Stephanie is a PhD student supervised by Professor Pier Luigi Dragotti from our Communications and Signal Processing group.

Stepanie presented her research on 'An Extension of the FRI Framework for Spike Detection from Two-Photon Calcium Imaging Data' - work which is being carried out in conjunction with Dr Simon Schultz from the Department of Bioengineering.

The Photonex London Workshop is a meeting for researchers who develop optical techniques for life science research. It brings together the UK’s top photonics technology supplier companies, leading researchers and invited speakers.

Stephanie’s research looks at how the brain processes information. To understand how the brain processes information we need to be able to detect action potentials ('spikes') in networks of neurons with high temporal resolution.  Stephanie’s research uses fluorescent proteins which make neurons appear to light up when firing spikes. To decode the time points of spikes from a neuron's fluorescence signal a method based on Finite Rate of Innovation theory is used. In her recent work this has been extended to encompass a larger class of fluorescent indicators and has shown that 90% of spikes can be detected within 0.033s of their true location. 

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