Serena Briant

I have primary oversight of the Novo Nordisk Fellowship Programme. I am responsible for recruitment, budgeting, organising annual symposia and other events and reporting back to our sponsor, Novo Nordisk.  

I work closely with the Research Strategy Coordinator in RDM, Ruth McCaffrey, in coordinating internal funding calls (John Fell Fund, Medical Sciences Internal Fund, RDM Pump Priming funding etc). I also support early career researchers in applying for funding, identify new funding opportunities for the department, maintain the RDM Funding Database and write RDM Funding Bulletins.  

I am Secretary of the RDM Career Development Committee and am involved in leading some of the initiatives of this committee, such as organising training sessions and the RDM Careers Day.  

I provide other administrative and organisational support to RDM, such as by overseeing key aspects of the RDM Annual Symposium and running the RDM Image Competition.  

I joined the University of Oxford in 2015, working as a Research Administrator for the Oxford Alzheimer's Research UK Network Centre and Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre, based within the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics. I am a scientist by training, with a background in autonomic neuroscience. I obtained an undergraduate degree in Physiological Science in 2010 and then went on to complete a PhD in Systems Neuroscience in 2014, both at the University of Bristol.