VMG News

Professor Nigel John was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Each fellow receives a grant to enable travel overseas to study areas of topical and personal interest, to gain knowledge and bring back best practice for the benefit of others, their profession and community, in the UK. Nigel used the grant for a four week visit to Singapore and Australia where he met with other research groups involved in medical visualization and simulation. The trip took place June this year and begun at the Laboratory of Immersive Mathematics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Their work includes virtual arthroscopy and interactive MRI brain data segmentation. The itinerary then moved on to the Biomedical Imaging Group at the Australian e-Health Research Centre in Brisbane. The Surgical Simulation team there are building simulators for training colonoscopy and bronchoscopy, as well as preoperative planning applications.

Nigel learnt best practices from these groups which he intends to bring back to our Unit in Wales. Joint projects and papers were discussed and planned during the visit. In 2013 the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust received 1,161 applications and awarded 125 fellowships. “I was delighted and honoured to receive this award”, said Nigel, “and I would encourage others too apply for a fellowship in the future for the fantastic opportunity that it offers.”