Professor Alison Noble (Former Senior Fellow)

Senior Fellow of Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study, City University of Hong Kong

Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, UK

Fellow of the Royal Society, UK

Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, UK

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK

Professor Alison Noble (Former Senior Fellow)

Contact Information

Phone: +44(0)1865 617 690/730(PA)
Email: alison.noble@eng.ox.ac.uk
Professor Alison Noble OBE FRS FREng is currently the Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering in Department of Engineering Science, Associate Head (Industry and Innovation) of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, and a Fellow of St Hilda's College, at the University of Oxford, UK. She is a former Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (2012-16).

Professor Noble is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), a Fellow of the MICCAI Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Professor Noble’s research interest is in biomedical image analysis, with a particular focus on raising the profile of ultrasound imaging as a first class data type by understanding the interplay of ultrasound device design (physics), clinical acquisition, and downstream image analysis and computer vision. Her most recent research has concerned applying machine learning to ultrasound to advance automatic 2D, 3D and video ultrasound analysis. Her research is motivated by unmet important clinical needs in developed world and developing world settings, and involves inter-disciplinary translational research collaborations with clinical groups from the UK and overseas. In 2016, she was the recipient of a 5-year ERC Advanced Grant entitled “Perception Ultrasound by Learning Sonographer Experience (PULSE)”, which aims to advance understanding of how to develop next generation ultrasound systems by utilizing machine learning. She received the inaugural International Federation of Medical & Biological Engineering Laura Bassi award in 2015 in recognition of her contributions to biomedical engineering.

Professor Noble has a strong and sustained track record of service to the academic and engineering community at a national and international level, particularly in research and innovation in healthcare technologies. She received an OBE for services to science and engineering in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2013.

From 2013-16, she served as the President of the MICCAI Society, the international society in her field, and was Past-President for 2016-17. She served as a Trustee of the IET from 2016-19 and as a Vice President (2019). UK Research Council involvement includes serving as a member and then Chair of the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Strategic Advisory Team (2014-2019), a member of the MRC Translational Research Group (2014-18), Stratified Medicine Group (2016-2020), Innovate UK/MRC Biomedical Catalyst MAC Panel (2014-16), and Confidence in Concept Panel (2012-14). Recent science and engineering policy contributions include as a member of the Engineering Biology Steering Group (2017-19) for the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Chair of the Royal Society Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) Policy Working Group (2017-19, report). She is a member of REF2021 Sub-panel 12 (Engineering).

At a regional level, Professor Noble is currently a Trustee of The Oxford Trust, which promotes enterprise as well as communication of SET to schools and the public in the Oxfordshire region.

Professor Noble has combined academic research with innovation throughout her career. She is a co-founder of Intelligent Ultrasound Ltd, spun-out from her laboratory in 2012, which focuses on software solutions to make medical ultrasound a simpler and effective technology to use in existing and new areas of healthcare. Intelligent Ultrasound Ltd was bought by MedaPhor Group (now called Intelligent Ultrasound Group) in 2017.

Leading Position at Research Organization

  • Trustee of the Institute of Engineering Technology (IET) and of the Oxford Trust 
  • Panel of national strategic and policy making committees and grant awarding panels related to research and innovation in healthcare technologies and more broadly engineering
  • Chair of the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Strategic Advisory Team

Major Honors, Awards and Recognitions

  • Fellow of the Royal Society (2017)
  • Recipient of Order of the British Empire for services to science and engineering in the Queen's Birthday Honours list (June 2013)
  • Fellow of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) Society (2012)
  • Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2008) 
  • Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Technology (IET) (2000)

Five Significant Scholarly Outputs

  1. Ultrasound image segmentation: a survey, A Noble, D Boukerroui, IEEE Transactions on medical imaging 25 (8), 987-1010, 2006 (No. of citation: 1020)
  2. The biology of platelet-rich plasma and its application in trauma and orthopaedic surgery: a review of the literature, J Alsousou, M Thompson, P Hulley, A Noble, K Willett, The Journal of bone and joint surgery. British volume 91 (8), 987-996, 2009 (No. of citation: 565)
  3. International standards for newborn weight, length, and head circumference by gestational age and sex: the Newborn Cross-Sectional Study of the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, J Villar, LC Ismail, CG Victora, EO Ohuma, E Bertino, DG Altman, A Lambert, AT Papageorghiou, M Carvalho, YA Jaffer, MG Gravett, M Purwar, IO Frederick, AJ Noble, R Pang, FC Barros, C Chumlea, ZA Bhutta, SH Kennedy, The Lancet 384 (9946), 857-868, 2014  (No. of citation: 529)
  4. Finding corners, JA Noble, Image and vision computing 6 (2), 121-128, 1988 (No. of citation: 418)
  5. International standards for fetal growth based on serial ultrasound measurements: the Fetal Growth Longitudinal Study of the INTERGROWTH-21st Project, AT Papageorghiou, EO Ohuma, DG Altman, T Todros, LC Ismail, A Lambert, YA Jaffer, E Bertino, MG Gravett, M Purwar, JA Noble, R Pang, CG Victora, FC Barros, M Carvalho, LJ Salomon, ZA Bhutta, SH Kennedy, J Villar, The Lancet 384 (9946), 869-879, 2014  (No. of citation: 299)

A list of Professor Noble's recent publications can be found here.