Rebecca Shipley
{{short description|British mathematician and professor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Rebecca Shipley
| honorific suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE|FREng|FIET}}
|birth_place = Buckinghamshire, England
|citizenship = United Kingdom
| alma_mater = University of Oxford
| occupation = Professor of Healthcare Engineering
| employer = University College London
}}
Rebecca Julia Shipley {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE|FREng|FIET}} is a British mathematician and professor of healthcare engineering at University College London (UCL). She is director of the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering, co-director of the UCL Centre for Nerve Engineering and Vice Dean (Health) for the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences.{{cite web|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/healthcare-engineering/people|title=People|last=UCL|date=2018-09-27|website=UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering|access-date=2019-10-09}}{{cite web|url=https://www.nerve-engineering.ucl.ac.uk/people/profile/rebecca-shipley/|title=Nerve Engineering / People / Rebecca Shipley |date=2019-10-09|website=|access-date=}}{{cite web|url=https://mecheng.ucl.ac.uk/people/profile/dr-rebecca-shipley/|title=Mechanical Engineering / People / Rebecca Shipley |date=2019-10-09|website=|access-date=}} She is also co-director of the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/chimera/ UCL CHIMERA Research Hub] with Prof Christina Pagel and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Early life and education
Shipley grew up in Buckinghamshire, where she attended Dr Challoner's High School for Girls. She graduated with an MMath in Mathematics from St Hugh's College, University of Oxford and was awarded a doctorate from the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford in 2008 for her thesis "Multiscale Modelling of Fluid and Drug Transport in Vascular Tumours".
Research career
Her first postdoctoral position was a prestigious Research Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford to develop mathematical and computational models that describe biomechanical and biochemical stimulation of tissues. She also held two concurrent Visiting Research Fellowships at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Bath, and Tissue Repair and Engineering Centre, UCL during that time.
In 2012, Shipley moved from mathematics into bioengineering, taking up a Lectureship in UCL Mechanical Engineering. Her research is predominantly divided into two themes: tumour blood flow and nervous system tissue engineering.
Within the field of tumour blood flow and therapy prediction, she is developing new bioengineering platforms which combine computational modelling with in vivo and ex vivo imaging data to better understand and interrogate cancer therapies.{{cite journal | vauthors = d'Esposito A, Sweeney PW, Ali M, Saleh M, Ramasawmy R, Roberts TA, Agliardi G, Desjardins A, Lythgoe MF, Pedley RB, Shipley R, Walker-Samuel S | display-authors = 6 | title = Computational fluid dynamics with imaging of cleared tissue and of in vivo perfusion predicts drug uptake and treatment responses in tumours | journal = Nature Biomedical Engineering | volume = 2 | issue = 10 | pages = 773–787 | date = October 2018 | pmid = 31015649 | doi = 10.1038/s41551-018-0306-y | s2cid = 80663002 | url = https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10055618/1/nBME_REANIMATE_final.pdf }} Her work advancing cancer therapies has been recognised in the national press.{{cite web|url=https://inews.co.uk/news/science/scientists-come-a-step-closer-to-personalised-cancer-treatment-506455|title=Scientists take big step towards personalised cancer treatment|website=inews.co.uk|date=10 October 2018 |access-date=2019-10-09}}
Within nervous system tissue engineering, she has developed an interdisciplinary programme spanning bioengineering, computational modelling and tissue engineering to characterise the response of repairing nerves to chemical and mechanical stimuli, and integrate these data to design and test repair constructs. This is complemented by her work using computational modelling to understand the role of biochemical and biophysical stimuli, and define operating parameters, in tissue engineering development.
In 2017 she co-founded the UCL Centre for Nerve Engineering, the first Centre in the UK to bring together engineering and physical sciences with the life and clinical sciences to tackle translational nerve engineering problem.{{cite web|url=https://mecheng.ucl.ac.uk/rebeccashipley/news/launched-ucl-centre-nerve-engineering/|title=Launch of the UCL Centre of Nerve Engineering |date=|website=|access-date=}}
In March 2020, Shipley was one of the main leads of the UCL / UCL Hospitals / Mercedes F1 effort to develop, manufacture and distribute the Ventura non-invasive breathing mask to provide crucial machines to help patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Royal Academy of Engineers talk|url=https://www.raeng.org.uk/events/events-programme/2020/may/innovation-in-a-crisis-ucl-ventura|access-date=|website=}}{{Cite web|date=2020-04-22|title=How Mercedes F1 and academics fast-tracked life saving breathing aid|url=https://www.theengineer.co.uk/mercedes-f1-academics-breathing-aid/|access-date=2020-07-22|website=The Engineer|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=Dempsey|first=Paul|date=2020-05-25|title=Teardown: UCL-Ventura CPAP breathing aid|url=https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/05/teardown-ucl-ventura-cpap-breathing-aid/|access-date=2020-07-22|website=eandt.theiet.org|language=en-US}}{{Cite news|last=Walsh|first=Fergus|date=2020-03-30|title=F1 team helps to create coronavirus breathing aid|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52087002|access-date=2020-07-22}} The design was made open source and to date over 1,800 teams from 105 countries have taken licences and 20 have manufactured their own prototypes to test.
Honours, awards and recognition
- “Young Researcher of the Year” by the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society UK (TCES) in 2011{{cite web |url=https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/742 |title=The Tissue and Cell Engineering Society has awarded its Early Stage Investigator prize to Rebecca Shipley, of OCIAM | work = Mathematical Institute| publisher = University of Oxford |access-date=2019-10-09 }}
- Rosetrees Trust Interdisciplinary Prize 2016{{cite web |url= http://simonwalkersamuel.com/news/2016/6/13/winners-of-rosetrees-trust-interdisciplinary-prize |title=Winners of Rosetrees Trust Interdisciplinary Prize! | work = Walker Samuel Group |access-date=2019-10-09 }}
- 5-year EPSRC Fellowship 2018-2023{{cite web|url=https://epsrc.ukri.org/about/people/rebeccashipley/|title=Rebecca Shiplsy | work = Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |access-date=2019-10-09}}
- Associate editor for Nature Scientific Reports,{{cite web|url=https://www.nature.com/srep/about/editors|title=Editors | work = Scientific Reports |access-date=2019-10-09 }} Journal of Engineering Mathematics{{cite web|url=https://www.springer.com/journal/10665/editors| title = Editors |work = Journal of Engineering Mathematics |access-date=2019-10-09}}
- Shipley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to the development of the Continuous Positive Airways Pressure Device during the pandemic.{{London Gazette|issue=63377|supp=y|page=B14|date=12 June 2021}}
Public outreach and engagement
Shipley is active in bringing mathematics and engineering to the wider public. Her outreach activities include:
- Participating in a UK wide event, [http://www.bigassembly.org/ Tomorrow’s Engineers Week Big Assembly], in November 2019 to inspire young people to enter engineering careers{{cite web|url=https://www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/36261-hundreds-of-engineers-set-to-inspire-young-people-in-uk-wide-big-assembly|title=Hundreds of engineers set to inspire young people in UK-wide 'Big Assembly'|last=Louise|website=FE News|date=6 October 2019 |access-date=2019-10-09}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/stem-awards/stem-hq/work-in-stem-and-the-world-is-your-oyster/|title=Why now is a fantastic time to work in STEM|last=Pozniak|first=Helena|date=2019-11-29|work=The Telegraph|access-date=2019-12-07|language=en-GB|issn=0307-1235}}
- Royal Society Summer Exhibition stall on the Mathematics of Cancer{{cite web|url=http://www.drugdiscoverytoday.com/view/47621/explore-virtual-tumours-with-ucl-at-the-royal-society-summer-science-exhibition/|title=Explore virtual tumours with UCL at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition - Drug Discovery Today|website=www.drugdiscoverytoday.com|access-date=2019-10-09}}
- Podcasts for BBC Radio 2 (Naked Scientists){{cite web|url=https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/naked-scientists-podcast/tomorrows-tech-biomedical-breakthroughs|title=Tomorrow's Tech: Biomedical Breakthroughs|date=2017-11-21|website=www.thenakedscientists.com|access-date=2019-10-09}}{{cite web|url=https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/gels-help-nerves-re-grow|title=Gels to help nerves re-grow|date=2018-12-20|website=www.thenakedscientists.com|access-date=2019-10-09}}
References
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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford
Category:People from Buckinghamshire
Category:21st-century British women mathematicians
Category:Academics of University College London
Category:Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire