Head of Neuroimaging Department and Professor of Imaging Sciences with a strong interest in the translation of brain imaging techniques from the bench to the clinic.

Steve Williams is the Founder, Director and Head of the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences based at the Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital, King’s College  London.  He graduated from Loughborough University in 1985 then spent a formative year working in high resolution NMR spectroscopy for Beecham Pharmaceuticals in Harlow before seeking a higher degree.  In 1988, he became the University of Cambridge’s first PhD in Magnetic Resonance Imaging.  He went on to set up a University of London Intercollegiate Imaging facility at Queen Mary College which focused on the development and application of magnetic resonance techniques in a wide range of pre-clinical models of disease.  In 1994, he moved to the Institute of Psychiatry to champion the application of neuroimaging in CNS disorders.  Steve has co-authored over 400 papers and chapters in leading neuroscience journals.  His recent work has focused on the translation of imaging techniques from bench to bedside with an ever-increasing emphasis on the development of new tools for diagnosis and prediction of response to treatment. 

Key Achievements

Development of an automated image collection and analysis approach which classifies autism with greater than 90% accuracy. Elements of the research were funded by both the Wellcome Trust

Medical Engineering Centre and a multicentre MRC grant and recently won the NHS Innovation of the Year Award 2010 (1).

First neuroimaging study to unveil the interaction between homeostatic and higher brain centres in the regulation of food intake (2).

Creation of a robust, quantitative MRI technique for multicentre structural imaging studies impervious to differences between scanner manufacturers (3).

Led the neuroimaging element of one of the first generation of fMRI studies to look at depression and, more generally drug effects on brain function in any clinical disorder(4).

First to propose the use of diffusion based MR imaging to detect corticospinal tract damage in motor neurone disease (5).

Championed the translation of pharmacological MR imaging from mouse to man for a range of neurotransmitters including dopamine and glutamate (6,7).

Co-authored some of the most widely cited papers which address image acquisition and analytical challenges in functional MRI (8).

Translation of brain imaging techniques from the bench to the clinic.

Researcher ID