Dr Naomi Deakin, a Clinical Research Associate with Professor Peter Hutchinson in the Department Clinical Neuroscience, has been awarded the 2018 Watkins Scholarship, a year-long research post with the Global Institute for Motor Sport Safety, the research partner of FIA (the governing body of motor sport).

In recognition of her research into concussion in motor sports, she becomes the first doctor to win the Scholarship, previous winners being engineers.  A Cambridge graduate from Robinson College and former popular Clinical School Students’ President, she has been involved in motor sport medicine for a number of years, having worked with the Silverstone Circuit and the British Touring Car Championship.

Naomi is enthusiastic about the vital links the scholarship will enable her to make between motor sport medicine and the engineering aspects of the sport.  “We really don’t understand what sort of forces, be it their magnitude, or their direction, or the rotation, actually cause concussion injury. So what this project will hopefully achieve is to help provide insight into that engineering data and link it to the medical data that we collect.” 

Professor Gérard Saillant, Chairman of the Global Institute’s Research Working Group and President of the FIA Medical Commission, said: “Dr Deakin will bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our research work. Her proposed studies on concussion are an excellent example of our multi-disciplinary approach, combining the work of doctors and engineers to improve motor sport safety.”