Christina Maher

Have you ever wondered how your fingers type a text? How do they know what to do when you pick up your phone and simply think of the text? Well, the entire process begins with electrical signals in the brain. Christina Maher is a biomedical engineer exploring how electrical signals traverse the brain's information highways. By examining the brain's structure and function, she aims to understand what causes some signals to take a 'turn', leading to conditions like epilepsy. To do this, she spends her days applying artificial intelligence to brain data gathered from electroencephalography and magnetic resonance imaging.

Christina's mission is to apply personalised medicine to improve the healthcare and quality of life for people with chronic conditions. She began her career leading the build and deployment of complex software. Concurrently, she completed a Bachelor of Behavioural Science to fulfil her obsession with neuroscience and the human brain. After completing her Psychology Honours degree, she pivoted into a clinical research role and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the Brain and Mind Centre in Sydney. Christina takes every opportunity to share her love of engineering and regularly engages in STEM outreach to encourage more women into the field.