Brief Bio

Dr. Figley completed a BSc Honours in Chemistry (University of Saskatchewan; 2005), PhD in Neuroscience (Queen’s University; 2010), and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neuroscience (Johns Hopkins University; 2013). He then joined the University of Manitoba Department of Radiology as an Assistant Professor (2013), and was promoted to Associate Professor (2019). Work in his lab has been funded by NSERC, Research Manitoba, Health Sciences Centre Foundation (as principal investigator), and by Brain Canada, MS Society of Canada, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, and other organizations (as co-investigator). Past and present trainees have held numerous scholarships and fellowships (from CIHR, NSERC, Research Manitoba), published their work in dozens of peer-reviewed journals, produced multiple copyrighted works, and been a granted a United States patent. Dr. Figley currently serves on the editorial board of Scientific Reports, is an elected member of both the Max Rady College of Medicine Executive Council and the University of Manitoba Senate, and is the founding Associate Director of the recently-approved Manitoba Multiple Sclerosis Research Centre.

Research Directions

Research in Dr. Figley’s lab is primarily focused on the development and application of advanced neuroimaging methods – such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), myelin water imaging (MWI) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) – to investigate structural and functional brain changes associated with various disorders (with a particular focus on multiple sclerosis). However, his team is also interested in exploring relationships between brain structure and brain function, and has been actively developing a number of advanced image processing and machine learning methods to support these efforts.

Publications