Irene Tracey is Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science at the University of Oxford. Her multidisciplinary basic science and clinical team have pioneered the use of neuroimaging tools to manage and treat chronic pain conditions, radically altering our thinking about what influences and constitutes pain perception. She regularly teaches pain specialists, GPs, lawyers and the lay public in addition to her training of surgeons, anaesthetists and scientists. She holds significant leadership roles and is Director of the world-leading Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic imaging of the Brain. As Professor of Anaesthetic Science, the first appointed woman and scientist, she is successfully revitalising academic anaesthesia.