Professor John Pepper, who is one of the clinical advisers to the PEARS project, has been awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to heart and lung surgery, in Her Majesty The Queen’s birthday honours.
Professor John Pepper was educated at Cambridge University and Guy’s Hospital prior to his postgraduate training in cardiothoracic surgery at the National Heart Hospital, London Chest Hospital and Guy’s. He was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at London Chest Hospital and St George’s Hospital before moving to Royal Brompton Hospital.
Warren Thornton, software developer on the PEARS project, has been awarded Chartered Engineer status by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Warren Thornton did his first degree at UC Berkeley and came to the UK to do a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College. While doing his PhD he became involved in the PEARS project as the software developer. Warren was closely involved in developing the MRI scanning protocol and wrote the bespoke Computer Aided Design (CAD) code which was necessary to reconstruct the ascending aorta from MRI images. This was a critical step in the PEARS Project. Warren has modelled every aorta since the start of PEARS and continues to develop the CAD code for PEARS.
