Psychology student secures £4k in funding for prototype on placement year
What do Surrey's Cognition, Learning, and Plasticity Lab, the Canary Islands, and a £4,000 Foundership award have in common? Joshua Carter. The third-year Psychology BSc student has a prototype in the making which could shape his future, but he's also busy running the UK’s fourth – and Surrey’s first – Neurotechnology Society and enjoying his final semester at Surrey. We sat down with him to find out more about his transformative year and whether he's a CEO in the making.
Joshua presenting at Imperial College London's Neurotechnology Hackathon 2025.
Joshua, what did you do on placement? How did you organise it?
I emailed Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh here at Surrey and asked if he was looking for a placement student and then worked under his mentorship at the Cognition, Learning, and Plasticity Lab. I also took a visiting research position over the summer at the University of La Laguna in the Canary Islands, which was a study abroad opportunity.
The application process wasn’t easy. It’s a very tough market for employment and opportunity; I was rejected over 22 times from labs, start-ups, and companies, but I persisted. In the end, it couldn’t have worked out better. At Roi’s lab, I gained hands-on experience with non-invasive neurostimulation for cognitive enhancement. I was already drawn to neurotechnology – it combines my interests and there’s scope for entrepreneurship, which I’m keen to pursue.
Doing my placement at Surrey had some great benefits, it gave me a sense of stability, I could stay close to friends, and everything felt familiar. There’s a nice environment here, lovely campus, lovely people, and lots of support.
Let’s talk a bit more about neurotechnology. What is it and why does it interest you?
Neurotechnology is an emerging and very exciting field. It’s essentially the interaction between technology and the brain, and how you can use technology to modify and enhance brain function. Roi is doing a lot of interesting research in this area, and it’s a field I want to make a difference in. I even co-authored a book chapter on the future of neuroscience with Roi and Dame Glynis Breakwell. I got to contribute ideas and concepts, which is quite rare for an undergraduate.
Clearly your placement at Roi’s lab was a great success. So much so that you created a prototype and applied for a patent. Talk us through what happened.
My idea was to use a predictive neurostimulation approach to improve attention for non-clinical populations (people who aren’t currently receiving treatment for mental health) and for people with ADHD.
I wrote an opinion paper on it then presented it to Innovate Surrey Ltd, the University’s tech transfer office. I filed an invention disclosure form and was given the go-ahead to continue after they’d done a patent search.
I secured £4k in funding through a Foundership award, which is part of the Surrey Enterprise Hub. I’ve been working on the prototype as part of my dissertation and the next step is running studies to collect data. If that’s successful, I’ll file for a domestic patent in the UK.
And if that wasn’t enough, you also established the Neurotechnology Society at Surrey during your placement year. What led you to do that?
At the start of my placement, I attended some events held by other neurotech societies, including symposiums and hackathons, which was a great way to network. I decided Surrey needed a society of its own! Currently, we’re the fourth UK university to have a Neurotechnology Society, in addition to King's College London, Imperial College London, and the University of Oxford.
The four societies have collaborated to set up a student-led conference this year, and at Surrey, we’ve hosted two expert talks, including with the CEO of NeuroX, with lots more events planned for the rest of this year.
So, what’s next? Do you see yourself as a future CEO?
I’m considering my options: I could set up a spin-out company based on my prototype and look for investment or pursue a PhD. I’ve got time to decide so I’ll see how this semester goes. Roi has been instrumental in helping and advising me. If I could give some advice it would be: reach out to everyone until you succeed, even if no positions are advertised – try, try, and try again. Visualise what you want to do and identify places that fit with that vision. Keep searching, keep putting yourself out there, and when you do find the right opportunity, like me, it'll probably be the best one you could have had!