Joseph Balfe has been awarded a scholarship to study neuroscience at the University of Oxford.
Joseph Balfe has been awarded the prestigious Clarendon Scholarship to undertake his PhD in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, England.
With about 38,000 graduate applications per year, Joseph is just one of 200 from across the world selected for the fully-funded scholarship.
He will be joining Oxford’s Translational Neurostimulation Laboratory, led by Associate Professor Jacinta O’Shea, where he will be investigating a novel form of brain stimulation for the treatment of depression.
Joseph is excited to be building a new life at the University of Oxford later in 2025, and to being surrounded by such a diverse and hard-working community.
“I am really looking forward to applying my current expertise in neuromodulation toward the treatment of psychiatric conditions.”
Joseph’s concern for mental health sparked his initial curiosity for neuroscience.
“Depression is currently the leading cause of adult disability worldwide, and traditional pharmaceutical treatments are suboptimal, often failing to provide sufficient effectiveness. Because of this, novel treatments are urgently required,” Joseph says.
“The additional opportunities provided by the Clarendon Scholarship will help me apply my scientific knowledge to improving mental health at a societal level. I’m hoping to bring valuable knowledge back to New Zealand to advance this important field of research.”
Joseph graduated from Otago in 2024 with a Master of Science (with Distinction) in Neuroscience, supervised by Associate Professor Yusuf Cakmak from the Department of Anatomy.
He has been working full-time as a Clinical Trials Associate at Pacific Edge Cancer Diagnostics in the Center for Innovation and is also a part-time research assistant at Otago. He has been working on developing a novel wearable smart-device to detect and relieve asthma attacks by harnessing the interconnectivity of the nervous system.
This research led to him winning the Falling Walls Lab for New Zealand pitch competition, hosted by the Royal Society Te Aparangi. He subsequently competed at the Falling Walls Global Finale in Berlin, Germany, last year.
He and his Otago team are now collaborating with various experts across New Zealand to develop the wearable device, known as the VentiMate.
Outside of university, Joseph is a professional musician, including as lead guitarist for a variety of collaborative productions and events throughout New Zealand. His final show will be Best of the Eagles with the Rock Tenors in July in Dunedin.
“I was never really interested in science at high school. In fact, my life goal was to become a full-time professional musician, so I completed a Bachelor of Music,” Joseph says.
“However, the students and staff here at Otago really inspired me to broaden my horizons and have been central to my development from musician to neuroscientist. In this respect, it has been enormously challenging, and rewarding, to learn neuroscience from the ground-up.”
He says the University of Otago has provided countless opportunities for personal and professional development.
“I feel more than ready for my next chapter at Oxford.”
Kōrero by Claire Grant, Communications Advisor, School of Biomedical Sciences
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