Peter Barker, D.Phil., is a Professor of Radiology and Oncology, and Director of the Division of MR Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been active in research on magnetic resonance for over 40 years, since starting his graduate studies on the development of techniques for high resolution NMR spectroscopy in Professor Ray Freeman’s group in Oxford in 1982. After a post-doctoral fellowship at HMRI/Caltech, he moved to Johns Hopkins in 1989, where his primary research interest has been the development and applications of physiological MR techniques (in particular proton MRS) for applications in the human brain.

Dr Barker is a fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and an editor for the journals Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and NMR in Biomedicine. He has published over 300 original, peer-reviewed articles which have been cited more than 31,000 times, more than 40 commentaries, review articles and book chapters, as well as 3 books on Clinical MR Neuroimaging, Clinical MR Spectroscopy and Clinical MR Perfusion Imaging. He is a frequent reviewer for the National Institute of Health (NIH) and other funding agencies.

His current research interests include developing methods to map neurochemicals and neurotransmitters using MRSI at 3 and 7T, and to apply these methods to the study oncological, psychiatric and neurological disorders.