Dr Anastasia Topalidou

Anastasia collaborates on a range of inter- and trans-disciplinary projects at a national and international level, exploring the biomechanics of pregnancy and childbirth, the maternal, foetal and neonatal wellbeing and the potentials of thermal imaging application in a range of contexts. She is involved in research projects that promote the engagement between academia and industry and has close collaborations with NHS Trusts, business partners and other institutions. Anastasia is the Lead of Equality for the School.

Anastasia has been working at the University of Central Lancashire since 2016. She led the Working Group 2 (WG2: Biomechanics & Bioengineering) of the EU COST Action-IS1405 “Building Intrapartum Research Through Health (BIRTH): An interdisciplinary whole‐system approach to understanding and contextualising physiological labour and birth” (2014-2018), which explored the mechanics and bioengineering of pregnancy and labour, including the identification and/or development of non-invasive, dynamic, real time methods for assessing mechanical and bio-engineering parameters in vivo for pregnant and labouring women and their foetus. Currently she is a member of the EU COST Action CA18211 “Perinatal Mental Health and Birth-Related Trauma: Maximising best practice and optimal outcomes”. Apart from her research activities, she has extensive experience in project management, strategic planning and policymaking. She has published over 25 peer reviewed research articles and 2 book chapters. She has also written an article published on The Conversation “Could AI take control of human birth?”, that attracted the attention and was reproduced by other media.