Career Details

I am a Research Associate in the Faculty of Health and Medicine at the Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University, where I am researching the impact of exercise prehabilitation on brain health and cognitive function in patients with colorectal cancer undergoing chemotherapy. This project is funded by North West Cancer Research (CI: Dr Christopher Gaffney).

My background is in sport and exercise sciences, especially focusing on clinical exercise physiology. In my doctoral research, I focused on research questions around cerebrovascular and cardiovascular health in patients following acute stroke. I conducted research centred around stroke-heart syndrome, and the relationship between cerebrovascular health and sedentary behaviour following acute stroke, and the risk it poses to adverse cardiovascular events and patient-reported outcomes, such as cognitive function and depression. Specifically, I used techniques such as transcranial Doppler and vascular ultrasonography to investigate the responsiveness of the cerebrovasculature through various stimuli to document the influence of blood pressure on cerebral blood flow velocity. Other research techniques, such as acceleratory and retrospective chart review, were used to understand lifestyle behaviour and newly diagnosed cardiovascular complications following stroke onset.

I have a varied interest in how lifestyle behaviours, such as exercise, impact general and brain health in clinical populations.