I am a husband, father, son, neurologist, neuroscientist-in-training, Tolkien-fan, and owner of two toy wombats named Mulder and Scully. Essentially, I am a bit of a nerd at heart. I blame it on my wonderful parents, who bought me all the books I wanted as a kid but somehow never got round to buying me a Sega Saturn/Nintendo 64/Sony PlayStation!
I am married to a beautiful and kind-hearted lady who spends her time figuring out how to stick sharp things or shoot lasers into people’s eyes. The more common term for this activity, I believe, is ‘training to be an ophthalmologist’. I am secretly hoping that she will choose to do neuro-ophthalmology so we can carry out research projects together. Despite not having produced any Nobel-worthy scientific breakthroughs with her (yet), we seem to have produced 3 adorable human beings whom I absolutely love to bits.
Sadly, I no longer remember where my two toy wombats are. They probably escaped when my parents moved to another house temporarily while the old one was being renovated. Either that, or they were abducted by aliens (naturally!). Mulder would’ve loved that, for sure, and Scully would’ve just…freaked out, maybe? Bring on the probes!
On a more serious note, I am also a Clinical Lecturer in Neurology at the University of Malaya. Being a Clinical Lecturer basically means I get to do 3 amazing things:
- Treat patients
- Conduct research
- Teach medicine
In order to do the above more effectively, I have decided to go back to school, as it were. That explains why I am now a DPhil student in Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford where I study the impact of cerebral small vessel disease on brain & behaviour under the supervision of Professor Masud Husain and Associate Professor Arjune Sen. In case you were wondering, Oxford doesn’t refer to its doctorate programmes as PhDs. Instead, it prefers to use the term DPhil because of…reasons.
I am more often a student than not. Here’s a list of places where I’ve studied:
Ladybird Kindergarten (1988-1990)
Sekolah Rendah SS 19 Subang Jaya (1991-1996)
Sekolah Rendah Agama Masjid Darul Ehsan (SRAMDE) Subang Jaya (1991-1996)
Malay College Kuala Kangsar (1997-2001)
Kolej Matrikulasi Melaka (2002)
Kolej Yayasan UEM (KYUEM) (2002-2004)
University of Cambridge (2004-2010) – Jesus College
University of Oxford (2019-present) – St Catherine’s College
I am fluent in Malay and English. In my spare time, I’m trying to learn Arabic, Mandarin, and Python, with various degrees of successsssss (whoops, different kind of Python-speak there!).
If you happen to pass by Oxford and fancy a chat, let me know, and we’ll figure something out. I can often be found poring over a book at Blackwell’s on Broad Street.
That’s it for now. Thank you for your time.
Imran Idris 