Dr Janet Deane has recently been appointed as an Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Science and Physiotherapy at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at University of Birmingham. Dr Deane is passionate about using digital technology to understand the mechanisms underpinning musculoskeletal conditions to facilitate the development of effective treatments for patients with chronic pain.
In 2019, Dr Deane completed a prestigious PhD fellowship awarded by Versus Arthritis, where she used MRI, kinematic and EMG analysis methods to evaluate biomedical sub-classifiers of chronic low back pain at Imperial College London. Following graduation, Dr Deane worked as a postdoctoral researcher with the OATech+ Network, in collaboration with the University of Cardiff and Imperial College, to support research translation in the area of osteoarthritis.
In 2020, Dr Deane became the first Physiotherapy NIHR Clinical lecturer to be appointed on the NIHR Integrated Academic Training (IAT) at the University of Manchester (UoM) and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT). As part of this fellowship, Dr Deane used digital technology to begin the development of an individualised exercise approach for patients with chronic spinal pain, whilst building research capacity amongst healthcare professionals within the NHS.
Dr Deane is keen to enhance the research capabilities of the next generation of researchers. To this end, she has played leading roles in research education, national AHP research strategy delivery and developed NHS infrastructure to support healthcare professionals in research. As a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and postdoctoral researcher, Dr Deane has taught and supervised on a range of National and European musculoskeletal programmes, whilst supervising multi-disciplinary BSc, MSc, and PhD students in musculoskeletal research. Dr Deane has been privileged to present and publish her research nationally and internationally, winning several awards including, ‘The Secretary’s Award’ and ‘New Investigator’ by the Society of Back Pain Research UK, ‘European Society of Biomechanics Student Award’, the Imperial College ‘Research Community Fund’ and more recently the ‘FBMH Research Development Award’ by the University of Manchester. Through executive membership for grant committees (NIHR Health Technology Assessment) and societies (the Society for Back Pain Research U.K.), Dr Deane continues to support innovative patient research.