Irene Tracey

Irene Mary Carmel Tracey (born 30 October 1966) is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and former Warden of Merton College, Oxford. She is also Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and formerly Pro-Vice-Chancellor (without portfolio) at the University of Oxford. She is a co-founder of the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), now the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging. Her team’s research is focused on the neuroscience of pain, specifically pain perception and analgesia as well as how anaesthetics produce altered states of consciousness. Her team uses multidisciplinary approaches including neuroimaging. Early life and education Tracey was born at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and educated at St. Thomas More R.C. Primary School and Gosford Hill School in Kidlington. She completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at Merton College, Oxford in Biochemistry under the supervision of Eric Newsholme and George Radda. She graduated with joint-top first class degree winning the Gibb’s Prize as an undergraduate and was a Wellcome Trust prize student and senior scholar at Merton College for her graduate work. Her graduate research was supervised by Jeffrey F. Dunn and investigated the use of magnetic resonance imaging methods to study disease in humans. Career As an early career researcher, Tracey held a postdoctoral position at Harvard Medical School, working at the MGH-NMR imaging centre (now Martinos) applying magnetic spectroscopy techniques to understand AIDS Dementia Complex. During this period she became interested in pain, the research field she would eventually focus on. Tracey returned to Oxford in 1997, where she helped to found the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), later renamed the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging; she served as its Director from 2005 until 2015. She was appointed university lecturer in 2001 at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics; during this time, she was also a tutor in medicine and Fellow of Christ Church. Between 2007 and 2019, Tracey was Nuffield Chair in Anaesthetic Sciences and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where she is now an Honorary Fellow. In October 2016, she became Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.