Natali van Zijl obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering (2018) and Master’s degree in Extractive Metallurgical Engineering (2018) from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She was then awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to pursue her PhD at the University of Oxford, where her research focussed on physiological and data-driven modelling of cerebral blood flow regulation.

Natali is currently a Research Associate in the Haemodynamic Modelling Research Group at King’s College London, where her research focusses on modelling cardiovascular haemodynamics as part of the VITAL (VIrtual Twins as tools for personalised clinicAL care) project. Her current work involves generating disease-specific datasets of arterial pulse wave signals from thousands of virtual subjects. These large-scale virtual populations will support the development of human digital twins for personalised, sex-specific treatment optimisation for patients with circulatory overload disorders such as hypertension, heart failure, and atrial septal defects.

A complete list of Natali’s publications can be found on her Google Scholar profile.