Isabel Straw

Dr. Isabel Straw is an Assistant Professor in Healthcare Artificial Intelligence & Cybersecurity at University College London's Faculty of Population Health Sciences, an Emergency Doctor at Homerton Hospital NHS Trust, and a Cybersecurity Research Fellow at UC San Diego's Centre for Healthcare Cybersecurity. She holds a BMedSci, BMBS, MPH, MRes, and PhD, combining clinical expertise with technical research. Dr. Straw leads the CRASH research team investigating cybersecurity resilience and AI safety in healthcare systems.

Her research focuses on critical intersections of technology and healthcare:

• Artificial Intelligence Safety: Bias mitigation in clinical algorithms, equitable healthcare outcomes
• Healthcare Cybersecurity: Critical infrastructure protection, ransomware impacts
• Medical Technology Risks: Implanted device vulnerabilities, failure management
• Biotechnological Syndromes: Novel digital health pathologies and causal pathways
• Clinical Simulation: Training for technology-related emergencies

Dr. Straw's recent publications (2020-2025) reveal consistent themes: cybersecurity threats disrupting patient care, algorithmic biases affecting health equity, and emerging technology-related syndromes. Her work combines empirical analysis of real-world incidents (e.g., CrowdStrike outage impacts) with methodological innovations in bias detection.

She advises six MSc students researching:

• ML models for transplant outcomes and cancer prediction
• Cardiac complication algorithms
• NHS cyberattack mapping
• Algorithmic bias remediation

Her CRASH Team collaborates with UCL's Information Security group and Gender and Tech Research Lab, funded by grants including PETRAS National Centre of Excellence (EPSRC). Dr. Straw's policy work has shaped UN AI ethics guidelines, WHO digital health standards, and UK medical device regulations.