Professor Robert Heard was born in Western Australia and educated in the UK. He studied medicine and neurology in Oxford, London and Sydney. He trained in clinical neurophysiology at Westmead Hospital and his first consultant appointment was as staff specialist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

Professor Heard is in clinical practice on the NSW Central Coast and is a Visiting Neurologist and Neurophysiologist at Gosford and Wyong Hospitals and Gosford Private Hospital. He is also an honorary consultant at Westmead Hospital, and a consultant neurologist to the Australian Defence Forces.

He is an Professor of Medicine in The University of Sydney and The University of Newcastle.

Professor Heard’s interests include:

• General neurology
• Diagnostic neurophysiology
• Neuromuscular disease
• Neuroimmunology
• Vertigo

He particularly enjoys the challenge of difficult diagnosis, and writes a regular blog covering new research and developments in neurosciences and clinical neurology.

Professor Heard has published more than 100 research papers in journals including Nature, Nature Genetics, Lancet Neurology, J Immunology and NEJM. He is a Committee Member of ANZAN Asia Pacific. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and American Neurological Association, a Fellow and Australian Advisory
Member for the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and an examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.