he had held since 2005. He is now independant and works as IBitSoftware. Please see here to read more. His main research areas in recent years have been in the development of eLearning systems and particularly games for educational and therapeutic purposes. In particular work has been in the area of therapy in support for children with conduct disorder.
His work on the use of games to help in theraputic treatments has led to involvement with the formation of the MindTech Helthcare Technology Co-operative which involves input from the University of Nottingham Institute for Mental Health in collaboration with others in Computer Science, Engineering, SMEs and the Public and Patient groups.

Peter La Valle Programmer Peter LaValle is a software engineer and game developer working at the University of Nottingham. Following an early career with online and mobile games Peter has joined I-BiT with an interest in the project and curiosity about research work in general. He's largely taken on the role of integrating the various technologies required to achieve eye-tracking 3D stereoscopic rendering.

Keerthy Kusumam Programmer Keerthy is a researcher with special interest in visual recognition working at the University of Nottingham. Before coming to Nottingham Keerthy was a Research Assistant at the University of Lincoln where she had previously completed an MRes in computer vision. Keerthy is working on the next steps for the project.

Matthew Bradley Designer Matthew Bradley is a software engineer and games designer based at the University of Nottingham. He previously worked for Ubisoft and Crytek on a number of successful commercial titles such as ‘The Division’ and ‘Crysis’. Drawn to the I-BiT project by a desire to see games used for good causes Matt has used this motivation to play a key role in designing and producing the I-BiT software to the high specification more usually seen in the games industry.

Chiletam Ogbu Intern Programmer Sept 2017 - May 2018 Chiletam is a student on Industrial Placement from Nottingham Trent University. She has been developing upgrades of the measurement software and maintaining the software. She has been working with Rebecca to improve patient experience.

Dr Roy Harris Head of Project Development/IP, Nottingham University Hospitals Roy Harris is Head of Project Development/IP in the Research and Innovation Department of Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust. He is a Protein/BioChemist by training with over 25 years industrial experience of innovative scientific research and intellectual property management in fields including cancer, haemostasis/thrombosis, micro particle drug delivery and wound healing. Founded own research company in 1999 developing novel applications for chronic wound and tissue repair. He joined the I-BiT team to support project development through intellectual property management and its exploitation.

Mr Richard Gregson BM BchMA DPhil (Oxon) FRCS (ED) FRCOphth Consultant Ophthalmologist, Nottingham University Hospitals Richard Gregson was the Chief Investigator for this project. He is a Consultant Ophthalmologist with a special interest in paediatric ophthalmology and strabismus. He has written two books and several papers in the field of Ophthalmology and has been involved in several prospective research projects including the use of Intra-Ocular lenses after surgery in rural Nepal; the effect of cataract surgery on falls in the elderly and the use of Virtual Reality in the treatment of Amblyopia in children.

Nicola Herbison Project Manager & Research Orthoptist, Nottingham University Hospitals Nicola was a qualified State Registered Orthoptist who graduated from the University of Liverpool. She was based at Nottingham University Hospitals and was the project manager for the I-BiT Research Trial, having been a member of the I-BiT team since 2003 until her untimely death in 2014.
She also worked as a lecturer and programme leader for the Foundation Degree in Ophthalmic Science & Technology Course at Castle College, Nottingham and recently obtained her Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Nottingham Trent University.

Daisy MacKeith Clinical Investigator / Research Orthoptist, Nottingham University Hospitals Daisy is a qualified state registered Orthoptist who graduated from the University of Liverpool. She worked as a Research Orthoptist at Nottingham University Hospitals from August 2011 until 2014. Daisy was the Clinical Trials lead for the I-BiT Research Trial and also worked as part of Nottingham University Hospitals’ clinical Orthoptic team. Prior to this she worked as an Orthoptist for Cambridge University Hospitals, where she has now returned. Daisy has a background in the arts and obtained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2006. She is now studying towards a MMedSci in Vision and Strabismus and has a particular interest in cognitive visual processing.

Mr Stephen Haworth Stephen Haworth (FRCS Ophth.) is a retired Consultant Ophthalmologist with a long term interest in this project.

Tony Vivian Head of Post-Graduate School of Ophthalmology and Associate Dean at Health Education East of England Tony was a principal investigator for this project at Cambridge.

Dr Paula Waddingham Audit, Research and Effectiveness Manager, Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust Dr Paula Waddingham was a key member of the I-BiT™ team until she recently took up a new position as an Audit, Research and Effectiveness Manager in Cambridge. Paula has presented research papers and posters at many eye meetings, both nationally and internationally. She was the lead clinical research orthoptist for the I-BiT™ project and her PhD was on the ‘Application of virtual reality in the treatment of amblyopia’.

Dr Sue Cobb Research Manager of the Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham Sue Cobb is a Principal Research Fellow of the University of Nottingham and Research Manager of the Virtual Reality Applications Research Team (VIRART). She obtained a degree in Psychology (Plymouth, 1985), an MSc in Human Factors (Birmingham, 1986) and a PhD in Human Factors Engineering (Nottingham, 1991). In 1992 she was one of the founding members of VIRART, established to explore and develop applications of virtual reality technology. Research interests include user-centred design, development and evaluation of virtual environments, virtual and mixed reality systems for education, healthcare and rehabilitation.

Sue has been Project Manager of Human Factors research on a number of multidisciplinary projects in these areas resulting in research and development of new technologies for: story creation and re-telling in primary schools (KidStory), Science Education in Secondary Schools (Virtual RadLab), Life Skills Education for learning Disabilities (Virtual Life Skills), Social Skills Training for children and adults with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS Interactive), Stroke Rehabilitation (VR-Stroke), and Treatment of Amblyopia (I-BiT™™).
Sue was amongst the first cohort of academic/research staff recruited to the Midlands Medici Technology Transfer Fellowship scheme (2002) and was involved in patent submission and co-ordination between Technology Transfer Offices at the University of Nottingham and the East Midlands NHS Innovations Hub to examine routes for exploitation and commercialisation of the I-BiT™ technology.