ISPO UK MS Executive Committee

 

 

Office Bearers

Steve Seccombe (Chair)

Steve Seccombe has been involved with ISPO for 10 years and has previously been the treasurer and Vice-Chair.

Steve’s day job is UK General Manager for Clinical Services at Blatchford Limited where he is responsible for overseeing the management of all clinical service contracts across the UK. Since qualifying in 1999, Steve has worked clinically nationally and internationally for different providers. During his 20-year career with Blatchford, Steve has held clinical leadership as well as contract and clinical management roles. Steve remains a practising clinician and holds an MSc in Clinical Biomechanics. Furthermore, he is an orthotic expert witness to the courts, has taught at university post-graduate level and is the author for biomechanics teaching modules at post-graduate level.

In October 2022, Steve was honoured to be appointed Chair of this important national organisation representing all who wish to be involved in Prosthetic and Orthotic rehabilitation.

 

Dr Alix Chadwell (Vice-Chair)

Alix trained as a Medical Engineer at the University of Bath (2008-2012) before undertaking a PhD at the University of Salford (2014-2018) concentrating on the reasons some people struggle to control upper-limb myoelectric prostheses. As part of this research, she published a number of papers relating to the objective assessment of everyday prosthesis wear and use using activity monitors. She now works as a Postgraduate Researcher in the field of upper-limb prosthetics as part of a Global Challenges Project to develop a ‘fit for purpose’, affordable, body-powered prosthesis.

Alix is especially keen on collaborative, multi-disciplinary research, and engages with many aspects of University life. She is co-Chair of the University’s Health and Society Early Career Researcher Group, and has been heavily involved in the development of the Human Movement Technologies and Rehabilitation Research Group within the same school. In 2019 she was involved in the organisation of the Trent International Prosthetics Symposium (TIPS/ISPO/BACPAR Joint meeting) as the Early Career Chair.

 

 

Laura Brady (Treasurer)

 

Committee Members

Roy Bowers

Shigong Guo

 

Professor Liudi Jiang, CPhys, CEng, FIET

Liudi is a Professor of Materials and Electromechanical Systems in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical sciences at the University of Southampton. Her first degree was in Physics (1998) and received her PhD from the University of Dundee in 2002. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh and then University of Southampton in 2002-2005 on novel electromechanical sensors and actuators. She was appointed Lecturer at the University of Southampton in 2006, Associated Professor in 2013 and Professor in 2015.

She is a Chartered Physicist, Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of IET. She is currently the Director of Research for the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Southampton. She is also the Engineering Lead for EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Prosthetics & Orthotics, combining expertise from the University of Salford, Imperial College London, the University of Strathclyde and the University of Southampton with more than 25 global industry partners and national facilities.

She is widely recognised for her research across STEM and healthcare disciplines, especially in body/device interfaces, to assist patient care. Research areas include stump/ socket interface for limb amputees, haptic feedback, neuro-prosthetics, diabetic foot insoles, body orthosis, special seating, CPR feedback systems and wearable digital health solution etc., with funding portfolio across MRC, EPSRC, UKRI, Charities, NIHR and industries. Members of her research group have won best paper prizes including BLESMA Award, Limbless Association Prize, the Advancing Technology Prize in ISPO World Congress 2017, 2015 IET William James Award, 2019 IMechE Healthcare Technology Award. Liudi was the Chair of the Scientific Committee of the 2018 ISPO UKMS Annual Conference & Exhibition.

 

Professor Peter Kyberd

Professor Peter Kyberd has a degree in Science from Durham University and a Masters and a
PhD in engineering from Southampton University. During the 1990s he worked at the Oxford Orthopaedic Engineering Centre (part of Oxford University), where he was involved in a range of orthopaedic related projects. He created the first prosthetic limb to be controlled by a microprocessor which was worn in the field by a patient. He was also part of the team that created the first prosthetic arm that was controlled via a communications bus and has been worn by users in the field since the late nineties.

From 2000 Peter was a lecturer at Reading University, where he was part of a team that performed the first implant of a bi-directional nerve sensor on a healthy human being. In 2003 he took up a Canada Research Chair at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton.

In July 2015 he returned to the UK as Head of the Engineering Science Department at the University of Greenwich, and in November 2018 joined Portsmouth University as Head of the School of Energy and Electronic Engineering.

Peter was on the organising committee of the ISPO World Congress in Vancouver in 2007 and was the chair of the Myoelectric Controls (MEC) Symposia at the University of New Brunswick in 2005, 2008 and 2011. He has also played an integral part in the Canadian ISPO national members meetings 2011, 2013 and 2015, and has chaired two international conferences on Upper Limb Prosthetics - in Canada, MEC (Myoelectric Control Symposium), and in the UK, TIPS (Trent International Prosthetics Symposium).

 

Morven McAlinden

Morven graduated from the University of Strathclyde in 1996 and initially worked as a prosthetist for Blatchford in Newcastle. After three years she transferred to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore where she worked as Clinical Lead Prosthetist within a multi-disciplinary team environment. She now works as an Academy Clinician with Otto Bock.

Morven's specialist interests are paediatrics, osseointegration and upper limb. She has presented research papers on all three subjects extensively, at both national and international level

 

 

Dr Mike McGrath

Mike is the lead clinical evidence research scientist in the R&D department at Blatchford. After graduating with a 1st class honours degree in Sports Engineering (MEng) from the University of Sheffield in 2010, Mike studied for his PhD in gait modelling and analysis at the University of Salford. He went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, on an MRC-funded collaborative project with Blatchford, investigating the prosthetic socket interface. Mike started at Blatchford in 2016 but still remains a visiting researcher at Southampton.

 

 

Chantel Ostler

Chantel is a consultant clinical academic at Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust. She has over
20 years’ experience in the NHS as a specialist physiotherapist working with patients following lower limb loss and currently leads the therapy team at the Portsmouth Enablement Centre. As
well as working with the ISPO UK exec, she is also the research officer for BACPAR, and the clinical lead for the People Powered Prosthetic research group at the University of Southampton. She is currently undertaking her PhD exploring outcome measurement in clinical practice and is passionate about real world research that improves clinical care for our patients.

 

 

Dr Imad Sedki

Dr Imad Sedki is currently part of the small minority of doctors in the UK who dedicate their full-time career to working with amputees and people with congenital limb deficiencies. He works at both the Prosthetic Rehabilitation Units in Stanmore and Luton and chairs the Special Interest Group for Amputee Medicine in the British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine. He is also one of
two convenors for the Advance Amputee Rehabilitation Course which is held annually in Stanmore, and an active member of the Inter-Regional Prosthetic Audit Group which includes 9 Prosthetic Centres in the South East of England.

Imad studied medicine at Damascus University, graduating in 1997. He obtained a Masters degree in Orthopaedic Surgery from Dundee University in 2002, and gained membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2004. He then joined the North London Training Programme for Rehabilitation Medicine in 2006 and became a consultant in 2010.

His specialist clinical interests include phantom limb pain, specific residual limb problems, rehabilitation medicine and amputee rehabilitation. His research interests include phantom limb pain management, prescribing prosthetic components and congenital limb deficiencies.

Dr Sedki is a member of the British Society for Rehabilitation Medicine and ISPO. He can be contacted at imad.sedki@rnoh.nhs.uk

Ex-officio members

John Sullivan (Immediate Past Chair)

John works at the Prosthetic Rehabilitation Unit in Stanmore as a senior NHS prosthetist. Initially trained as a metalworker at (Hanger) Roehampton, later training as a Prosthetist. From 1997 involvement in the Transfemoral Osseointegration clinical trial led by Kingsley Robinson using the Swedish Branemark system. His work has been published and presented at national and international conferences. Through his research he achieved an MSc in Applied Instrumentation Systems at the University College London in 2006.

John is always striving to achieve best practice in the field of prosthetics. He is a member of National Working Group for NHS England Prosthetic Service Review. He is Chair of the Intra-Regional Prosthetic Audit Group (IRPAG+) which is a group that reviews and audits the current practice of the member NHS Prosthetic Centres. He was Secretary for ISPO until taking on the Vice Chair position and is now honoured to be Chair of this important national organisation.

Professor Sir Saeed Zahedi OBE FREng RDI PhD

Saeed Zahedi is widely recognised as one of the leading designers of prosthetics. A Fellow of the Royal Academy and Institute of Mechanical Engineers, he is currently Technical Director of Blatchford. Along with his team at Blatchfords he was a finalist in the 2010 McRoberts award achieving Blatchford's 4th Queens Award for Technological Achievement. Sir Saeed has been a visiting Professor at the University of Surrey for over ten years and is a member of ISO, CEN and IEC Working Groups. An author and presenter of over 125 papers, books and scientific publications, he has won prizes for scientific papers including 5 BLESMA awards, IMechE Special Needs and the ISPO Forchheimer Prize as far back as 1989 for his PhD work conducted at Strathclyde University.

Professor Sir Saeed was responsible for commercialisation of first Intelligent Prosthesis in early 1990s and currently works with his team on the development of an advanced integrated prosthesis utilising microprocessor control ankle/foot and knee joints for lower limb amputees aiming at increased efficiency and independent living.

He was awarded an OBE in 2000, received the BHTA life time achievement award in 2013, and was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2017 "for services to Engineering and Innovation”. Now Immediate Past Chair of ISPO UK Member Society, Professor Sir Saeed remains actively involved in the ISPO UK Committee as well as the wider activities of ISPO International.