Alistair has developed methods for understanding heart function using MRI, atlas-based characterisation of heart disease in large populations, and evaluation of heart stiffness and contractility from non-invasive medical imaging exams. He is a founding member of the Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, member of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Medical Image Analysis, GigaScience and Scientific Reports. He is Principal Investigator for the Cardiac Atlas Project, a world-wide consortium for the re-use of imaging data. This project has made cardiac imaging examinations available to the community for research into the analysis and population variation of heart disease.