Board of Trustees

Annette Dolphin

President

President: 2024 – 2026

University College London, UK

Annette Dolphin is a Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Neuroscience Physiology and Pharmacology, at University College London.  In her academic career, she has made major discoveries with respect to neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels, their modulation and roles in disease.  In recent years her work has investigated the involvement of particular calcium channel sub-units in chronic pain.  She has also elucidated the mechanism of action of an important drug class, the gabapentinoids which are of therapeutic use in chronic pain. Her findings have significantly influenced our thinking in this field.

She has recently held the role of President of the British Neuroscience Association (2019-21), and she has been elected to the Council of the Royal Society (2023-2025).

Féaron Cassidy

Early Career Trustee

Early Career Trustee: 2024 – 2028

Maynooth University, Ireland

I am a postdoctoral researcher working on the interplay between obesity and immunology in order to better understand the obesity-associated pathologies for which immune dysfunction is an important component. These include type 2 diabetes and cancer for example. I am currently employed at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on an Enterprise Ireland project to develop a novel therapeutic for metabolic dysfunction. This year I was awarded the DOROTHY award (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions co-fund - Irish Research Council, Health Research Board, Environmental Protection Agency) to investigate the role of adipocyte-immune cell interactions in cancer risk. I will be co-hosted by Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and Maynooth University (Ireland), and begin this exciting opportunity in September 2024.

Heidi de Wet

General Trustee: Research

In office: 2021 – 2025

University of Oxford, UK

Heidi de Wet received her Bachelor of Science degree from North Western University, South Africa, and completed her doctoral studies in Department of Chemical Pathology at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Medical School, South Africa.

She moved to the University of Oxford to pursue post-doctoral studies in 2003, where she joined the group of Professor Frances Ashcroft. She joined the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics as a University Lecturer and Associate Professor of Physiology in 2013.

She is a Fellow and Director of Studies for Medicine for St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, UK.

Catherine Hall

Chair, Scientific Conferences Committee

In office: 2021 – 2025

University of Sussex, UK

Catherine is interested in how the brain balances energy supply and demand. During her PhD (with John Garthwaite, UCL, UK), she studied nitric oxide (NO) consumption by brain tissue. As a post-doctoral researcher (with David Attwell, UCL, UK), she investigated how NO alters how the brain uses oxygen, and what processes of neuronal transmission use the most oxygen. She then studied how NO and other signalling molecules interact to control the brain’s energy supply by regulating the tone of capillary pericytes, and how this regulation is impaired after stroke.

In 2014 she became a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex, UK, and now studies how the regulation of the brain's energy supply (neurovascular coupling) varies during different brain states, across different brain regions and at the onset of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and obesity. She is a member of the Sussex Neuroscience Steering Committee, the University Senate, convenes the core first year module "Psychobiology" and lectures on topics relating to basic neuroscience, neurovascular function and dementia.

Áine Kelly

General Trustee: Republic of Ireland

In office: 2021 – 2025

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Áine Kelly is Professor in Physiology and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Science Education at Trinity College Dublin, where she completed her BA (Mod) in Physiology and her PhD.

She teaches physiology to a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate students and her research group investigates the cellular mechanisms by which exercise may preserve brain health throughout life via modulation of neuroinflammation.

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez

Trustee - Diversity & Inclusion Champion

In office: 2022 – 2026

University College London, UK

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the UCL Division of Medicine. He obtained a master's degree and a PhD in Neurosciences after graduating from the National University of Mexico Medical School. He took postdoctoral positions in the UCL Department of Physiology and in the Cambridge Department of Clinical Neurosciences before obtaining a British Heart Foundation Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship.

He has been a member of The Physiological Society for over 17 years and worked as representative for UCL between 2020-2022.

As a cardiovascular Neuroscientist, his research interests include the study of glial and neuronal networks and their role in the pathogenesis of arterial hypertension and heart failure.

He was appointed as Vice-Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences in 2021.

Richard Marshall

Independent Trustee: Industry

In office: 2023 – 2027

Dr Richard Marshall is the Chief Executive Officer at biotech company, Juvenescence. He is a physician scientist and a highly experienced executive with a 20-year track record of outstanding leadership in Pharmaceutical R&D. He is driven by a passion for developing new medicines to treat diseases of high unmet need and is on a mission to improve the health span of people globally.

Paul McLoughlin

Chair, Publications Committee

In office: 2021 – 2025

University College Dublin, Ireland

Paul McLoughlin is Professor of Physiology and Head of the Biomedical Sciences Section, University College Dublin, Ireland.  He studied as an undergraduate at University College Dublin graduating in Medicine (1983) and Physiology (1985) and was awarded his PhD from King’s College London, UK, in 1993.

His research interest is in respiratory physiology with a focus on the pulmonary circulation in hypoxia and in hypoxic lung diseases.  His particular interest is in the role of the endothelium in the development of pulmonary hypertension.  His research laboratory is based in the UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research.

He has been a member of the Society since 1995, and served as Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology from 2011 to 2016.

Hugh Montgomery

Independent Trustee – Clinical

In office: 2022 – 2026

University College London, UK

Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE  FMedSci  MBBS  BSc  FRCP  MD  FRSB  FFICM  FRI

Professor Hugh Montgomery obtained a first-class degree in cardiorespiratory physiology/neuropharmacology before graduating from the Middlesex Hospital Medical school in 1987. He has since gained accreditation in general internal medicine, cardiology and intensive care medicine, and practices as a consultant in intensive care at the Whittington hospital in North London.

Hugh obtained his research degree (MD) in 1997, and is Professor of Intensive Care at UCL, where he directed the Centre for Human Health and Performance. He also co-chairs the international Lancet Countdown, which tracks how climate change is affecting human health. Hugh's interest has been in the use of environmental stressors in the exploration of human (patho)physiology – often using a genetic approach. He was the first to discover a ‘gene for human fitness’. He has published over 550 scientific articles, including five in Nature.

In 2022, Hugh was appointed Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) for services to intensive care medicine and climate change.

Andrew Parker

Honorary Treasurer

In office: 2022 – 2026

University of Oxford & St John’s College, Oxford, UK

Andrew Parker is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford and currently Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Biology at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. He is also a Fellow of St John’s College Oxford, where he was Tutor in Physiology and served for 12 years as Principal Bursar of the college. Andrew read Natural Sciences at Cambridge and continued there for his PhD, during which he studied spatial vision in the Kenneth Craik Laboratory. He moved to Oxford with a Beit Memorial Fellowship and began working on the physiology of the visual system, which continues to be a focus of his current work in Magdeburg. Andrew has been a member of the PhysSoc since he arrived in Oxford and has given the GL Brown lectures on the physiology of binocular stereoscopic vision. He has spent research visits at MIT, Stanford and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Andrew is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and has been awarded a higher doctorate (ScD) by the University of Cambridge.

Mike Tipton

Chair, Policy Committee

In office: 2021 – 2025

University of Portsmouth, UK

Mike is a Professor of Human and Applied Physiology at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He is a member of the Extreme Environments Laboratory of the School of Sport Health and Exercise Science. He has spent over 35 years working in the areas of thermoregulation, environmental and occupational physiology.

David Wyllie

General Trustee

General Trustee: 2024 – 2028

University of Edinburgh, UK

I am Professor of Ion Channel Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh where I am the interim co-Director of the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research and the deputy Dean of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Previously I was the director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences (2015-24). I graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology from the University of Glasgow in 1988 and gained my PhD from University College London in 1992. It was at UCL where my long-standing research interest in ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs) was piqued – specifically those gated by the neurotransmitter L-glutamate. My current interests in glutamatergic synaptic function and LGICs span fundamental structure-function studies through to research in dysfunctional signalling in rodent models of human neurodevelopmental disorders. I have a particular focus in the study of mutations or deletions of genes coding for NMDA receptor subunits. My research vision is to develop an integrated approach to research that begins with the study of single protein molecules and synaptic function and extends, through collaboration with colleagues, to whole animal studies with an ultimate goal of the clinical study and treatment of disease.

I have been a strong supporter of The Physiological Society since attending my first Society scientific meeting in 1988 and joined as a member in 1996 being elected as a Fellow in the first tranche when this category was created in 2017. As I have progressed through my career, I have continued to receive support from The Society, and have also served The Society in several capacities. I was elected a Trustee in 2006 and from 2010-14 held the position of Meetings Secretary. I have championed research in physiology through my role as a Reviewing Editor (2015-18) and Senior Editor (2018-24) of The Journal of Physiology.