About

Kirsty Dixon is currently an Assistant Professor investigating mechanisms of neurotrauma repair. She has expertise in models of traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and Multiple sclerosis (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis).

She completed her Ph.D. in brain injury at James Cook University and the University of Western Australia investigating climbing fibre reinnervation of Purkinje cells in the cerebellum following traumatic injury. During her Ph.D. She received a prestigious Woodside Neurotrauma Ph.D. Excellence Award and an Australian Postgraduate Award, as well as receiving a Doctoral Research Scheme Grant. Subsequently, she undertook postdoctoral studies at the University of Melbourne and then at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis to investigate the roles of Ephs and ephrins in brain and spinal cord injury. She discovered that after injury the brain contains a natural repair mechanism, whereby neural stem cells found naturally in the brain play a role in injury stabilization by enhancing the survival of existing neurons and ‘calming’ the brains glial response.

She continues to investigate the brains response to injury with a view to enhancing its natural reparative mechanisms.