1+3 Student
My PhD project is titled “The role of thalamic inhibitory interneurons in sensory processing”. We aim to investigate the connectivity of interneurons in the sub-cortical visual system and their functional roles in visual information processing. Working with collaborators, we hope to combine our behavioural, electrophysiological and connectivity data to produce a model of interneuron function.
I completed my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science with Industrial/Professional experience and a research-based Master’s degree at the University of Manchester. During this time, I worked within multiple fields within biology and neuroscience including projects on gastrointestinal motility electrophysiology, neuroinflammation, spinal cord regeneration and encoding on somatosensory features in the barrel cortex of mice. This is one of the reasons the diverse catalogue of projects on offer by the DTP programme interested me and why I chose to do the 1 + 3 stream with PhD project rotations. This was a great opportunity to meet academics from multiple departments at King’s and enabled me and my rotation supervisors to create a PhD project that was not in the catalogue and much more closely suited my interests.
One of the best aspects of the DTP is being part of a cohort because it is a great way to meet other PhD students as well as join in with lots of social activities. Additionally, there are plenty of training opportunities and flexible funding to allow for training in complicated skills.