Annual Wade Lecture 2026

Hybrid

Thursday 22 October, 2026

18:00 ‐ 19:00

Join us for this year’s annual Wade Lecture “Building Bridges: Engineering the Future of Healthcare” by Professor Rebecca Shipley.

About

Guest speaker: Professor Rebecca Shipley, Professor of Healthcare Engineering, UCL Mechanical Engineering
Title: “Building Bridges: Engineering the Future of Healthcare
Date: Thursday 22nd October 2026
Venue: Lecture Theatre, IDS Building, UHS/ Online
Timing: Lecture 18:00-19:00 (in-person arrival from 17:30)

Please note there are two types of ticket available for this event, in person admission or online. Please do ensure you select the right ticket at the time of booking. Registration closes on 14^th October 2026.

To register for this event in person, please click here.
To register for this event online, please click here. A link to access the online event will be sent to those registered closer to the event.

Biography:

Professor Rebecca Shipley OBE FREng is Professor of Healthcare Engineering at UCL and Chief Invention Officer at UCLPartners. Rebecca’s work in healthcare engineering spans applied mathematics, computational modelling, medical technologies and healthcare innovation. Her research has developed mathematical and engineering approaches to understand human physiology and disease, supported advances in areas including cancer, regenerative medicine, respiratory health and critical care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she co-led a team who developed respiratory technologies that were deployed in the NHS and internationally, demonstrating the power of interdisciplinary collaboration to address urgent healthcare challenges.

Alongside her research, Rebecca is a determined advocate for translating innovation into patient benefit. Through her roles across academia and the NHS, she works to strengthen the pathways that connect discovery, invention and implementation, bringing together clinicians, engineers, scientists and industry to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and models of care.

Synopsis of presentation:

Healthcare is being transformed by remarkable advances in engineering, data science and technology. Yet the greatest breakthroughs rarely arise from a single discipline. They emerge when clinicians, engineers, mathematicians, scientists and industry work together to tackle complex problems that no one field can solve alone. The challenge for modern medicine is therefore not simply to generate new discoveries, but to create the bridges that enable those discoveries to become better care for patients.

In this lecture, Professor Rebecca Shipley reflects on her work at the interface of mathematics, engineering, medicine and healthcare innovation. Drawing on examples ranging from computational modelling of human physiology and disease, to medical technologies, critical care, cancer, regenerative medicine and the rapid engineering response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she will explore how interdisciplinary collaboration can accelerate the translation of ideas into clinical impact.

Looking beyond individual innovations, the lecture will consider how we build healthcare systems that consistently transform discovery into improved patient outcomes. As medicine enters an era shaped by artificial intelligence, data-driven healthcare and increasingly complex clinical challenges, success will depend as much on fostering collaboration, embracing new ways of working and building innovation ecosystems as on scientific excellence alone. The lecture will argue that engineering and computing are no longer simply supporting medicine—they are helping redefine how healthcare is discovered, developed and delivered, and why building bridges between disciplines, organisations and sectors will be essential to the future of health.

Please email medevent@soton.ac.uk with any queries. Many thanks.