Matthew studied Medicine, Neuroscience and Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He subsequently combined postgraduate medical training with clinical neuroscience research, first as an Academic Foundation Doctor (Oxford), and later as an MRC Clinical Research Fellow (MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences & Imperial College London) and an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry (Institute Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London).

In 2018 Matthew was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship to complete a PhD in Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at UCL under the supervision of Professor Ray Dolan FRS (UCL) and Professor Zeb Kurth-Nelson (ex. Google DeepMind).

Matthew returned to Oxford in 2022, as an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry, and, in 2025, was appointed a Senior Clinical Researcher and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist. He currently leads the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience in Psychiatry (CCNP) group at the department, and holds an honorary academic appointment at UCL.

In 2025 Matthew joined the Health AI team at Microsoft AI, where he holds the position of Principal Applied Scientist and Behavioral Health Lead. Prior to this, he was also an external member of the Google DeepMind NeuroLab. 

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience in Psychiatry

I'm fascinated by how brain activity relates to cognition, affect, and behaviour, and believe a deeper understanding of this relationship will help us develop better clinical tools and treatments in psychiatry.

To investigate these questions, I use functional and molecular brain imaging (fMRI, MEG, PET), machine learning for neural data analysis, computational modelling of behaviour, natural language processing (NLP), and pharmacological interventions.

In my pre-doctoral work (at KCL and Imperial) I investigated the role of dopamine in the pathophysiology of psychotic disorders using functional neuroimaging (fMRI, PET) and computationally-informed behavioural tasks. During my PhD (at UCL) I used MEG and multivariate neural decoding to measure spontaneous memory reactivations (replay) in schizophrenia.

My current work uses functional neuroimaging (MEG, fMRI), naturalistic tasks, and AI models (inc. large language models, LLMs) to investigate neuro-cognitive processes in psychiatric populations, particularly psychosis. 

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AI and Mental Health

Recent years have seen exponential advances in AI that have profound implications for delivery of mental health care. Millions of people now engage with LLM- based AI chatbots to discuss personal health and wellbeing queries, and frontier AI models are being evaluated for deployment in healthcare settings. 

My current research investigates the behavior of LLMs in mental health contexts, using simulation-based approaches, real world conversational data analysis, and development of AI evaluation frameworks.

I maintain active collaborations with the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) and Microsoft AI.

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Selected Funding

Wellcome Neuroscience in Mental Health Grant; UK AI Security Institute Challenge Award; BMA Foundation Margaret Temple Award; MRF Launchpad Grant; AMS Starter Grant; NIHR Clinical Lectureship; Wellcome Clinical Doctoral Fellowship