Dr Birtan Demirel

Dr Birtan Demirel is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Bioelectronic Circuits & Systems Laboratory within the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the MRC Brain Network Dynamics Unit at the University of Oxford, working with Prof Timothy Denison.

Birtan earned an MSc in Psychology, Neuroscience and Human Sciences from the University of Pavia, Italy, completing his master’s research at the University Medical Center Goettingen, Germany, where he used real-time MRI to investigate the articulatory movements of people who stutter. He then received a DPhil in Experimental Psychology from Oxford for his thesis Neural and Psychological Correlates of Stuttering. Both his doctoral work and his current postdoctoral position are funded by the Dominic Barker Trust.

His research has been recognised with the Best Poster Award at the International Speech Motor Control Conference, an speaking invitation at the Royal Society, London, and BBC News coverage of the novel method to improve speech fluency during public speaking.

During his doctoral studies, Birtan held a Graduate Development Scholarship at St Anne’s College, Oxford, where he taught Neurophysiology and Behavioural Neuroscience and worked as a Research Assistant in Informatics Engineering.