We are thrilled to announce that Professor Thomas Okell joined the Podium Institute in November 2025 as Associate Professor of Technologies for Mental Health & Cognition.

Tom brings a wealth of expertise in advanced neuroimaging, with a research focus on the intersection of sports, injuries, mental health, and cognition. He is a newly appointed Fellow of St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford and jointly appointed at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford. Tom earned his doctorate at Oxford developing novel MRI-based techniques to study brain blood flow.

His pioneering work supported by fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Wellcome Trust/Royal Society has led to innovative methods in angiography, perfusion, and structural imaging. These innovations have been applied across cerebrovascular disease, basic neuroscience, and population imaging studies.

At Podium, Tom joins a team of four accomplished faculty members. His appointment will drive the development and clinical validation of scalable technologies including computer vision, wearables, and machine learning for assessing mental health, cognition (perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning), and sleep in the context of sports injuries.

Please join us in giving Tom a warm welcome as we continue to advance the Podium Institute’s mission to transform human performance, health, and recovery through cutting-edge research and technology.