Professor Irene Tracey is: Warden (Head) of Merton College, University of Oxford, her alma mater; Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Oxford. Subsequent to a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, she was a founding member of the world-renowned, Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (now WIN). She was its director from 2005-2015 whilst holding the Nuffield Chair in Anaesthetic Sciences. She then became Head of the over-arching Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences that merged anaesthetics, neurology, ophthalmology and FMRIB prior to taking up her current role.
Her multidisciplinary research team has contributed to our understanding of pain perception and pain relief within the human central nervous system using advanced neuroimaging. They also investigate the neural basis of anaesthesia induced altered states of consciousness.
Irene has served and continues to serve science through her election to Councils of: International Association for the Study of Pain, British Neuroscience Association, and Council of the Medical Research Council. She was awarded the triennial Patrick Wall Medal (2008) and made an FRCA by the Royal College of Anaesthetists (2009); elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2015); awarded the Feldberg Foundation Prize (2017) and British Neuroscience Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience award (2018); elected to the Academia Europaea (2020); and is President-elect of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS). In 2022, she was appointed by Her Majesty The Queen to a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Medical Research.
Last updated: 7 April 2022