Danielle Perro

Prior to attending Oxford, I completed an Honours BMSc (First Class) at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where I studied interdisciplinary medical sciences and physiology.

I have joined the Department of Women's and Reproductive Health under the supervision of Prof Krina Zondervan, Prof Christian Becker, Prof Katy Vincent, and Dr Rebecca Dragovic.

Chronic pelvic pain in women is common, yet all too often treatments which aim to treat it are ineffective. My research aims to better understand and characterise the pain that women with chronic pelvic pain experience. In particular, my work characterises extra-pelvic/widespread pain using both psychophysical pain testing (i.e. quantitative sensory testing and conditioned pain modulation) and epidemiological techniques. By better phenotyping the pain in these women, I hope to firstly better understand the underlying pathophysiology of widespread pain, with the aim of informing a more personalised approach to pain management for those with chronic pelvic pain.

In addition to my research, I am a science communicator with a particular interest in women's health and pain. I co-host a podcast, Unheard of, which interviews early-career researchers, clinicians and people living with endometriosis to address some of the big questions set out by the James Lind Alliance. I have twice been selected as a Pain Research Forum's Correspondent, which included interviewing world-leading pain researchers, writing blogs about scientific talks and covering news in the pain field. You can read some of these blogs here. Finally, I enjoy scientific writing. My most recent piece in The Conversation address the severe gynaecology backlogs occurring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the detrimental impact this has and will continue to have on women with endometriosis.

Endometriosis: pandemic backlog risks making it even harder for women to get help