Matt Wilkes
Assistant Course Director
Biography
POSITIONS
- Independent Medical Officer, Dept. Sport and Exercise Science, Portsmouth
- Doctoral Student, Extreme Environments Laboratory, Portsmouth
- Research Fellow, Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, London.
- Director, Free Flight Physiology Project and Adventure Medic Ltd.
I am in the final year of a PhD at the Extreme Environments Laboratory, University of Portsmouth, focussing on the effects of environmental stressors on physiology and performance in free flight. I completed the MSc. in Mountain Medicine in 2016, investigating cerebral altitude illness in the Bolivian Andes. My work has been supported by the AsMA International Aerospace Medicine Scholarship, the RAeS GP Olley Research Award in Aviation Medicine and the Myre Sim Fund.
My clinical background is in anaesthesia and critical care. I have been the Lead Doctor or Medical Advisor for several large international expeditions, practiced anaesthesia in New Zealand and Nepal, and flown all over East Africa with the AMREF Flying Doctor Service. I spent the 2017 post-monsoon season as a volunteer physician at the IPPG(UK) high altitude clinics in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
I love flying paragliders, skydiving, biking and skiing and have worked as a Paragliding Guide in the European Alps.