Dr Anna Barnes

Anna Barnes trained in medical physics in Glasgow and became a Clinical Scientist in 1999 after completing her training in Biomedical Engineering and Equipment Management and a PhD in advanced methods in Neuroimaging for neurology and psychiatry. She continued her career in neuroimaging; first 2 years at the Institute of Neurology in Glasgow, 2 years at New York University PET imaging centre for movement disorders, 1 year at GE Healthcare radiopharmaceutical development team, 2 years at Columbia University NY in the fMRI psychology lab and 5 years at University of Cambridge Brain Mapping Unit developing imaging biomarkers for psychiatry applications. In 2012 she took up an NHS post at UCLH as the Lead Clinical Scientist tasked to introduce the novel combined PET and MRI scanner in the newly built UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre.

During this time, she also represented the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine as their VP for external relations 2013/16, VP for academic members 2020/22 and most recently the first woman president 2023/25, made 2 successful NIHR fellowship applications focussed on standardisation of MR imaging in oncology, and data science. She has been an NIHR mentor since 2016 after being awarded her NIHR SCL fellowship. In 2020 Anna represented the Medical Physics Imaging workforce for IPEM by serving on the National Imaging Optimisation Delivery Board – part of the Transforming Imaging Services initiative – during the CoViD-19 pandemic for which she was awarded the President’s Gold Medal for services to IPEM. She was the Regional Chief Healthcare Scientist for all the SE region for NHS-England and Improvement 2020/22 and is currently the director of King’s College Technology Evaluation working predominantly on evaluation of AI enabled digital health technologies for NICE and NHS-England and hon. Consultant Clinical Scientists in Medical Physics at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS-trust.