Healthcare science award recognises research leadership
Medical physicist Dr Sofia Michopoulou has been honoured with an NHS England South East Healthcare Science Award.
Dr Michopoulou is Head of Nuclear Medicine Physics at University Hospital Southampton (UHS).
Her research focuses on advancing imaging techniques and biomarkers to improve dementia diagnosis. This is helping to support earlier and more accurate diagnosis for patients.
She was honoured with the Research and Innovation Award at this year’s NHS England South East Healthcare Science Awards.
It was presented to her by Professor Dame Sue Hill, Chief Scientific Officer for England.
She has been supported on her journey through the UHS Research Leaders Programme.
Recognising excellence
Dr Michopoulou is a Consultant Clinical Scientist. She is also an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Southampton.
The award recognises her outstanding contribution to healthcare science and her commitment to research.
Dr Michopoulou said: “I’m honoured to receive this award and to have my work recognised by NHS England. This achievement reflects the support of many colleagues and mentors who have helped turn innovative ideas into improvements for patient care.
“I’m particularly proud to be helping develop the next generation of clinical academics and healthcare science researchers.”
Driving innovative change
Dr Michopoulou was nominated for her ‘sustained clinical academic leadership’. She has led innovative changes across UHS. She has also supported others to become researchers.
These changes include driving a transformation of the brain perfusion service. This included the development of an AI decision-support system for dementia diagnosis.
She developed the quantitative imaging and therapy service. This contributed to Nuclear Medicine at UHS being recognised as a European Centre of Excellence for theranostics.
Dr Michopoulou now leads the development of the Molecular Radiotherapy Research Delivery Unit. Alongside this, she supervises six PhD students. She also mentors Clinical Fellows in medical physics and radiology.
She recently secured an NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award to enter the next stage of her careers as a research leader.