Who we are
Prof Danail Stoyanov, Director
Prof Dan Stoyanov is a Professor of Robot Vision at the Department of Computer Science at UCL, Co-Director of the UCL Hawkes Institute, and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. He is elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (FIEEE), Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (FIET), Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), and Fellow of the MICCAI Society (FMICCAI). His research is focused on developing surgical robotics and artificial intelligence for improving minimally invasive interventions.
He leads the Surgical Robot Vision group at the UCL Hawkes Institute.
Dr Erwin Alles
Dr Erwin Alles is a Lecturer in Interventional and Surgical Sciences at the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at UCL. His research interests include optical ultrasound, photoacoustics, and multimodal and interventional imaging.
He leads the MISI group at the UCL Hawkes Institute.
Prof Brian Davidson
Prof Brian Davidson is a consultant hepatobiliary, pancreatic and liver transplant surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital and Professor of Surgery at UCL. He is also Chair of the London Regional Advisory Committee for the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme. His major research interests are in Evidence based Healthcare (Director of UCL MSc), Clinical Trials, pathogenesis of HPB cancers and novel surgical technologies.
Dr Stamatia Giannarou
Dr Stamatia (Matina) Giannarou is a Senior Lecturer in Surgical Cancer Technology and Imaging at the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, UK. She holds a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, and she is leading the Cognitive Vision in Robotic Surgery research group at the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery. Her work focuses on developing computer vision and Artificial Intelligence techniques for intraoperative surgical navigation and tissue characterisation during robot-assisted operations.
Dr James Kinross
Dr James Kinross is a Reader in Colorectal Surgery and a Consultant Surgeon at Imperial College London. His clinical interest is in robotic surgery and minimally invasive surgery for colorectal cancer. He performs translational research in the fields of early colorectal cancer detection and prevention and in surgical technology transfer.
Mr Christopher Peters
Mr Christopher Peters is clinical senior lecturer at Imperial and a consultant upper GI surgeon in London with a specialist interest in transitioning new technologies to the patient. His specialist interest is in oesophageal and gastric cancer and conducts research into molecular and clinical predictors of outcome in oesophageal adenocarcinoma.
Prof Sarah Bohndiek, Co-Director
Prof Sarah Bohndiek is a Professor of Biomedical Physics in the Department of Physics and at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. Her research interests lie in advancing our understanding of tumour evolution using next-generation imaging sciences and in translating these findings into first-in-human clinical trials. Sarah is an elected Fellow of SPIE and was recently awarded the CRUK Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize and SPIE Early Career Achievement Award in recognition of her interdisciplinary research innovation.
She leads the VISIONLAb research team at the University of Cambridge.
Dr Sophia Bano
Dr Sophia Bano is an Assistant Professor in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at UCL in the Department of Computer Science and is part of the UCL Hawkes Institute, Centre for Artificial Intelligence and UCL Robotics Institute. Her research interests are in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence for context awareness, machine consciousness and navigation in minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery.
Dr Massimiliano di Pietro
Dr Massimiliano di Pietro is a Senior Clinical Investigator Scientist at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Gastroenterology at Cambridge University. He has an interest in early detection of upper gastro-intestinal cancer, with particular attention to oesophageal and gastric cancer and risk stratification of patients with Barrett's oesophagus. His research focuses on novel imaging modalities and clinical utility of molecular biomarkers.
Mr Stefano Giuliani
Mr Stefano Giuliani is Consultant Specialist Neonatal and Paediatric Surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London and honorary Associate Professor at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health at UCL.
Mr Daniel Leff
Mr Daniel Leff is currently a Reader in Breast Surgery working in the Departments of BioSurgery and Surgical Technology and Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery at Imperial College London. He is an Honorary Consultant in Oncoplastic Breast Surgery working within the Breast Unit at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Prof Mengxing Tang
Professor Mengxing Tang is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College. His current research mainly focuses on developing new imaging techniques of ultrahigh temporal resolution (up to tens of thousands of frames per second) and spatial resolution (down to tens of microns at multi-centimeter depth) using ultrasound, signal and image processing techniques, for visualising and quantifying macro- and micro-vascular structure and flow dynamics. He also works on developing ultrasound tomography technologies for imaging the human brain, as well as using ultrasound as a brain-computer interface.
Prof Daniel Elson, Co-Director
Daniel Elson is a Professor of Surgical Imaging and Biophotonics in the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Institute of Global Health Innovation and Department of Surgery and Cancer at St. Mary's Hospital. Research interests are based around the development and application of photonics technology to medical imaging, including multispectral imaging, near infrared fluorescence, structured lighting, light sources in endoscopy and diffuse and fluorescence spectroscopy.
He leads the Surgical Imaging and Biophotonics group at the Hamlyn Centre.
Prof Paul Beard
Prof Paul Beard is Professor of Biomedical Photoacoustics at UCL. He founded and leads the Photoacoustic Imaging Group within the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering. The group's activities are directed towards the development of a new method of non-invasive biomedical imaging based upon the use of laser-generated acoustic waves for visualising the structure and function of soft tissues. Potential applications include the clinical assessment of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and skin abnormalities.
Prof Rebecca Fitzgerald
Rebecca Fitzgerald is Professor of Cancer Prevention at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Early Cancer Institute. She still practises medicine as an Honorary Consultant in Gastroenterology at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. The focus of her research group is to improve methods for early detection of oesophageal cancer through better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis.
Dr Danielle Harper
Dr Danielle Harper is Research Group Leader in the Early Cancer Institute at the University of Cambridge. Danielle is working on tailoring her optical imaging techniques to be suitable for cancer cell detection, with an ultimate goal of real-time intraoperative tumour margin assessment.
Mr Hani Marcus
Mr Hani Marcus is an experienced consultant neurosurgeon at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and Honorary Associate Professor at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. He specialises in treating patients with pituitary adenoma and related skull base tumours and his research interest is in technologies such as augmented reality, robotics, and artificial intelligence.