Earlier detection and smarter tests
Finding complications sooner, with tests that are quicker, cheaper and kinder to patients.
Tidewater University
Research that follows patients from the ward to home.
Five research groups working across four themes to make surgery, intensive care and rehabilitation safer and kinder.
Welcome from the Head of Department
Our department brings together surgeons, intensivists, physiotherapists, nurses, engineers and community partners. We study what happens to people before, during and long after their time in hospital, and we put the answers back into care.
This site is the front door to that work: our themes, our groups, the studies you can join and the people behind them.
Research themes
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Recovery and rehabilitation
What helps people get back on their feet after surgery, intensive care or injury, and how to make it last.
Care closer to home
Moving follow-up, monitoring and rehabilitation out of the hospital and into communities.
Fair access and community partnership
Designing studies with communities, so the benefits of research reach everyone who needs them.
Research groups
Inflammation and Healing Lab
How the body's immune response shapes healing after major surgery.
Perioperative Outcomes Group
Better decisions before, during and after an operation.
Critical Care Recovery Group
Life after intensive care, for patients and their families.
Digital Rehabilitation Lab
Wearables, apps and remote coaching for rehabilitation.
Community Trials Unit
Trials designed with, and run in, the communities they serve.
Our people
Associate Professor Ilse Brannagan
Group Leader, Critical Care Recovery Group
Dr Felix Ormsby
Group Leader, Digital Rehabilitation Lab
Dr Priya Castellane
Group Leader, Community Trials Unit
Dr Tobias Wrenfield
Group Leader, Perioperative Outcomes Group
Professor Marguerite Ashdown
Group Leader, Inflammation and Healing Lab
Dr Clara Vossberg
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Inflammation and Healing Lab
Jasper Quill
Honours Student, Digital Rehabilitation Lab
Leilani Strand
Master's Student, Critical Care Recovery Group
Ruby Hartigan
Summer Research Student, Community Trials Unit
Samuel Fenwright
Research Nurse, Perioperative Outcomes Group
Mei Aldous
PhD Candidate, Perioperative Outcomes Group
Noah Pemberley
PhD Candidate, Inflammation and Healing Lab
Latest news
- Fit for Surgery opens to new participants
Our home prehabilitation trial is now recruiting at Tidewater Regional Hospital.
- Webinar: life after intensive care
A recording of our public webinar with patients and families is now online.
- Summer research scholarships for 2027
Applications are open for ten-week summer research projects across all five groups.