Neurobiological and translational fatigue research laboratory
University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Anna Kuppuswamy
Principal Investigator
Anna graduated from Madras Medical College, India as a physiotherapist and obtained a masters from UCL and PhD from Imperial College London in Neuroscience. After a brief stint at the National Institutes of Health, USA in Prof Leo Cohen’s lab, she moved back to the UK to study post-stroke fatigue based at Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, UCL. In 2016 she started her lab with a Royal Society/Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship. In 2020 she was appointed Principal Research Fellow at Institute of Neurology. Her principal research interests are - investigating disease independent mechanisms of chronic pathological fatigue, primarily focusing on sensorimotor processing.
William De Doncker
Research Associate
William has a background in Biomedical Sciences and Clinical Neuroscience. He started working on Post-Stroke Fatigue in Dr Kuppuswamy's team in 2016 as a research assistant and PhD student with the aim of developing an understanding of the underlying mechanisms that drive chronic pathological fatigue. William completed his PhD in September 2021 titeled: Sensorimotor Processing in Post-Stroke Fatigue. In his free time, William is a sport enthusiast and a very keen runner and cyclist.
Chi-Hsu Wu
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Chi-Hsu received his PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in 2017. Chi-Hsu joined Dr Kuppuswamy's team in Jan 2021. Before joining UCL, he was a product development engineer at HCi Viocare, Scotland and a research associate at the University of Cambridge. Chi-Hsu’s research interests include developing the brain-computer interface, neurorehabilitation methods, and their applications in health care using EEG.
Massimo Bertoli
PhD Student
Massimo is a clinical psychologist with a background in neuroscience and with a strong interest in a constructive dialogue between these two disciplines. In 2015 he graduated from the University of Milano-Bicocca in clinical psychology and neuropsychology and in 2019 he started a PhD in Neuroscience and Imaging at University G. d’Annunzio of Chieti in collaboration with the Italian National Research Council. Under the supervision of Dr Franca Tecchio, his work aims at deepening the understanding of neural mechanisms of chronic fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis and developing treatments against it by means of transcranial electrical stimulation techniques (tES). As part of his PhD, he joined Dr Kuppuswamy’s team in 2021 to study the shared mechanisms of chronic fatigue in multiple sclerosis and stroke.
Siân Aggett
Public Engagement Coordinator
Siân has been working in public and community engagement with research for over 20 years. She works at intersections between academic disciplines and has a particular interest in the use of the arts and creative spaces to bring researchers and those outside of their research together.  As well as working with Dr Kuppuswamy’s team at UCL Institute of Neurology Siân is a Wellcome Trust doctoral student in the Centre for Global Studies at Sussex University. Her fieldwork was based in Kathmandu, Nepal where she worked with researchers, community and artists to explore water-born disease in the city. Prior to this she worked at the Wellcome Trust, a global foundation to support biomedical research, where she managed a programme to strengthen public and community engagement across medical research programmes in East Africa, South East Asia and Latin America.  In her own time, Siân loves to do illustrations and being in the outdoors.
Isabella Kaczmarczyk
PhD Student
Isabella graduated from King’s College London with a bachelors in Biomedical Sciences, with an emphasis on neuroscience and neuropharmacology. She completed an MRes in Drug Discovery and Development at Imperial College London, where her work focused on chemical probe synthesis targeting the ubiquitination pathway. Isabella’s work at UCL, as part of her MRes in Translational Neurology, involved developing TMS-EEG protocols with the hope of aiding MND diagnosis. She is completing her PhD in motor imagery of MND, as part of the BIOMAX-ALS clinical trial.