Rebecca Julia Shipley
FRSA
is a British mathematician and expert in healthcare engineering and innovation. She is Professor of

healthcare engineering In its succinct definition, healthcare engineering is "engineering involved in all aspects of healthcare". The term ''engineering'' in this definition covers all engineering disciplines such as biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, env ...

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(UCL) and Chief Research Officer a
UCLPartners
During 2018-2024 she was Director of th
UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering
and Vice Dean (Health) for the

UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences UCL may refer to: Education Universities * University College London, a public university in England * Université catholique de Louvain, a private university in Belgium * UCL University College, a public university in Denmark University ...

. She has co-led multidisciplinary research iniatives at UCL including th
Centre for Nerve EngineeringCentre for Computational Medicine
an
UCL CHIMERA Research Hub
She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2021 for pandemic response work and is a Fellow of th
Royal Academy of Engineering

Early life and education

Shipley grew up in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, where she attended Dr Challoner's High School for Girls. She graduated with an

MMath A Master of Mathematics (or MMath) degree is a specific advanced integrated Master's degree for courses in the field of mathematics. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the MMath is the internationally recognized standard qualification after a ...

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

from

St Hugh's College St Hugh's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and was awarded a doctorate from the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford in 2008 for her thesis "''Multiscale Modelling of Fluid and Drug Transport in Vascular Tumours".''

Research career

Her first postdoctoral position was a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church, University of Oxford to develop mathematical and computational models that describe biomechanical and biochemical stimulation of tissues. She also held two concurrent Visiting Research Fellowships at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Bath, and Tissue Repair and Engineering Centre, UCL during that time. In 2012, Shipley moved from mathematics into healthcare engineering, taking up a Lectureship i
UCL Mechanical Engineering
Her research focuses on mathematical and computational modelling to better understand how diseased and damaged tissues function and repair, including in cancer and nerve injury, as well as data-driven models in physiology and digital health technologies. Within the field of tumour blood flow and therapy prediction, she is developing new bioengineering platforms which combine computational modelling with ''

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, an ...

'' and ''

ex vivo refers to biological studies involving tissues, organs, or cells maintained outside their native organism under controlled laboratory conditions. By carefully managing factors such as temperature, oxygenation, nutrient delivery, and perfusi ...

'' imaging data to better understand and interrogate cancer therapies. Her work advancing cancer therapies has been recognised in the national press. Within nervous system tissue engineering, she has developed an interdisciplinary programme spanning bioengineering, computational modelling and tissue engineering to characterise the response of repairing nerves to chemical and mechanical stimuli, and integrate these data to design and test repair constructs. This is complemented by her work using computational modelling to understand the role of biochemical and biophysical stimuli, and define operating parameters, in tissue engineering development. Shipley has been a strong advocate for healthcare engineering and the translation of scientific discoveries into practice, working in particular across UCL and partner hospitals. She co-founded the UCL Centre for Nerve Engineering to bring together engineering and physical sciences with the life and clinical sciences to tackle translational nerve engineering problem. During 2018-2024 she led the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering which acts as an interface between engineering, computating and healthcare research at UCL. In March 2020, Shipley co-led th
UCL Ventura CPAP program
across UCL / UCL Hospitals NHS Trust /

Mercedes F1 Mercedes-Benz, a German luxury automotive brand of the Mercedes-Benz Group, has been involved in Formula One as both team owner and engine manufacturer for various periods since 1954. The current Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team is based in Bra ...

. The team reverse engineered and manufactured 10,000 non-invasive ventilators (continuous positive airways pressure devices) and associated devices and consumables which were distributed across the NHS during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The designs and manufacturing instructions was made available globally through an zero cost license with over 2,000 downloads across 105 countries, and the team supported extensive international donations. The devices were used to treat patients in over 30 countries.

Honours, awards and recognition

* “Young Researcher of the Year” by th
Tissue and Cell Engineering Society
UK (TCES) in 2011
Rosetrees Trust
Interdisciplinary Prize 2016 *5-year

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to univers ...

Fellowship 2018-2023 * Royal Academy of Engineering President's Special Awards for Pandemic Services (UCL Ventura CPAP team) * Women's Engineering Society Top 50 Women in Engineering 2021: Women's Heros * Shipley was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the

2021 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours for 2021 are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded ...

for services to the development of the Continuous Positive Airways Pressure Device during the pandemic. * In 2024 she was elected a fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

Public outreach and engagement

Shipley is active in bringing mathematics, engineering and their intersection with healthcare, to wider audiences. Her outreach activities include:
Engineers' Gallery
Science Museum (London) - with the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering - focused on engineering and innovation
Tomorrow's Home for 2050
funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, working with the Museum of the Home - an immersive installation on the home of the future to engage the public in research and innovation around technologies to support healthy ageing * Participating in a UK wide event
Tomorrow’s Engineers Week Big Assembly
in November 2019 to inspire young people to enter engineering careers * Royal Society Summer Exhibition stall on the ''Mathematics of Cancer'' * Podcasts for

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

( Naked Scientists)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shipley, Rebecca Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford People from Buckinghamshire 21st-century British women mathematicians British biochemists British bioengineers Academics of University College London Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Female fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering