People in CPR Spine

Current students

Matthew Willett

Qualifications:

• BPHTY
• MSc Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy, MACP
• MCSP

Title of research project: Effectiveness of a behavioural physiotherapy intervention for the management of lower limb osteoarthritis.

Matthew qualified in 2002 and has worked extensively in New Zealand, Australia and England. He combines his research and teaching with clinical work as an extended scope musculoskeletal physiotherapist. Matthew’s primary research interests include the neurophysiological and psychosocial aspects of spinal and chronic pain syndromes and the delivery of interventions that optimise patient’s physical activity behaviours.

Pauline Kuithan

Qualifications:

• MSc Sports Physiotherapy,
• Master of Manual Therapy

Title of research project: Personalised rehabilitation for spinal pain.

Pauline commenced her PhD at CPR Spine in 2017 after three years of teaching at SRH University Heidelberg. She provides clinical expertise in musculoskeletal disorders and sports physiotherapy. Her special interest is in quantitative sensory testing, spinal pain and bridging the theory practice gap.

Louise Fawcett

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy
• MSc Manipulative Physiotherapy, MACP

Title of research project: Does position affect lumbar spine MRI findings in elite gymnasts? Informing a second embedded clinical study to correlate history and clinical findings with imaging findings.

Louise is a Chartered Physiotherapist with 19 years’ experience working in elite sport. Louise started her PhD in October 2016 due to her clinical interest in spinal pain and improving the long term healthcare of athletes.

Emma Rogers

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy
• BSc Sport Science and Geography

Title of research project: Early rehabilitation in spinal cord injury: A service evaluation of the spinal cord injury centres in the UK and Ireland

Emma joined the University of Birmingham in January 2018. She is a Chartered Physiotherapist with experience in Neuro rehabilitation. Emma is currently completing a full time MRes ‘Spinal Pain’ at the University of Birmingham with a research interest within Spinal Cord Injuries.

Ahmed Alalawi

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy

• MSc Advancing Physiotherapy Practice

Title of research project: Prognosis following whiplash trauma.

Ahmed started his PhD in January 2018. He is interested in understanding the factors that contribute to the transition from acute to chronic whiplash and how these factors could be modified aiming to establish tailored interventions to those patients.

Amal M. Alsubaie

Qualifications:

• BSc in Physical Therapy (2012), King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Saudi Arabia
• MSc in Sport and Clinical Biomechanics (2016), Liverpool John Moores University

Title of research project: Trunk Sensorimotor Control in poeple with chronic low back pain (CLBP): performance and flexibilty evaluation during functional and non-functional movements.

Amal started her PhD at CPR Spine in 2019. She is a lecturer in KAU and has been supported by the Saudi Government to continue her higher education since 2014. Her main focus is combining biomechanical and electrophysiological techniques to study human movement in people with and without CLBP.

Ahmad AlDahas

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy (2007), Kuwait University
• MSc (2018), Cardiff University

Title of research project: Thoracic spine proprioception.

Ahmad graduated from Kuwait Univesrity in 2007 as a physiotherapist then went on to work in sport club clinics and later at the Ministry of Public Health in Al-Sabah Hosptial, Kuwait. Ahmad is currently working on her PhD studying thoracic spine proprioception with Dr Nicola Heneghan.

Erik Thoomes

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy
• MSc Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy
• MSc Sports Physiotherapy

Title of research project: Excursion of the median nerve at the wrist and the elbow in patients with cervical radiculopathy with radicular pain and asymptomatic volunteers during a contra-lateral cervical lateral glide movement.

Erik currently combines finishing his PhD study with running a specialized physiotherapy clinic together with his wife in The Netherlands. His research focuses on the clinical diagnosis and conservative management in patients with cervical radiculopathy. His next research project will focus on validating the PSFS 2.0 in patients with CR.

Ros Cooke

Qualifications:

• MSc Sports Injury Rehabilitation
• Grad Dip Orthopaedic Medicine
• BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy

Title of research project: Are Fundamental Movement Qualities in female athletes predictive of injury or availability?

Ros is a Chartered Physiotherapist qualifying in 2003 and working in Birmingham before moving to the English Institute of Sport (EIS) as Lead Physiotherapist for England Netball and then Senior Multisport Physiotherapist. She currently works as Consultant Physiotherapist with EIS and Football Association. Ros completed her MSc at University of Salford in 2014 and since continued to actively research in relation to return to play and lower limb injury.

Michail Arvanitidis

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy, Technological Educational Institute of Central Greece (Lamia)
• MSc Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy, MACP, University of Birmingham

Title of research project: Control of trunk muscle force in individuals with and without low back pain: New insights with intramuscular and high-density surface electromyography motor unit decomposition techniques.

Michail successfully completed his MSc in Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy at the University of Birmingham in December 2018. This enabled him to become a member of the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP). Since February 2019 he holds a funded PhD position at CPR spine, with his research focusing on studying the neuromuscular control of muscle force in individuals with low back pain by using high-density surface electromyography techniques.

David Jiménez-Grande

Qualifications:

• BSc Industrial Electronic Engineering and Automation
• MSc Master in Biomedical Engineering

Title of research project: Classifying Pain through exploring Motor Control of Gait and Posture – A Machine Learning Approach.

David carried out his Master’s thesis and his Bachelor’s degree Project at the Cajal Institute (Madrid, Spain), a neuroscience research centre assigned to the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). Since February 2019, he started a funded PhD position at CPR Spine and his research focuses on investigating the application of Machine Learning techniques on human biomedical measurements.

Samia Alamrani

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy, King Saud University , Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• MSc Musculoskeletal physiotherapy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Title of research project: Physical functioning of adolescents with Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Samia is a lecturer at the University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. She awarded a scholarship to pursue her study at the University of Birmingham in 2018. Now, her research work is focusing on the Outcome Measures Evaluating Physical Functioning and their Measurement Properties in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Markus Ernst

Qualifications:

• Physiotherapist, Münster, Germany

• OMT, (CH)

• MSc in Physiotherapy sciences, University of Maastricht (NL)

Title of research project: Headaches in office work.

Markus joined CPR Spine in 2019 after receiving a grant to examine neck pain and headache in Switzerland. He works as a Research fellow at the Zurich University of applied sciences since 2009. His primary research interest is neck pain and related bodily functions.

Alessandro Schneebeli

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy

• CAS in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy

Title of research project: Characterization of Achilles tendon and tendinopathy with classic and innovative ultrasound based technology.

Alessandro is a physiotherapist and researcher qualifying in 2011. He works as a physiotherapist in a private practice in Switzerland and is a research fellow in the Research unit (2rLab) of the University of applied Science of Southern Switzerland. Alessandro is currently working on his PhD studying lower limb tendon problems.

Shouq M. Althobaiti

Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Physical Therapy, Taif University, Saudi Arabia – 2014
• Master of Science in Physical Therapy (MSc), Cardiff University, United Kingdome – 2019

Title of research project: Thoracic spine muscle strength.

Graduated from Taif University as a physiotherapist then went on to work in the same university as a teaching assistant. I have been supported by the Saudi Government to continue postgraduate studies. I obtain MSc and I started my PhD at CPR Spine in 2019. I have an interest in musculoskeletal management with the main focus around measures of thoracic spine muscle strength.

Ignacio Contreras Hernández

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy, University of Chili
• MSc Physiology, University of Chili

Title of research project: Neuromuscular and structural tendon adaptations after 6-weeks of either concentric or eccentric exercise in individuals with non-insertional Achilles tendinopathy.

Ignacio Contreras is interested in the study of motor unit behavior and mechanical properties of muscles and tendons in lower extremity injuries. He is mainly focused on understanding the differences in the neuromuscular control of calf muscles and its relationship with the development of non-insertional Achilles tendinopathy.

David Matthews

Qualifications:

• BSc Physiotherapy
• MSc Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy, MACP

Title of research project: Neural mechanisms underlying pain interference with motor learning in the human spinal cord.

David has extensive experience as a musculoskeletal physiotherapist and lecturer. His research interests are motor control and learning, the neurophysiology underlying pain/pain experience and Neuroimaging. Since June 2020 he holds a funded PhD position at CPR spine exploring neural mechanisms underlying pain interference in motor learning.

Valter Devecchi

Qualifications:

• BSc Sport & Exercise Science, University of Turin

• BSc Physiotherapy, University of Turin

• MSc Osteopathy, University of Verona

• MRes Spinal Pain, University of Birmingham

Title of research project: Motor control and exercise in people with chronic low back pain.

Valter is a physiotherapist and sports scientist with two years of clinical experience in musculoskeletal rehabilitation. After a period of research at the Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System in Turin, Valter joined the CPR Spine in January 2019 to pursue an MRes in spinal pain. After that, he started a PhD in April 2020.

Joeri Van Helden

Qualifications:

• BSc Psychology, Utrecht University
• MRes Neuroscience and Cognition, Utrecht University
• MSc Neuropsychology, Utrecht University

Title of research project: Functional activity of upper extremities to improve trunk function after spinal cord injury

After obtaining qualifications as a clinical Neuropsychologist and an MRes in Neuroscience and Cognition, Joeri commenced his PhD in 2021 to combine his fascination for the brain with his passion for movement. His main PhD project builds on previous work and involves an eight-week arm cycling intervention for people with spinal cord injury to measure its effectiveness on trunk control.

Previous students

Dr Andy Sanderson

Andy Sanderson successfully defended his PhD thesis. The title of his thesis was “The spatial distribution of lumbar muscle activity in people with chronic non-specific low back pain”. His supervisors were Professor Deborah Falla, Dr Nicola R. Heneghan and Dr Alison Rushton. Andy is now a Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Dr Feras Alsultan

Feras Alsultan has successfully passed his viva without any corrections on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. The title of his thesis was “Movement variability in people with neck pain disorders”. His supervisors were Professor Deborah Falla and Dr Nicola R. Heneghan.

Dr Nicola Middlebrook

Nicola Middlebrook successfully defended her PhD entitled “Central Sensitisation in Musculoskeletal Trauma”. Her supervisors were Professor Deborah Falla, Dr Alison Rushton and Dr Nicola R. Heneghan. Her PhD was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC). Nicola is now a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.