Who we are

Dr Gavin Buckingham was awarded his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen (UK) in 2008, before working as a postdoctoral fellow in the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University (Canada). In 2013, he returned to the UK to join the Psychology Department of Heriot-Watt University as a lecturer. Then, in 2016, he joined the University of Exeter (UK) where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Sport Sciences. Recently, his work has been mostly focused on how we move, perceive, and learn new skills in physical and virtual environments. You can find his Google Scholar profile here. His Twitter handle is @DrGBuckingham. He infrequently writes advice tailored toward early-careers academics on his Wordpress Blog.

Mohammed Alrashidi

Mohammed is a physiotherapist and PhD student investigating the feasibility of virtual reality headsets in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy. He completed his BSc in Physiotherapy at Taibah University, Saudi Arabia, and then obtained an MSc in Neurorehabilitation at Nottingham University. Mohammed's current project is funded by Taibah University and supervised by Dr Gavin Buckingham, Professor Craig Williams and Dr Richard Tomlinson.

Tom is a Postdoctoral Research Associate working on a number of virtual reality projects in military, healthcare, and clinical populations. He recently completed his PhD, which investigated the aetiology of sensorimotor difficulties in autism. This PhD project formed a collaboration between the University of Exeter and the Centre for Applied Autism Research at the University of Bath. He is now working alongside various industry partners and collaborators to translate his research into new VR-based training tools, which can be used to enhance health and performance outcomes. Tom has previously undertaken a BSc and MSc in Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter and also has experience working with elite sporting institutions. You can follow his work on Google Scholar here https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=k3AFmqgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra or on the Twitter handle @TomGArthur.

Caitlin is working towards her PhD in the department of Psychology at the University of Bath. She completed her BSc in Psychology at Bath, during which she spent a placement year at the Object Interaction Lab, conducting a variety of studies to investigate multisensory perception. Caitlin’s PhD will investigate various body perception disturbances experienced in chronic limb pain. Caitlin will use virtual reality to manipulate the appearance of the painful limb and explore how different manipulation strategies can impact body perception, pain and functioning. She is supervised by Dr Janet Bultitude, Dr Gavin Buckingham, Dr Christof Lutteroth, Dr Michael Proulx and Dr Eamonn O’Neill.

Mohammed is a PhD student in Sport and Health Sciences department. His PhD project will focus on the effect of virtual reality on children with developmental coordination disorder. Mohammed completed his BSc (Hons) in physiotherapy at Taibah University, Saudi Arabia and then undertook an MSc in physiotherapy at Cardiff University. Mohammed's project is funded by Hail University, Saudi Arabia, and supervised by Dr Gavin Buckingham, Dr David Harris, Dr Greg Wood (at Manchester Metropolitan University) and Professor Helen Dodd

Orsolya is a PhD student at the University of Bath, funded by the GW4 BioMed2 MRC DTP. She completed her BSc in Psychology at the University of Southampton and an MSc in Human Cognitive Neuropsychology at the University of Edinburgh where she worked on a meta-analysis on the effectiveness of prism adaptation as treatment for visuospatial neglect supervised by Prof Rob Mcintosh. Her PhD project, under the supervision of Dr Janet Bultitude (University of Bath), Dr Jennifer Davies (University of Cardiff), Dr Gavin Buckingham (University of Exeter), and Prof Chris Chambers (University of Cardiff), concentrates on higher-level motor functions in patients with chronic pain conditions. Using non-invasive brain stimulation (transcranial magnetic stimulation), her research aims to provide an improved insight into the cortical motor contributions to chronic pain and potential new targets for treatment.

Ellie is a postgraduate research student working towards her PhD investigating the effects of fatigue on sensorimotor control across the lifespan. She completed her BSc in Psychology at Dundee University and then undertook an MSc in Human Cognitive Neuropsychology at Edinburgh University where she worked under the supervision of Dr Rob Mcintosh and Dr Anna Sedda. Her current project is part of the SWBio DTP and is joint-funded by the ESRC and the BBSRC. She is supervised by Dr Gavin Buckingham, Professor Andrew Jones, Associate Professor Tim Carroll and Dr Patric Bach.

Joao Rosa Minerio

Joao has recently started his PhD in the department of Sports and Health Sciences at Exeter University (expected completion March 2023). He will be looking at how pain may be linked to, and modulated by, perception through the use of experimental illusions. Joao is supervised by Dr Gavin Buckingham, Dr Patric Bach, Dr Abby Tabor and Dr Sam Vine. Joao completed his BSc(Hons) in Physiotherapy in Portugal before moving to the UK. He then obtained his MSc in Pain Management with Cardiff University. Joao is a Physiotherapist working with patients who suffer from chronic pain and hand conditions, in Cornwall. His Twitter handle is @joaomineiro07.

Axel Vittersø

Axel is working towards his PhD in the department of Psychology at the University of Bath (expected completion March 2020). Axel completed both his BSc (Hons) in Psychology and MSc in Health Psychology at the University of Bath. During his undergraduate degree he spent a year working at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, as part of the national specialist pain management service. Axel’s project is part of the neuroscience stream of the GW4 BioMed MRC DTP. The PhD is investigating the role of sensorimotor incongruence in pathological pain. He is supervised by Dr Janet Bultitude, Dr Michael Proulx, Dr Gavin Buckingham and Dr Mark Wilson.

Pan Dimitriou

Pan is Gavin's first student, and completed his PhD in the department of Psychology at Heriot-Watt University in 2018. After an undergraduate degree in Psychology at Bangor University, he completed his MSc in Cognitive Neuropsychology at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Dr Rob McIntosh. Immediately prior to starting his PhD, he helped Gavin set up the Object Interaction Lab at Heriot-Watt, during a year-long role as a research assistant. During this time, he kept a blog detailing is solutions for lots of the hardware issues he came across, which can be found here. His thesis is examining the external factors such as (1) speaking, (2) observing others' actions, and (3) doing something with the other hand which might influence the control of grip and load forces when lifting objects. He is now a lecturer in Psychology at Metropolitan College, Athens, Greece.

Joanna L'Heureux

Joanna joined the Object Interaction Lab as a CLES intern during the summer of 2016, after completing a BSc Medical Sciences degree at the University of Exeter. Joanna’s previous experience has consisted of a background based mainly in Genetics and Bioinformatics, but decided to pursue her interest in Psychology during the final year of her degree programme. Joanna was undertaking a project examining whether experience with novel objects influences how how humans perceive the weight of, and interact with, other objects. She is currently an MRC-funded PhD student examining the oral microbiome at the University of Exeter.

David Harris

David worked with Gavin as a research assistant on a project in 2016 funded by Intuitive Surgical investigating the acquisition of sensorimotor skills for robotically-assisted surgery. The study seeks to understand the role of errors versus expertise in observational learning. David completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Psychological Research Methods at the University of Exeter. He was awarded his PhD in Sport Psychology at Exeter, supervised by Dr Mark Wilson and Dr Sam Vine, in 2018 examining the role played by attentional mechanisms in producing the state of flow, and the role of effort in peak performance. He is now a RAEng UKIC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. You can find his research gate profile here, or twitter here.

Kate Allen

Kate was a Research Associate working on our Waterloo Foundation funded project examining sensorimotor prediction in children with developmental coordination disorder (dyspraxia). Kate completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Lincoln in 2010, where she worked on a number of eye tracking studies with young children. After her degree, Kate went on to work at the University of Nottingham on a research project aiming to develop and evaluate a motor intervention for parents of premature infants. She's soon to be starting a PhD in the medical school at the University of Exeter.