Rebecca Shipley’s research career started within the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, University of Oxford, where she received a First Class Honours Masters degree (Mathematics), before completing her DPhil (PhD) working on multiscale mathematical models of blood flow and drug delivery in vascularised tissues. During this time, she developed a passion for interdisciplinary research around the application of mathematical models in medicine. Dr Shipley also gained practical experimental experience through two concurrent Visiting Research Fellowships at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Bath, and Tissue Repair and Engineering Centre, UCL. Her research on integrating mathematical models with experimental data inform the design of bioreactors for tissue engineering led to the award of Young Researcher of the Year for the UK Tissue and Cell Engineering Society in July 2011.