Coco Newton
Name:
Dr Coco Newton
Job title:
PhD Student
Place of work / study:
Area of Research:
Spatial navigation and cognition in early Alzheimer’s disease
How is your work funded?
Joint funding between Alzheimer’s Society PhD Studentship and Merck Investigator Studies Program
Tell us a little about yourself:
I’m a third year PhD student (Now Completed) at the University of Cambridge (Now at UCL), supervised by Professors Li Su, John O’Brien and Dr Dennis Chan (now at UCL). I have a BSc in Biomedical Science from King’s College London and worked previously at UCL as a research assistant. I’ve worked with the dementia gaming app and citizen science project Sea Hero Quest, and was also part of the Centric Lab, a neuroscience research lab aiming to make urban design healthier for at-risk communities. At Cambridge, my PhD work investigates novel cognitive outcome measures for preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease using immersive virtual reality tests of navigation.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself:
I was in the winning Cambridge blue boat crew in the 2021 lightweight women’s Oxford-Cambridge boat race
Why did you choose to work in dementia?
I originally began research into spatial navigation at UCL, but when I discovered the potential of applying this understanding to Alzheimer’s disease, I knew I had to explore it further. My grandmother had dementia, and watching her go through the diagnosis process made me realise we could do so much better than the clinical tests we currently use.
Can we find you on Twitter?
Follow @newt_cc [2]