Ned has an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from University College London, where he remained to complete a PhD in Neuroscience with Mitch Glickstein studying the role of the cerebellum in the sensory guidance of movement. After UCL he moved to Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, to learn electrophysiological techniques under Michael Armstrong-James in the laboratory of Ford Ebner. From there, he returned to the study of the cerebellum with Chris Miall at the University of Oxford.
Later he worked in the Nuffield Departments of Surgery and then Clinical Neurosciences with Tipu Aziz studying deep brain stimulation (DBS). There he both developed new targets and the technique of DBS and took the unique opportunity to record electrical activity from deep within the brain’s of patients via the DBS electrodes to uncover how the Basal ganglia controls movements. During his time in Oxford he developed his own research group and left Oxford as associate professor to take a position as senior lecturer in Human Movement Sciences at the University of Birmingham.