Harriet Lea-Banks
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Biomedical Engineering

Harriet Lea-Banks

Email: harriet.lea-banks@ucl.ac.uk

Address: Room 3.04, Malet Place Engineering Building
University College London
London WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

UCL Profilehttps://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/103600-harriet-leabanks
Google Scholarhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FDdwMwEAAAAJ&hl=en

I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and a WEISS Research Fellow at the Welcome EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences at UCL. My research is mainly focused on the measurement and measurement based simulation of ultrasound fields, and ultrasonic device design and characterisation. These activities underpin the development of existing ultrasound therapies and new medical applications of ultrasound.

My current UKRI fellowship is focused on ultrasonic rewarming of biological cells and tissues after cryopreservation, with the aim of developing a flexible tool for uniform and rapid warming of increased volumes of material.

A particular focus of my work generally is concerned with making quantitative comparisons between accurate hydrophone measurements and simulations of acoustic fields made using the k-Wave acoustics toolbox. One current area of investigation is related to the modelling of the propagation of ultrasound through the skull for application in transcranial ultrasound therapies. I am also working on the development and characterisation of hardware for targeted ultrasonic neuromodulation in the deep brain as part of a multidisciplinary team.

I am a member of the British Standards Institute (BSI) Ultrasonics Technical Committee, and an expert member of 2 working groups of the IEC Ultrasonics Technical Committee TC87, as part of which I am currently working with a small team on a new international standard for measurement based ultrasound simulation.

I am also a member of the International Transcranial Ultrasonic Stimulation Safety and Standards (ITRUSST), an international consortium which brings together academics, clinicians, manufacturers, and regulatory bodies to work towards the safe and effective application of transcranial focused ultrasound for neuromodulation.