As the inaugural year of the MSc/MRes in Healthcare Technologies programmes came to an end, five students received prizes for their academic performance and contributions to student life.

Dr Andrew Melbourne, Programme Director of the MSc/MRes in Healthcare Technologies said: "The prizes are well-deserved and highlight some of the outstanding students we had in our first year of the programme. All of us have of course been affected by COVID-19 since the spring, but the commitment of both the students and the lecturers has been exceptional.”

Professor Kawal Rhode, Head of Education at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences added: "I would like to offer my congratulations to all of our graduates from the Healthcare Technologies programmes and especially our prize-winners. Our teaching staff have provided a great student experience in this augural year and I thank them for their continuing hard work."

The Best Overall Student awards, rewarding those who achieved the highest overall grades on each course, were given to Neel Patel from the MSc and Yannick Brackenier from the MRes programme.

Yannick Brackenier said: “On the course, we learned about a wide range of disciplines within biomedical engineering, including physics, machine learning and much more. Being taught by leading experts in the field on a broad range of topics provided me with a strong theoretical foundation and advanced skills to work on my research project.”

Yannick also won the award for Outstanding Individual Project on the MRes course, a prize he shared with Marica Muffoletto. Yannick’s project explored motion correction techniques for ultra-high field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), while Marica’s research focused on finding a suitable technique to segment cardiac scans. They will both continue to develop their projects during their PhDs at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Smart Medical Imaging at King’s College London and Imperial College London.

Marica said: “After my doctoral studies, which are supported by Siemens Healthineers as an industrial partner, I hope to continue my career in the field of cardiovascular imaging and stay involved in the academic environment in some way.”

From the MSc cohort, Alexander Mitton won the Outstanding Individual Project award for his work on designing a wearable, vibrotactile stimulation device for patients with dystonia, a movement disorder that causes uncontrollable and sometimes painful muscle spasms.

He said his project allowed him to build on the knowledge gained from the MSc in a number of ways: “For example, our module on scientific programming helped me familiarise myself with carrying out a project collaboratively using online repositories – the very first time I had done this.”

MRes student Virginia Fernandez received the Outstanding Contribution to the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences prize, after nominations by members of the MSc/MRes Healthcare Technologies Assessment Sub-Board.

Virginia’s award recognises the support she provided to new cohorts of students through her science-inspired cartoons and promotion of public engagement activities. Virginia said: “Getting involved in public engagement has motivated me and made me feel part of a wide and heterogeneous community in science, healthcare and innovation. I wanted to share this feeling with the new students.”

One of Virginia’s cartoons, LSTM, was produced for her Advanced Machine Learning module, and illustrated in a creative manner how Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks work.

The new MSc/MRes programmes are designed to provide students with an advanced and comprehensive understanding of the engineering challenges facing modern, global healthcare.

Students can take advantage of the breadth of knowledge at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences and are exposed to the most recent and exciting developments in medical and surgical intervention, with the freedom to tailor their programme toward their own career ambitions.

Students have the opportunity to connect with clinical and industrial partners throughout their course to enrich their experience and increase their clinical and commercial awareness.

Dr Melbourne said: "Our second cohort has just joined us and we have adapted our programme to be fully flexible under the ongoing international changes brought about by the pandemic. We are looking forward to another successful year for our students."

Applications to the third cohort of both programmes open on 26 October 2020 - – please visit the course website for more information.