Charles Nduka is a practicing surgeon specialising in restoring facial expressions. He is also a leading researcher in facial paralysis and developed a concept of wearable facial expression biosensing and rehabilitation. His obsession with virtual reality started over 25 years ago when he published a review in the British Journal of Surgery on the use of VR for surgical training. For the last five years he has been focussing on developing VR hardware and software tools for privacy preserving emotional and wellbeing monitoring.
His research is funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and he collaborates with leading mental health clinicians and researchers internationally. Current research is focussed on the potential for VR to address the problems facing his patients affected by facial disfigurement, particularly mental health conditions such as social anxiety disorder. VR based mental health therapies create particular challenges around data security, privacy, and clinical validation.
Charles qualified in medicine from both Oxford University and Imperial College and his surgical practice is based at Queen Victoria Hospital in West Sussex, UK. He is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College and Honorary Reader (Associate Professor) at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.