Activities
Beyond the papers.
Where the lab has been, who we've talked to, and what we get up to together.
2026
News
HEAD Lab at IRCOBI 2026, Munich
Nine papers from the lab at this year's IRCOBI at LMU Munich — Emily, Elena, Claire, Will, Lucas, Vahid and Xiancheng presenting on individualised brain strain, mandibular muscle forces, post-collision injury prediction, collapsible helmets, motorcycle facial impacts and more.
Prof Mazdak GhajariDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanElena KoumantouDr Claire BakerDr William DawberDr Lucas LowVahid DarvishiDr Xiancheng YuAll nine papers Discuss on LinkedIn
Conference
Short Communication: Computational Prediction of Mandibular Muscle Forces During Sporting Head Impacts
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
E Koumantou, J E Lloyd, B Sagl, M Ghajari
Conference
Short Communication: Predicting Sport-Related Brain Injury via Head Kinematics, Finite Element Brain Modelling, and Plasma Biomarkers
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
J W Hickey, E Y K Chan, L J Evans, W T O’Brien, B Xie, S S Roberts, S E Butler, J Ernest, W J Q Zhou, K A Zimmerman, G Spitz, T D Parker, T J O’Brien, S R Shultz, D J Sharp, M Ghajari, S J McDonald
Dr Emily Yik Kwan ChanDr Karl (Gus) ZimmermanProf Mazdak GhajariProceedings (PDF)
Conference
Short Communication: MMDLNet: A Multimodal Deep Learning Network for Post-Collision Injury Prediction
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
Z Zou, M Elsegood, G Ponte, S Doecke, A Majumdar, C E Baker
Conference
Short Communication: A Comparative Study of Injury Risk in Collapsible and Conventional Bicycle Helmets
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
W Dawber, X Yu, V Darvishi, M Ghajari
Prof Mazdak GhajariVahid DarvishiDr William DawberDr Xiancheng YuProceedings (PDF)
Conference
Short Communication: Does a Chin Bar-Mounted Action Camera Increase Head Injury Risk in Facial Impacts?
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
S Meng, L Low, M Ghajari
Conference
Short Communication: Facial Impact Conditions for Assessing Motorcycle Helmets, Informed by Reconstruction of Real-World Collisions.
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
L Low, C Baker, W Dawber, S Meng, M Ghajari
Dr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowProf Mazdak GhajariDr William DawberProceedings (PDF)
Conference
Short Communication: CT-Derived Lesion Descriptors of Intracranial Haemorrhage and their Association with Injury Severity and Outcome
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
H Kelsey, T V Vyvere, V Newcombe, N Wang, A Marzo, F Lecky, X Yu
Conference
Short Communication: Non-Uniform Effects of Cerebral Volume on Subject-Specific Brain Strain Across Multiple Head Impacts
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
E Chan, M Ghajari
Conference
Short Communication: Investigating the role of axonal strain in brain white matter damage using biomechanical modelling of normal pressure hydrocephalus
IRCOBI 2026, Munich
V Darvishi, M D Giovane, M C B David, M A Kolanko, P A Malhotra, C Carswell, D J Sharp, M Ghajari
Social
Dr Emily Chan — PhD viva passed
Dyson School of Design Engineering
Emily passed her viva — after a railway incident turned a morning viva into an afternoon one. Examiners: Dr Pietro Ferraro and Prof Matthew Panzer.
News
Mazdak Ghajari promoted to Professor of Brain Biomechanics
Nineteen years after arriving in the UK for his PhD, Mazdak has been promoted to Professor of Brain Biomechanics at Imperial College London.
News
Face the facts: are motorcycle helmets protecting the right places?
New study in Traffic Safety Research, led by Claire Baker, on where riders' heads are actually struck in crashes — and how often the face is involved.
Dr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowRead the paper Discuss on LinkedIn
News
Ansys features HEAD Lab's brain-injury modelling
Ansys highlighted the lab's computational work on how head impacts strain brain tissue, in a piece on the 69 million traumatic brain injuries a year.
Conference
Not one threshold fits all: comparing brain injury metrics at equivalent brain deformation across sports
ISBS 2026, Loughborough
Oral presentation by Emily Chan in the “Head impacts in sport” session. Proceedings to appear in a Sports Biomechanics special issue.
News
Finite Element Analysis lecture series released on YouTube
Fifteen videos covering the theory and practice of FEA — truss, beam and solid elements, buckling, vibration, non-linear analysis — from the DE2 module, free to all.
Outreach
Imperial Global Summer School 2026
Imperial College London
A hands-on session for 16–17-year-olds on how head impacts injure the brain and how helmets are tested.
News
HEAD Lab at the World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Vancouver, Canada
Seven talks from the lab across the congress — Mazdak on field measurements of injury, Emily on computational modelling and concussion, Elena on biomechanics in practice, Claire on concussion and brain injury, Lucas on motor-vehicle injury and Vahid on brain injury.
Prof Mazdak GhajariDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanElena KoumantouDr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowVahid DarvishiThe seven talks
Conference
Vahid Darvishi — Concussion/Brain Injury III (OA169)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Scheduled oral presentation, supported by travel grants including the Guarantors of Brain. Vahid was unable to travel because of visa restrictions; the work was presented on his behalf.
News
President's Award for Excellence in Research 2026 for Mazdak Ghajari
Recognised for biomechanics research that has challenged established assumptions, influenced safety standards and policy, and translated into practical tools for industry and the public.
Conference
Claire Baker — Concussion/Brain Injury I (OA133)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Concussion/Brain Injury I session.
Conference
Elena Koumantou — Biomechanics in Practice (OA128)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Biomechanics in Practice session.
Conference
Emily Chan — Concussion/Brain Injury II (OA145)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Concussion/Brain Injury II session.
Conference
Lucas Low — Motor Vehicle-Related Injury (OA121)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Motor Vehicle-Related Injury session.
Conference
Emily Chan — Computational Modeling of Injury II (OA58)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Computational Modeling of Injury II session.
Conference
Mazdak Ghajari — Field Measurements of Injury (OA6)
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026, Vancouver
Oral presentation in the Field Measurements of Injury session.
Outreach
Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2026
The Royal Society, London
HEAD Lab's helmet-impact demo at the Royal Society's flagship public science week.
Outreach
eCall study at The Blue Light Show
The Blue Light Show
Claire Baker and Silas Vince presented findings from the eCall study with South East Coast Ambulance Service: how in-car crash data could improve triage of road traffic collisions.
News
High-rate stiffness of every human spinal disc
Compressive and flexion stiffnesses of all discs of the human spine under high-rate loading, from lab tests and inverse modelling — for more biofidelic whole-spine models.
News
HIPER helmet ratings pass 150,000 views
Since launching in September 2024 the ratings have been accessed over 150,000 times worldwide. The lab is now asking manufacturers, retailers and cyclists which rating format they would trust.
Prof Mazdak GhajariDr William Dawberhiperhelmets.org Discuss on LinkedIn
Outreach
Great Exhibition Road Festival 2026
Imperial College London, South Kensington
Two days of live helmet-impact demos on the HEAD Lab stand — a pendulum striking a crash-test-dummy head shows how much a cycle helmet cuts peak acceleration. Over 60,000 visitors across the festival.
Dr Emily Yik Kwan ChanElena KoumantouDr William DawberVahid DarvishiDr Lucas Low Discuss on LinkedIn
Conference
Deriving representative head impact profiles in contact sports: a shape-based clustering approach
21st Injury Biomechanics Symposium (IBS), IIHS, Virginia
E. Koumantou, E. Y. K. Chan, C. Jones, K. Austin, M. Loosemore, M. Ghajari. Student-focused symposium hosted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Elena KoumantouDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanProf Mazdak GhajariPaper (PDF)
Conference
A markerless object tracking method for validation of instrumented footballs
Brain Health in Football Research Symposium 2026, Hilton at St George's Park, Burton-on-Trent
E. Koumantou, L. Low, M. Ghajari. A camera-only method for validating the kinematics measured by instrumented footballs, presented at the FA and PFA's annual brain-health research symposium — keynote by Dr Ann McKee of the Boston University CTE Center.
News
Children's cycle helmets are certified with adult impact conditions
Same drop height, same anvils, same pass threshold — with no systematic evidence that they reflect how children actually get hurt. Road Safety Trust-funded work to change that.
Outreach
The Sports Engineering Podcast: brain biomechanics from riot police to child road safety
Podcast
A 45-minute conversation with Will Dawber on how HEAD Lab studies brain injury, what it means for helmet design, impact testing, injury simulation and Vision Zero.
News
Women at Imperial Week: Claire Baker
Highlighting Claire's work on automated triage of road traffic collisions from accessible sensor kinematics.
News
Can industrial helmets protect the head in falls and trips?
Published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering: hard hats are tested for falling objects, yet over 70% of brain injuries on industrial sites come from trips and falls. Six designs tested on the lab's rig.
Conference
Not one threshold fits all: the relationship between brain injury metrics and brain strain varies across sports
Sports Engineering Seminar Day 2026, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
Emily Chan, in the Biomechanics and Movement analysis session.
Conference
The protective performance of bicycle helmets and current attitudes towards them
Sports Engineering Seminar Day 2026, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
Will Dawber, in the Cycling: aerodynamics and equipment session. A one-day UK sports-engineering meeting hosted by Heriot-Watt's Aerospace Engineering & Sport Science group, with keynotes from Tom Allen, John Hart and Dario Cazzola.
Outreach
IMPACT research engagement seminar for International Women's Day
Online, IMPACT — Centre for Post-Collision Research
Claire Baker among three speakers at the free online seminar on the IWD 2026 theme 'Give to Gain'.
Outreach
Inaugural UK Concussion Working Group meeting
Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, London
First meeting of a group of clinicians and researchers working on concussion, chaired by Mike Loosemore; HEAD Lab presented its biomechanical brain-injury modelling.
Outreach
IMechE webinar: engineering in winter sport
Online, Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Will Dawber spoke alongside Fabio Malizia in the IMechE 'Built for the Cold' webinar, chaired by Timothy Carew.
2025
Social
Lab Christmas dinner
London
The team signed off 2025 with dinner together before the break.
Social
Dr Alasdair Mackay — PhD viva passed
Dyson School of Design Engineering
Alasdair's thesis on aircrew head protection — injury prevention and safety engineering for aviation.
News
Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for HIPER
The HEAD Lab team received a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award in recognition of the HIPER helmet rating programme.
Outreach
Visit to Autoliv, Sweden — the NAMFI facial-impacts project
Autoliv, Sweden
Mazdak visited Shiyang Meng and colleagues at Autoliv. NAMFI (New Assessment Methods for Facial Impacts) is the joint project on the understudied facial impacts in motorcycle collisions.
News
Best Research Article of the Year, Annals of Biomedical Engineering — the HIPER paper
ABME's editorial team recognised the paper behind the HIPER cycle-helmet rating as its research article of the year.
News
A simple machine-learning model predicts brain strain from mouthguard kinematics
Emily Chan's new paper: a small set of features from instrumented-mouthguard head kinematics is enough to estimate brain strain, simple enough to run inside existing systems.
News
Annals of Biomedical Engineering on the 30-helmet HIPER study
Why most helmet standards still focus on skull fracture — and what testing 30 of the UK's most popular bike helmets for brain-injury protection showed.
News
HIPER one year on: tens of thousands of cyclists helped
The Road Safety Trust marked a year since the launch of the HIPER helmet rating it funded.
Conference
RAIDS and Premier League TBI at the TBI-REPORTER General Assembly
Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens' College, University of Cambridge
Two lab studies among the new work introduced to the MRC TBI-REPORTER consortium at its general assembly, 17–18 September 2025: Claire Baker on RAIDS, the Road Accident In-Depth Studies, including motorcyclist helmet vulnerability across 125 verified primary impacts, and Mazdak Ghajari on Premier League TBI.
News
HEAD Lab at IRCOBI 2025, Vilnius
Vilnius, Lithuania
Four short communications from the lab at IRCOBI 2025 — sex and brain anatomy effects on brain strain, biomechanical modelling of normal pressure hydrocephalus, reconstruction of 24 real-world motorcycle collisions, and motorcyclist facial impact prevalence.
Prof Mazdak GhajariDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanElena KoumantouDr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowDr William DawberVahid DarvishiThe four papers
Conference
Short Communication: Effects of sex and brain anatomy on brain strain vary across different impact severities
IRCOBI 2025, Vilnius
E Chan, V Darvishi, T Parker, D Sharp, M Ghajari
Dr Emily Yik Kwan ChanProf Mazdak GhajariVahid DarvishiProceedings (PDF)
Conference
Short Communication: Biomechanical modelling of normal pressure hydrocephalus: Advancing understanding of white matter damage
IRCOBI 2025, Vilnius
V Darvishi, M Del Giovane, M David, M Kolanko, P Malhotra, D Sharp, C Carswell, M Ghajari
Conference
Short Communication: Reconstruction of 24 Real-World Motorcycle Collisions to Determine Facial Impact Conditions
IRCOBI 2025, Vilnius
L Low, C Baker, W Dawber, S Meng, M Ghajari
Dr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowProf Mazdak GhajariDr William DawberProceedings (PDF)
Conference
Short Communication: Motorcyclist facial impact prevalence from novel analysis of Road Accident In-Depth Studies data
IRCOBI 2025, Vilnius
C Baker, Z Wang, L Low, D Sharp, A Meng, M Ghajari
Dr Claire BakerDr Lucas LowProf Mazdak GhajariProceedings (PDF)
Social
Summer picnic in the park
Hyde Park, London
Pizza on the grass with the whole group on one of the first warm afternoons of the summer.
Outreach
Great Exhibition Road Festival 2025
Imperial College London, South Kensington
The lab's helmet-impact stand at the 2025 festival — live pendulum demos on a crash-test-dummy head and the HIPER helmet ratings for visitors of all ages.
Conference
Effect of brain anatomy on brain strain varies across impact severities
20th Injury Biomechanics Symposium (IBS)
E. Y. K. Chan, M. Ghajari. Student-focused symposium of the injury biomechanics community.
Conference
Development of a novel loss of consciousness injury risk function
20th Injury Biomechanics Symposium (IBS)
Sqn Ldr Alasdair Mackay, M. Ghajari. Work with the RAF Centre of Aerospace Medicine on the head kinematics that cause loss of consciousness, and what that means for aircrew helmet standards.
Social
Team social at the V&A
Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington
Coffee and a wander around the V&A courtyard, five minutes from the lab.
2024
Outreach
Dyson School Research Poster Symposium 2024
Dyson School of Design Engineering
Five HEAD Lab posters at the school's research showcase — AutoTriage, real-time brain-injury prediction from mouthguards, computational models of neurological conditions, aircrew head protection and an industrial helmet rating programme.
Dr Claire BakerDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanVahid DarvishiDr Alasdair MackayRachel TanSee the posters
News
HEAD Lab at IRCOBI 2024, Stockholm
Stockholm, Sweden
Three short communications from the lab at IRCOBI 2024 — near real-time brain strain from XGBoost models, headforms for oblique helmet testing, and smart-device sensors for vulnerable road users.
Prof Mazdak GhajariDr Emily Yik Kwan ChanDr Xiancheng YuThe three papers
Conference
Short communication: Near Real-time Estimation of Strain in Brain Regions using XGBoost Algorithms
IRCOBI 2024, Stockholm
E Chan, C Qin, M Ghajari
Conference
Short communication: Development of Headforms for Oblique Helmet Testing
IRCOBI 2024, Stockholm
P Halldin, N Bourdet, K Boursier, G de Bruyne, M Fahlstedt, M Ghajari, O van Leeuwen, D Winter, T Huysmans
Conference
Short communication: Exploring smart device sensor potential to assess simulated vulnerable road user head injury risk
IRCOBI 2024, Stockholm
C Baker, R Li, A Montemeglio, P Martin, M Wilson, D Sharp, M Ghajari
Social
Summer social in the park
London
An August afternoon in the park — and a cat.
News
Cycle helmet safety ranked: HIPER's first cohort
Imperial News covers HIPER's first cohort of 30+ adult cycle helmets, published openly at hiperhelmets.org.
News
Turban style and thickness affect head injury risk
First-series test data showing how turban wrap style and fabric materials change head protection in bicycle-incident impact conditions.
2023
Social
Lab Christmas dinner 2023
London
The whole group out for dinner before the winter break.
Social
Autumn picnic
London
Pizza on the grass to start the new academic year.
Social
HEAD Lab at IRCOBI 2023, Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
The lab at the IRCOBI conference in Cambridge — the annual gathering of the injury biomechanics community, and its conference dinner.
News
Sports-related brain injuries reveal mechanics of loss of consciousness
Computational modelling of elite-athlete head injuries identifies the biomechanical signature of loss of consciousness, using the Imperial College FE brain model.
Social
Summer drinks
London
The lab out together on a long table in the sun at the end of the summer term.
2022
News
Road accident data could help predict brain injury severity
On-board vehicle sensor data linked to TBI severity in the UK's RAIDS database, informing post-crash triage.
News
E-scooter simulations highlight head injury risk
Simulation of e-scooter falls highlights an elevated head injury risk, cited subsequently in the PACTS report on e-scooter safety.
Conference
A Multibody Model of the Spine for Injury Prediction in High-Rate Vertical Loading
IRCOBI 2022, Porto
L Low, N Newell, S Masouros
News
Computer models of brain blood vessels predict damage
Capillary-scale FE modelling of rat brain biomechanics shows how anatomy of capillaries and loading distribution interact to produce blood-brain barrier damage.
2021
News
New testing of bike helmets accounts for real-world head impacts
HEAD Lab's oblique-impact protocol, the basis for the HIPER rating, accounts for the loading patterns most common in real cyclist collisions.
News
Precise mapping shows brain injuries inflicted weeks earlier
The study combines biomechanics modelling with controlled cortical impacts in rats, MRI, and quantitative histopathology, showing that brain deformations at the time of injury predict structural change two weeks later.
2018
News
3D model of American football players' brain reveals CTE pathology location
The Imperial College FE brain model identifies the location of pathology in chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
2015
Conference
Short communication: Computational Analysis of White Matter Response to Rear and Lateral Impacts
IRCOBI 2015
M Ghajari, D Sharp