Parastoo Hashemi

Parastoo ("Parry") Hashemi (born 1980) is an Iranian-British neural engineer and Reader in Neural Diagnostics and Therapeutics at Imperial College London. She is best known for her work in the development of electroanalytical methods to quantify neurotransmitters in the brain, and more recently, among the gut-brain axis and skin-brain axis. In 2018, Hashemi received both the Pittsburgh Conference Achievement award and the Royce W. Murray award for her significant accomplishments in electroanalytical chemistry within the first 10 years after receiving her phD.

Life and academic career

Early life Hashemi was born in Tehran, Iran and immigrated with her family to the United Kingdom, as a child, in 1986. She grew up in Durham, UK and attended Belmont Comprehensive school and Durham Johnston 6th Form College.

Hashemi graduated with a first class Master in Science (MSci) degree in chemistry from King's College London in 2003. She received her PhD in Bioengineering from Imperial College London in 2007 under the mentorship of Dr. Martyn Boutelle. The focus of her Ph.D. research was to develop online microdialysis techniques for monitoring humans with traumatic brain injury.

Positions held Hashemi held an assistant professorship in the department of Chemistry at Wayne State University since 2019. She is a former associate editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry journal RSC Advances and is currently an editor for ACS Chemical Neuroscience

Research Hashemi has pioneered tools for measurements of serotonin in the brain, a neurotransmitter important in the pathology of depression. Her team is using these tools in a variety of models to better understand, diagnose and treat mental disorders, with a focus on depression.

Notable awards 2019 CAMS Fellow (Community for Analytical Measurement Science) 2018 Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry (SEAC) Royce W. Murray Award 2015 Eli Lilly Young Investigator Award in Analytical Chemistry 2013 Masao Horiba Award for Analytical Chemistry

Notable papers