Joanna Wardlaw is an academic neuroradiologist with an outstanding track record from her student days up to the present time. She now leads a large internationally recognised group in brain imaging research based at the Edinburgh SHEFC Brain Imaging Research Centre for Scotland (SBIRCS). She also leads national & international multicentre collaborative imaging projects, such as the ACCESS study of imaging in acute stroke (the largest-ever study of observer variation in brain image interpretation). She has raised over £6.5 million in grants, for the construction and running of SBIRCS, and for a portfolio of advanced imaging research projects. She has recently been awarded an MRC e-science grant of £2.5 million (jointly with Oxford, London and Nottingham). Her publication record in journals with high impact factor and with important effects on clinical practice is at the highest level amongst academic radiologists (three Lancet research papers cited 514, 249 and 129 times respectively). Her Lancet 1997 meta-analysis of thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke was a seminal work which led to a number of major developments in acute stroke care worldwide. She has led important projects both on the application of imaging to clinical practice, and also on the development of new imaging techniques. Her work developing cost-effective imaging strategies is of great importance to the NHS, in particular her innovative methodology for systematic reviews of diagnostic tests is of importance to the NHS HTA programme. She is an academic clinician, and in that role is inspirational to her junior clinical colleagues (particularly women). She would make an excellent fellow of the Academy, and would stimulate more interest in academic radiology, an area not greatly favoured by clinical researchers and which needs serious science to support it. This is becoming ever more important in brain research where imaging is assuming centre stage – for success it is crucial that there are radiologically trained clinical academics such as Joanna Wardlaw. In stroke she is one of the very few interested academic radiologists, not just in the UK, but worldwide.