Frances M. Cowan

Frances Cowan is Visiting Professor of Perinatal Neurology in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of Bristol and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Perinatal Neurology, Imperial College London. She holds honorary consultant contracts at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She was awarded a PhD from the University of Oslo where she continues to have strong links.

Frances’s research has led to important new understanding in the antecedents, diagnosis, and treatment of perinatal brain injury. Her outstanding contributions are evidenced in over 200 original research peer-reviewed papers. She been involved in the training of an innumerable number of clinicians, clinical psychologists, and other students in the UK and around the world. Her work brings immediate and direct benefit to patient care.

There are many examples of the impact of Frances’s global contributions to advancing knowledge in infant health and improving outcomes. In work spanning three decades, Frances has been at the forefront of elucidating patterns of brain injury in preterm and full term newborn babies. In the 1980s she meticulously examined very preterm babies using ultrasound imaging of the brain. When brain magnetic resonance imaging came into wide use in the 90s it was France’s painstaking work that correlated magnetic resonance, ultrasound, and clinical examination. She has been instrumental in describing the clinical and imaging features, prognosis and aetiology of stroke in full-term babies. This research led to realistic ability to predict clinical consequences from early imaging findings in preterm and full term babies, and provide prognostic information to counsel parents.