Inaugural lectures of Professors Sinéad Rhodes, Professor Emma Wood and Professor David McLean from the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research. Queen's Medical Research Institute, 26 November, 5-7.30pm. Join us for an inaugural lecture showcase from the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research.With:Professor Sinéad Rhodes - Professor of Developmental NeuropsychologyProfessor Emma Wood - Professor of Behavioural NeuroscienceProfessor Dave McLean - Professorof Neural Development and BehaviourSinéad Rhodes is Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology in the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on thinking, learning and mental health difficulties in children with Neurodevelopmental conditions including autism, Dyspraxia, ADHD. She continually translates her research into services and resources for parents and teachers of children with Neurodevelopmental conditions. This engagement work has been scaled and is sustained through the formation of a spin-out company EPIC Think Learn in 2023. She now runs this social enterprise company alongside her academic work. EPIC Think Learn, won two awards at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards earlier this year: for 'research and innovation in digital health in social care' and 'making a social difference'. Sinéad has extensive experience in science communication and public engagement recognised by a Royal Society of Edinburgh medal for Innovation in Public Engagement in 2017 and the Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science in 2022. Being understood and not just seen: improving outcomes for children with Neurodevelopmental conditions Children with Neurodevelopmental conditions such as those who are autistic, have Dyspraxia, or ADHD have poor developmental outcomes. Sinéad’s work, over three decades, has sought to identify and understand the factors underlying their difficulties in academic learning, relationships, and mental health. In this talk, she will outline how her research findings have been used to support these young people, their parents and teachers through their translation from scientific findings to co-produced accessible resources. She will highlight how an innovation pathway, via commercialisation, can be used to scale the reach of public engagement with research as well as making it more sustainable. Emma Wood is Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. Emma graduated with a first-class honours degree in psychology from the University of St Andrews in 1987, before being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study for a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. During her PhD, Emma investigated ischemia-induced amnesia, which occurs when transient disruption of blood flow to the brain leaves patients unable to form new long-term memories. After submitting her thesis, Emma spent a summer as a Grass Fellow at the MBL at Woods Hole in the USA, before joining the University of Oregon as a postdoctoral RA, and subsequently completing a second postdoc at Boston University. In 1999, Emma was recruited to lectureship in the then-new Department of Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, where she has continued to use a combination of behavioural and electrophysiological recording techniques to understand how specific neurons and circuits in the brain contribute to memory and spatial navigation. In recent years, much of her research has focused on how these cognitive abilities and underlying neural circuits are affected in neurodevelopmental conditions. Since becoming a lecturer, Emma has progressed through senior lectureship, motherhood, and readership to her current position at the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research and Simons Foundation for the Developing Brain. Maps and memories in the brainFinding our way around without getting lost and remembering past events are key cognitive abilities that allow us to function effectively in our day to day lives. In her research, Professor Emma Wood and her team have explored how the brain forms representations of the world which allow an organism to navigate effectively and to remember past events. In her inaugural lecture Emma will talk about how she has navigated through her neuroscience career, describe some of her research approaches and findings, and discuss how the knowledge gained from understanding brain mechanisms of navigation and memory is being used to understand how and why these abilities are altered in neurodevelopmental disorders that result in intellectual disability. David McLean is Professor of Neural Development and Behavior at the University of Edinburgh. His research is focused on understanding the development and function of neuronal networks that control locomotion. McLean was born in Scotland but grew up in North America. He returned to Scotland to complete a BSc (Hons) in Biology in 1997 and a PhD in Neurobiology in 2001 with Keith Sillar, both at the University of St Andrews. McLean then moved to the USA for a post-doc with Joseph Fetcho in 2002, following him from Stony Brook University to Cornell University in 2004. He started his own lab at Northwestern University in 2008, with a primary appointment in the Department of Neurobiology and a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience, and was awarded tenure in 2015. He returned home to Scotland in 2024 where his lab studies locomotor behaviours in developing zebrafish using a combination of imaging, electrophysiological, and molecular approaches. In addition to simply being curious about the natural world, McLean’s research is motivated by the idea that understanding how movements are generated normally will accelerate treatments of movement disorders. McLean’s work has been recognized by numerous awards, including a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Klingenstein Fellowship in the Neurosciences, and a Searle Scholar award. He was also a runner up in the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology. Outside the lab he enjoys travel, golf, making music, and family time. Lights, cameras, actions: how see-through fish help us explain motor controlMost of us take our ability to move for granted. We can walk down the street without concentrating on the placement of our feet thanks to ‘motor’ circuitry hard at work in our spinal cord. It’s only when the spinal cord is damaged or diseased that we begin to appreciate the deceptive complexity of locomotion. Over his career, McLean’s research has focused on understanding how the spinal cord automates locomotor control and what changes during development to improve coordination. In this talk he will review his work using zebrafish as a model system, whose small size, rapid development and optical transparency provide unique opportunities to visualize the assembly and function of spinal circuitry in a living, growing animal. He will also highlight how the discoveries in fish reflect basic rules of life that can be applied to our own spinal cords and ultimately accelerate therapeutic strategies. 4.30pm | Doors open5-6.30pm | Inaugural lectures6.30-7.30pm | Drinks reception Register Here This article was published on Monday 14 September 2026
