Reflections from members of our White City community. This month's spotlight is with Dr Shlomi Haar, Safra Research Fellow, UK Dementia Research Institute.

What is your role at White City?

I'm a Safra Research Fellow at the Department of Brain Sciences and the UK Dementia Research Institutes's Care Research & Technology Centre. Our centre sits in the Sir Michael Uren Hub and works on the development of technology to enable people living with dementia to live safely and independently in their own homes. As a motor neuroscientist, I'm leading the centre's movement data effort in our living lab, where we develop and validate technologies for deployment in the homes of our cohort of participants living with dementia.

What do you enjoy about working at White City?

I'm enjoying the beautiful new facilities of the Uren Hub and the collaboration with centres and research groups interested in movement from the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Engineering, who are all located in the Uren Hub. I'm looking forward to the move of Imperial-X to the I-HUB which will ease new collaborations in AI for healthcare.

What are the main work challenges for you at the moment?

As a young PI, my main challenges are establishing my research group and securing funding. I'm lucky to be part of a very supportive centre and to have great colleagues and collaborators who support me in the process. 

What is one thing that you have learned in the last month?

I'm recently learning more about exciting and innovative research which is taking place in the industry, specifically translational research and development in the field of medical devices. I'm also becoming far more interested in academia-industry collaborations, of which there are many at White City!