Dr. Heather Mortiboys received her PhD in Neuroscience (summa cum laude) from the International Max Planck PhD Program in Dresden Germany. She joined the Neuroscience department at the University of Sheffield in 2006 to set up investigations in mitochondrial models of Parkinson’s disease (PD). She became a Parkinson’s UK Senior Research Fellow in 2013 to expand this work and form her own research group. Her research interests are focused on mitochondria in neurodegenerative diseases, primarily PD. Her current research has two streams: understanding the mechanisms leading to cell death in people with PD and discovering small molecules to target these mechanisms. Her group includes two research assistants, five doctoral students, three postdoctoral fellows and three graduate students. She has pioneered methods for culturing human dopamine-producing neurons and the use of detailed imaging for the identification of mitochondrial abnormalities in PD and the subsequent search for compounds to improve mitochondrial function.