Biographies
Cat Chatfield
Editor-in-Chief, NIHR Journals Library
Director of Health Services Research UK
Cat is Director of Health Services Research UK, a self-supporting membership organisation which convenes creators and users of health services and social care research and has been involved in editorial work for over 10 years. Previously, she was Head of Education for The BMJ and co-led The BMJ’s work on doctor wellbeing during the pandemic. Before that, she set up the Research Integrity team across BMJ’s portfolio of journals, was quality improvement editor for The BMJ, leading the creation of a series of articles on the science of improvement in collaboration with the Health Foundation, and was interim Editor-in-Chief for the journal BMJ Open Quality. Cat trained as a doctor in Brighton and London, was a Darzi clinical leadership fellow, and practised as a GP before moving to full-time editorial work.
Andrée Le May
Senior Journal Editor - Programme Grants for Applied Research
Professor Emerita, University of Southampton
Professor Andrée le May qualified as a graduate nurse at Chelsea College, University of London in 1982. After working in the community she was appointed as Specialist Nurse for Research and Development at West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth and became interested in how nurses used knowledge in practice. This led to early research on the use of evidence and a move, in 1990, to teaching / research in the Higher Education sector. Since then she has continued to work in this area, researching and publishing on evidence-based practice, the dissemination and implementation of research and the use of communities of practice for improving learning.
She has particular expertise in the care of older people and a specialist interest in the importance of dignity and compassion in nursing care. Her research skills centre on qualitative research methods and designs. In addition to a PhD she also holds a PGCE(A). She is now Professor Emerita of Nursing at the University of Southampton.
Peter Davidson
Senior Journal Editor - Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation & Deputy Editor Health Technology Assessment
Peter trained in medicine in Newcastle and was a GP in Southampton for over ten years before retraining in public health. He has extensive experience of applied health research through consultant and director-level roles at NETSCC, mostly in the Health Technology Assessment programme. He was the director of the NIHR Dissemination Centre in Southampton and has been an editor of the HTA journal for fifteen years and of the EME journal since it started. He has a particular interest in clinical trials and systematic reviews, and their application to clinical and public health decision-making.
Emma Pitchforth
Senior Journal Editor - Global Health Research
Associate Professor of Primary Care, Department of Health and Community Sciences, University of Exeter
Emma is a health services researcher who brings social science perspectives and methodologies to the understanding of key issues in healthcare delivery and people’s experience of healthcare. Building on her PhD in Public Health from the University of Aberdeen, she has 20 years postdoctoral research experience in academic and non-academic research organisations. Her work, increasingly at the level of health policies and systems, focuses on maternal, sexual and reproductive health and antimicrobial resistance. Emma has experience in diverse healthcare settings including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, remote and rural Scotland and the UK more broadly. She is the co-Chair of the Exeter Women's Health Research Group and Executive Editor of the online open access journal Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. Emma is passionate about bringing together diverse interdisciplinary perspectives to understand key issues in global health research and, in her editing role, to make academic publishing a constructive process and for publishing to reflect greater equity in global research collaborations.
Eugenia Cronin
Senior Journal Editor - Public Health Research
Delta Public Health Consulting
Eugenia is a consultant in public health and former director of public health in London. She has a master’s degree in public health from St Georges Hospital Medical School in London, followed by a PhD in health services research at the Institute of Psychiatry, on the topic of primary care mental health.
Her current portfolio of work includes producing evidence reviews, service reviews and population needs assessments for NHS and local government organisations, as well as supporting organisational and leadership development in the public health professional community. In addition, Eugenia works with the UK Faculty of Public Health as founding chair of the special interest group on adult social care and public health. Eugenia has worked with NIHR since 2010 when she became senior scientific advisor to the Health Services Research Board.
Catriona McDaid
Senior Journal Editor - Health Technology Assessment
Professor of Applied Health Research, Department of Health Sciences, University of York
Catriona graduated in Psychology from Queen’s University Belfast in 1988, followed by a PhD in Psychology and then an MSc in Science Communication. Prior to joining the University of York in 2002 she worked as a researcher in the voluntary sector and for a non-departmental public body.
She worked for over 10 years at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York as part of the health technology assessment group undertaking systematic reviews across a range of clinical areas. She joined York Trials Unit in 2013 where she leads a programme of work in orthopaedic trials. She has a specific interest in the evaluation of complex interventions and is involved in the evaluation of interventions across the surgical pathway.
She is Co-Director of the Research Support Service Hub delivered by the University of York and partners, a member of the NIHR PGfAR panel and the NIHR Pre-doctoral Fellowship Panel. She is also a member of Orthopaedic Research UK Scientific Advisory Committee.
Helen Snooks
Senior Journal Editor - Health and Social Care Delivery Research
Professor of Health Services Research, Medical School, Faculty of Medicine Health and Life Science, Swansea University
Helen Snooks is currently Professor of Health Services Research in Swansea University’s Medical School. She leads the Patient and Population Health and Informatics theme within the School.
Helen graduated in 1981 from the University of Surrey with BSc (Hons) Economics, Sociology, Statistics, and completed her PhD in Health Services Research, ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in seriously injured accident victims’ at the University of Sheffield in 2000.
Helen was NIHR HS&DR Senior Scientific Advisor from 2015 -2018.
She led the Trials Unit in Swansea to full registration with the UKCRN and has a strong record of grant capture (> £45 million).
Helen’s main research interests and expertise lie in the fields of Emergency Pre-hospital and Unscheduled Care, Primary Care, and research support. In these areas, the focus of her work is to plan, design and carry out evaluations of health technologies and new models of service delivery. The research is applied, pragmatic and leads to change and impact in the real world of policy and practice. Helen actively encourages and supports public and patient involvement in her research to enhance relevance, accountability and quality. Helen’s work is strongly patient-focused and collaborative, and uses mixed methods to achieve study aims.
Tessa Crilly
Director, Crystal Blue Consulting Ltd.
Tessa graduated from LSE in 1981 with BSc Econ and in 2000 was awarded a PhD in economics/health policy at LSE (selected for early digitisation as a History of Thought thesis). She worked as a senior manager in the NHS for 10 years in regional strategic planning and acute hospital services. A series of independent projects led her to establish Crystal Blue Consulting in 1999, specialising in questions of resource allocation, workforce planning and organisational delivery across acute, mental health and whole health systems. Tessa has a grounding in economics and mixed methods and seeks to bridge the gap between research and practice. She actively pursues multi-disciplinary learning and has obtained a BA in German Language and Literature from Birkbeck College and MA (Distinction) in Psychology of Religion from Heythrop College, London University.
Tara Lamont
Senior Adviser, NIHR Coordinating Centre, University of Southampton
Tara is currently scientific advisor to the NIHR research programme on Health and Social Care Delivery Research at Southampton University. She also acts as senior adviser to the fellowship programme of The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at Cambridge University. She led national work for the NIHR on engagement and dissemination of health research, with an interest in reaching wider audiences. Earlier in her career, she set up new national patient safety functions and led health projects at the Audit Commission.
William McGuire
Professor Emeritus, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York
William graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1987, then trained as a paediatrician in the UK, The Gambia, and Australia before specialising in neonatal medicine. He was appointed as Chair of Child Health at the University of York in 2008 (emeritus since 2024) and worked between York Teaching Hospital as a consultant paediatrician and the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination as a clinical academic. His research focuses on randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, and knowledge translation and quality improvement programmes that aim to improve care and outcomes for preterm or sick newborn infants and their families. See: https://www.york.ac.uk/crd/staff/william-mcguire/
James Raftery
Professor of Health Technology Assessment, PCPS, University of Southampton
James is Professor of Health Technology Assessment at the University of Southampton and chair of the NIHR Evaluation Trials and Studies Cooodinating Centre (NETSCC). For 2010 he was Acting NETSCC Director for the NIHR’s SDO, HSR and PHR programmes. He has led several research projects including the impact of the HTA programme, incentives for clinicians to join trials and the development of metadata on the performance, conduct and results of clinical trials.
James has a BA in Economics and Philosophy from Southampton University and an MA in Economics of Education and Science from University College Dublin. He was awarded his PhD from the London School of Economics in 1993.
He is an active health economist heading a small group providing health economics input mainly to clinical trials. Research themes include the costs and benefits of clinical trials, overdiagnosis/overtreatment and the political economy of healthcare. He has written widely on health economic matters particularly relating to NICE, including a NICE blog on the BMJ website.
Rob Riemsma
Consultant Advisor, School of Healthcare Enterprise and Innovation, University of Southampton
Rob completed his MSc in Public Administration in 1988 at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and completed his PhD on Arthritis Patient Education there in 1998. He has worked at the Department of Psychology of the University of Twente in health psychology with a particular emphasis on arthritis patient education programmes. Between 1999 and 2005 he worked at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York, first as a reviewer and later as a Reviews Manager, where he managed technology assessments undertaken on behalf of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Rob worked at Kleijnen Systematic Reviews (KSR) between 2006 and 2022 as a Reviews Manager. He has undertaken and managed systematic reviews on many topics including: cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, psychological interventions and general health status measures. At KSR Rob coordinated reviews of the clinical and cost effectiveness of health care interventions for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme on behalf of a range of policy makers, including NICE.
His research interests are in the use of systematic reviewing methods within health technology assessments, to support decision making. He has an interest in the issues around the systematic reviewing of educational interventions.
Rob has been a member of the HTA Editorial Board since 2002.
Helen Roberts
Professor of Child Health Research, Population, Policy and Practice Programme, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health
Helen studied sociology and anthropology at the Universities of Reading (undergraduate) Aix-Marseille (Masters) and Sussex (doctorate). Her postdoctoral work included two years in the Social Statistics Research Unit at City University, London. She spent a decade leading R&D for the children’s charity Barnardo’s where she and her team established a ‘What Works?’ programme and carried out extensive evaluations, a decade on the board of NICE as a non-executive, and a secondment to a government department to work on a green paper on the family. She has worked on trials, systematic reviews, and mixed methods studies.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, a former Visiting Fellow at All Souls Oxford and has worked in adult education. She is a trustee of UCL, and a past member of most NIHR funding boards and a number of international advisory boards. More glamorously, she spent some years reviewing pantomimes for Tribune as well as health related books novels and plays.
Her research interests include inequalities in health and what can be done about them, child health more generally, sustainability and clean air.
Jonathan Ross
Professor of Sexual Health and HIV, University Hospital Birmingham
Jonathan Ross qualified from Aberdeen University in 1986 and obtained his MD in 1995. He is dually accredited in general medicine and genitourinary medicine and has worked as a consultant physician in Birmingham since 1997.
He is a member of the editorial board for European Sexually Transmitted Diseases Guidelines and is the CRN speciality lead for sexual health, and Treasurer for the International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI).
He is lead author for the UK and European Guidelines on Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Cochrane Collaboration Sexually Transmitted Diseases Collaborative Review Group and International Journal of STD and AIDS journal. He remains an active clinician and his research interests are in pelvic infection, gonorrhoea, Mycoplasma genitalium, HIV, and sexual health care service delivery.
Oluwaseyi (Seyi) Dolapo Somefun
Research Associate
International Network for Advancing Science and Policy (INASP)
Seyi is a mixed methods demographer dedicated to advancing scholarship that enhances the holistic wellbeing of youth facing cumulative and convergent risks to healthy development. Holding both a Master’s and a Doctoral degree in Demography and Population Studies, she brings extensive experience from both academic and non-academic research settings.
Her research interests are broad but primarily focus on youth, sexual and reproductive health, resilience, and the acceptability of interventions. Seyi actively contributes to several interdisciplinary research projects in Nigeria, South Africa, and Canada, with many of her findings published in leading international journals and accessible blogs for broader audiences. Currently, she serves as an INASP Associate, where she supports academic researchers in their scholarly endeavors.
Linda Carolyn Chokotho
Lecturer and Research Scientist, Department of Clinical Sciences, Academy of Medical Sciences, Malawi University of Science and Technology
Dr Linda Chokotho holds an MBBS degree from the University of Malawi (2000), a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Cape Town (2011), and a PhD in Global Public Health from the University of Bergen (2021). She is an Orthopaedics and Trauma Fellow of the College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa (COSECSA), a credential she earned in 2007. In 2022, she was honoured with an Honorary Fellowship from the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics & Traumatology (EFORT).
Dr Chokotho currently serves as a lecturer and research scientist in the Department of Clinical Sciences at the Academy of Medical Sciences, Malawi University of Science and Technology. Her research focuses on trauma epidemiology, injury prevention, and improving trauma care, with a particular interest in addressing disparities in access to care. She has played a key role in establishing trauma registries in Malawi and has published widely in the field of Trauma and Orthopaedics. Her research collaborations include partnerships with renowned institutions such as the University of Oxford, the University of Stirling, the George Institute for Global Health, and the University of California, San Francisco. She has also served as a research consultant for various local and international organizations, including the Ministry of Health in Malawi and the World Bank
Marian Brady
Prof of Stroke Care and Rehabilitation, Glasgow Caledonian University
Marian Brady is Professor of Stroke Care and Rehabilitation at Glasgow Caledonian University. An experienced speech and language therapist, Marian has worked in community, education and hospital settings in Ireland and Scotland before leaving the NHS to complete her PhD at the University of Strathclyde. Marian founded and chaired the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (www.aphasiatrials.org until 2024) following a competitive four-year award from the EU Cooperation in Science and Technology. Supporting >300 multidisciplinary aphasia researchers from >40 countries, The network has been supported by the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia, UK since 2017. Using a range of methodological approaches, Marian’s research tackles multidisciplinary rehabilitation uncertainties in the face of methodological complexity. She champions co-production, efficiency and global health perspectives while facilitating the inclusion of under-researched groups (such as those with communication difficulties) within the research process. Her global health leadership and outputs has had a demonstrable impact on patient care and healthcare education across 21 countries. Marian has also chaired large multi-organisational guideline groups on behalf of the European Stroke Organisation and the Royal College of Nursing.