Faculty

Jasmine has an interest in epilepsy and frailty. She recently has completed an Academic Clinical Fellowship at Lancaster University, with a focus on late-onset epilepsy.

She graduated from Cambridge University in 2015, and completed an Academic Foundation Post with Oxford Vascular Study subsequently, before moving to the North West for core training and specialty training. She will be commencing a PhD fellowship in the upcoming year.

Matt is a consultant neurologist at Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, Salford Royal Foundation Trust, UK. He is also an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Manchester.

His clinical interests are general and acute neurology with sub-specialization in cognitive neurology. His research interests are in the clinical, genetic and pathological classification of focal dementia syndromes.

His teaching interests lie in both undergraduate and postgraduate education. He is academic lead for year 4 of the MBChB programme in Manchester and has particular expertise in the use of mobile and technology enhanced learning. He is Neurology Training Programme Director for the North West region and Chair of the Association of British Neurologists’ Education Committee.

Dr Christine Burness is a Consultant Neurologist at The Walton Centre. She is joint clinical lead of the Functional Neurology Team. Her clinical research includes assessment of outcomes for patients receiving treatment for functional neurological symptoms and she was the Principal Investigator for the Physio 4FMD trial.

Dr Burness is focused on improving care for patients with complex presentations through MDT working, patient partnership and developing clinical guidelines.

Tim graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2006. He completed his General Medical Training in the North West, before working and travelling in New Zealand for a year. He started his Specialist Neurology Training in 2011 in the North West gaining experience in General Neurology, before developing a special interest in Peripheral Nerve Disorders and Medical Education.

He began as a Consultant Neurologist with a special interest in Peripheral Neuropathy at Salford Royal in 2017. He has a Specialist Tertiary Neuropathy Service based at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, caring for rare Inflammatory and Genetic Neuropathies. He is a Honorary Clinical Lecturer with the University of Manchester and member of the British Peripheral Nerve Society.

Katy is a Neurology Clinical Research Fellow at Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences. She graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2010, and started neurology training in the North West in 2014.

Katy is currently undertaking a PhD in the field of Myasthenia Gravis. She is conducting a national survey of side effects of immunosuppression in myasthenia, and is looking for biomarkers of disease severity and activity, amongst other projects.

Katy enjoys teaching, in particular rationalising common neurological presentations. She has several publications including national guidelines on the use of antiplatelets and anticoagulation in relation to lumbar puncture.

Rajiv has a sub-speciality interest in epilepsy, and runs the Greater Manchester Regional Epilepsy service. He is particularly interested in disorders of consciousness, electroencephalography and surgical treatment of epilepsy.

Rajiv has published a number of peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and a book on epilepsy. He is a past member of the epilepsy advisory group of the Association of British Neurologists and council member of the British chapter of the International League Against Epilepsy. He is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. He has an active research interest in brain network dysfunction in epilepsy and related disorders.

James is a Neurology Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Centre for Clinical Neuroscience, Salford.

James is particularly interested in the evaluation of patients with complex neuromuscular syndromes, working as a member of the neuromuscular MDT at Salford and running the SMA assessment and treatment service.

James has completed a PhD in inflammatory muscle disease. This included evaluation of the usefulness of muscle MRI, investigation of serum muscle enzymes in the estimation of disease activity in myositis, and further elucidation of the relevance of anti-cN-1A autoantibodies in patients with inclusion body myositis. He has suffered from uncontrolled hair growth since March 2020.

Dr Javier Vicini-Parra studied Medicine at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia, from which he graduated in 1995 at the tender age of 26. He then spent a short 2-year stint in research in the molecular biology of Plasmodium vivax. In 1998, he entered the postgraduate programme in Neurology at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia. The university expeditiously discharged him into the world of neurology in 2002. His main interests in Neurology are cerebrovascular disease and neuroimmunology. He has honoured his nomadic ancestry by working in Colombia, Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles) and, for the last 6 years, in the UK. Here, he has served his sentence within the Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, where a magnificently patient team of colleagues have surrounded him, mostly to make sure he doesn’t leave their sight.

Dr Vicini has poignantly become aware of the passing of time and, unfortunately, seems to have set his nest in these rainy and cloudy lands for the remainder of his time on Earth. He loves reading (yes, he knows how to) and likes to think of himself as a rather humorous person, a view that his surrounding colleagues might not entirely share.