Prof Lind has been active in neurosurgical research since he was a third year medical student at Otago University. He started working under Assoc Prof Samir Bishara and Prof Grant Gillett on carotid endarterectomy and cervical spinal laminoplasty. As a neurosurgical resident and registrar in Auckland he studied surgical techniques for draining blood clots and began his interest in stereotactic probe delivery with papers on accuracy of shunt placement for hydrocephalus. He spent a year full-time studying the effects of cell signalling molecules on brain tumour cells being cultured in the laboratory under the guidance of Prof Mike Dragnunow of the University of Auckland.

After graduating as a neurosurgeon at the end of 2006, Prof Lind started as a clinical academic studying the impact of statin medications on vasospasm after bleeds from aneurysms, aspects of head trauma, the accuracy of stereotactic deep brain stimulation surgery. He and his research fellows and students have studied how the posterior subthalamic area, targeted for Parkinson’s disease and tremor, influences eye movements, vascular control, limb biomechanics, psychological changes and glucose utilisation in other parts of the brain.