Julia Alison Noble (born 28 January 1965) is a British engineer. She has been Technikos Professor of

Biomedical Engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic). BME is also traditionally logical sciences ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of St Hilda's College since 2011, and Associate Head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at the university. , she is the chief technology officer of Intelligent Ultrasound Limited, an Oxford spin-off in

medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to rev ...

that she cofounded. She was director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME) from 2012 to 2016., Medical Imaging Summer School (MISS 2016)In 2023 she became the Foreign Secretary of

The Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(jointly with

Mark Walport Sir Mark Jeremy Walport (born 25 January 1953) is an English medical scientist and was the Government Chief Scientific Adviser in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2017 and Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) from 2017 to 2020. ...

Education

Julia Alison Noble was born on 28 January 1965 in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

, England, to James Bryan Noble and Patricia Ann Noble. She was educated at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and was an undergraduate student at

St Hugh's College, Oxford St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a women's college, and accepte ...

, where she was awarded a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree in

Engineering Science Engineering physics, or engineering science, refers to the study of the combined disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, particularly computer, nuclear, electrical, electronic, aerospace, materials or mechanical en ...

in 1986 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1989 for research on

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

and

image segmentation In digital image processing and computer vision, image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple image segments, also known as image regions or image objects ( sets of pixels). The goal of segmentation is to simpl ...

supervised by

J. Michael Brady Sir John Michael Brady (born 30 April 1945) One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is an emeritus professor of oncological imaging at the University of Oxford. He has been a Fellow o ...

.Alison Noble

Career and research

Noble started her career as a research scientist at the General Electric Corporate R&D Center in

Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

, where she worked from 1989 to 1994 on developing inspection systems for

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...

s. She returned to the University of Oxford as a lecturer in 1995 to work on medical applications of computer vision and was promoted to Professor in 2001, as the first female Statutory Professor in Engineering at Oxford. Noble has made contributions to

medical image computing Medical image computing (MIC) is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computer science, information engineering, electrical engineering, physics, mathematics and medicine. This field develops computational and mathematical methods fo ...

, where her research interests combine knowledge of medical imaging and

computational science Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

to support decision-making in

clinical medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practice ...

. Her research has advanced understanding of automatic extraction of clinically useful information from

medical ultrasound Medical ultrasound includes diagnostic techniques (mainly imaging techniques) using ultrasound, as well as therapeutic applications of ultrasound. In diagnosis, it is used to create an image of internal body structures such as tendons, muscles ...

scans and developed

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

solutions to key problems in biomedical image analysis. Noble has supervised or co-supervised over 50 successful PhD students to completion including Miklós Gyöngy, Nathan Cahill, Ramón Casero Cañas, and Grace Vesom. Her research has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Honours and awards

Noble was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2017. She was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) in the

2013 Birthday Honours The 2013 Birthday Honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of ...

, elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2008 and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) in 2001. Noble was promoted to

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

2023 Birthday Honours The 2023 King's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of King Charles III to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part o ...

for services to engineering and biomedical imaging. She is a

trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

of the Oxford Trust, a charity established by the founders of

Oxford Instruments Oxford Instruments plc is a United Kingdom manufacturing and research company that designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research. The company is headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, with ...

to encourage the study, application and communication of

science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...

. She is also a trustee of the

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and ...

and served as President of the Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Interventions (MICCAI) Society from 2013 to 2016. , Noble is an

Honorary Fellow Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in m ...

Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, wh ...

, and is a MICCAI Society Fellow. She was the first recipient of the

Laura Bassi Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti (29 October 1711 – 20 February 1778) was an Italian physicist and academic. Recognized and depicted as "Minerva" (goddess of wisdom), she was the first woman to have a doctorate in science, and the second wo ...

Award of the

International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering The International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) was initially formed as ''International Federation for Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering'' during the 2nd International Conference of Medical and Biological Eng ...

in 2015. Previously she was a

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research and ...

, from 2005 to 2011. In 2018 she presented the

Woolmer Lecture The Woolmer lecture is the flagship lecture of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine. It takes place annually during the Institute's Medical Physics and Engineering Conference. Dedication The lecture is dedicated to Professor Rona ...

. In 2019, Professor Noble was awarded the

Gabor Medal The Gabor Medal is one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines". The medal was created in 1989 to honor the memory of physicist Denni ...

by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

"for developing solutions to a number of key problems in biomedical image analysis and substantially advancing automatic extraction of clinically useful information from medical ultrasound scans".

Personal life

Noble was a

coxswain The coxswain ( , or ) is the person in charge of a boat, particularly its navigation and steering. The etymology of the word gives a literal meaning of "boat servant" since it comes from ''cock'', referring to the cockboat, a type of ship's boat ...

for the

Oxford University Women's Lightweight Rowing Club The Oxford University Women's Lightweight Rowing Club was established in 1984 to represent the University of Oxford in the race against the Cambridge University Boat Club at the Lightweight Boat Races. Throughout the season, the Club races a ...

in the

Henley Boat Races The Henley Boat Races were a series of annual rowing races between various crews representing the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. The event included the Lightweight Men's Boat Race from 1975 to 2018, the Women's Boat ...

in 1985.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Alison Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford Fellows of St Hilda's College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society Female Fellows of the Royal Society Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Female Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering People educated at Maidstone Grammar School for Girls Scientists from Nottingham Living people British women engineers 1965 births 21st-century women engineers Fellows of the Women's Engineering Society Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford