Dr Andrew Bateman
Andrew Bateman is a Reader in Rehabilitation Research in the School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex. He has worked in research and clinical rehabilitation since 1990, the year he qualified as a Chartered Physiotherapist at University of East London. He completed a PhD in Neuropsychology in 1997 (Birmingham). As a Clinical Manager in Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust he led the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation (Ely, UK) 2002-19. He is involved in a wide range of research topics including outcome research, assistive technology, social media in rehabilitation and rehabilitation for adults and children with brain injury. He is an Affiliated Lecturer in Dept of Psychiatry (University of Cambridge), Past President and honorary Treasurer of The Society for Research in Rehabilitation; and Chair of the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum.
Andrew has been Director of the RDS EoE since June 2019. The role involves close liaison with RDS colleagues throughout the East of England and also with Directors of the other RDSs in England (there are 10 in total) to provide a seamless and equitable service to health researchers in the region applying for peer-reviewed funding. The role also involves extensive networking with other national and regional research organisations as well as establishing robust and enduring relationships with lay representatives and organisations to support development of their research plans.
Tanya Devine
Tanya works part-time, sharing the role of Central Co-ordinator. Prior to joining the Research Design Service, East of England, Tanya worked within Further and Higher Education for over twenty years. She has a degree in Early Childhood Studies and a Post Grad Cert in Education. Tanya taught Health & Social Care and Early Years to a cross-section of students. She has a background of supporting clinical research within an NHS hospital healthcare library and working at a London Borough local authority in the school admissions team.
Jemma Holliday
Jemma is the Central Co-ordinator for the East of England, working part-time based at the University of Essex. She joined the RDS in July 2015, originally as an Administrative Assistant, following administrative roles requiring website development and database management expertise.
Tracey Johns
Tracey qualified as a Registered General Nurse at University College Hospital London and following a year staffing on a Burns and Plastic Surgery unit went on to graduate from Warwick University with a degree in English & European Literature. Since then she has worked as a qualitative researcher for various organisations including: market research, social policy research, voluntary sector, health and social care. Her work has always been driven by a passion for empowering patient voice and shared decision making and she has experience of designing and leading co-produced research projects. For the last eleven years within the NIHR Clinical Research Network she has led projects aimed at improving study delivery and performance and most recently as a national Patient Public Involvement Lead for the previous NIHR CRN Primary Care Research Network. Tracey joined the Research Design Service as regional Public Involvement Lead in February 2016.
Dr Jonathan Scales
Jon completed a degree in Psychology and Anthropology at Keele University, as a mature student, after service in the RAF. Subsequently he gained a MA in Social Research Methods and a PhD in Applied Social and Economic Research from the University of Essex. His post-doctoral work experience includes research posts in the NHS, the Institute for Social and Economic Research, the Future Foundation and the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University. Prior to his current post as Research Adviser with the NIHR Research Design Service he ran his own social and market research consultancy. He is a certified member of the Market Research Society.
Dr Susan Smith
Dr Susan Smith has a Health Sciences background, with experience in both clinical and academic settings. She has a PhD from the University of Manchester in “The cellular and molecular regulation of vitamin D metabolism in myeloid cell lines and macrophages”, which was followed by post-doctoral research as part of a Vitamin D Research Group. She has several years’ experience of research in the National Health Service, both as a Research & Development Manager at an acute hospital Trust and as a Clinical Trial Co-ordinator for the NIHR funded ‘iQuit in Practice’ smoking cessation study, based at the University of Cambridge. More recently Susan worked as part of the Research & Enterprise Office team at University Campus Suffolk (now the University of Suffolk). She joined the NIHR Research Design Service as a part-time Research Adviser in April 2014. She is also currently a member of the East of England Essex Research Ethics Committee and Crohn’s and Colitis UK’s ‘Living with IBD’ Research Awards Panel.
Dr Suzanne Murphy
Suzanne is a developmental and health psychologist with a particular interest in children’s social development and its relationship with physical and mental health conditions, in particular language disorders and autism, specialising in quantitative methods, systematic reviews and cognitive behavioural therapy trials.
She has led a number of research projects and is currently the Chief Investigator for ‘Evaluating ‘Enhancing Pragmatic LAnguage skills for Young children with Social communication impairment’ (E-PLAYS): A feasibility study’ funded by NIHR which aims to evaluate an intervention for children with language impairment. She is also a co-applicant on another NIHR study looking at a computer intervention to support non-verbal children with autism to communicate.
Suzanne has worked in the Research Design Service since its inception in 2008 and leads the team at Bedfordshire.
Dr Erica Cook
Dr Erica Cook is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and a Registered Health Psychologist with the UK Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire where her teaching and research is strongly focused on the intersection of public health and Health Psychology.
Erica’s research interests focus on health services research; specifically, the uptake and adoption of public health interventions. She has led numerous evaluations of large scale public health interventions which have included; NHS Direct (largest telephone based healthcare service worldwide), NHS Health Checks, integrated Telehealth and Assistive Telecare Services. Erica also has expert knowledge of behaviour change; in particular the design, development and evaluation of behaviour change interventions particular in the areas of health promotion, preventive health and self-management. In all of her research Erica is committed to understanding the underlying health inequalities that exist across the diverse UK population.
Methodologically Erica has strong statistical background and provides consultancy statistical support at the RNOH and continues to provide statistical support to a range of funded projects. She is particularly knowledgeable about data linkage, data validation and dealing with large datasets.
Sarah Wadd
Sarah is the East of England’s Specialist Drug and Alcohol Advisor. The purpose of her role is to increase the number of successful drug and alcohol research grant applications across our region. Sarah describes herself as a ‘researchphile’! She is passionate about drug and alcohol research and co-producing research with people with lived experience of drug and alcohol problems. Her team has been recognised by NIHR’s INVOLVE for their excellence in co-production. She has led £1.3m of drug and alcohol projects across health and social care and the voluntary sector, from prevention to early intervention, treatment and harm reduction. Her expertise includes drug and alcohol epidemiology, qualitative and quantitative methods and ethical issues which are particularly relevant to drug and alcohol research.
Andrew Sharpe
Andrew is the site Manager and Public Involvement Lead for the Cambridge office. This role involves a variety of tasks including; organising and facilitating meetings and events to enable researchers to engage with patients and members of the public; provide links to charities and local lay groups; and to provide guidance through the whole application process. Andrew’s role also includes the provision of administrative support to the Cambridge office.
Andrew has a MA in Sociological Research from the University of Sheffield; focussing on qualitative methods. He has a keen interest in public health; specifically with the promotion of increasing involvement in physical activity.
Dr Simon Bond
Simon completed a degree in mathematics and masters in statistics at Oxford University, followed by a PhD in statistics at Warwick University. Having gained experience in applied and methodological research at MRC Biostatistics Unit, and Mundipharma Research, Simon now leads the statistical team within Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit (CCTU). The services provided include: study design, including novel and adaptive methods, including co-application to grant applications; input into protocol development and data management; randomisation; reporting during the study to oversight committees; final analysis; input into journals. Outside of study-specific tasks Simon sits on the NIHR Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation board, leads the Early-Phase Study group within the NIHR statistics group, and lectures to the Experimental Medicine and Immunotherapeutics MSc course. Simon previously served on an Ethics committee, and the NICE HTA evaluation board.
Dr. Darren Dunning
Darren completed both a BSC in Applied Psychology and an MSc in Developmental Psychopathology at Durham University, followed by a PhD titled “Does Working Memory Training Improve the Classroom Performance of Children with Poor Working Memory? A Randomised Controlled Trial” at the University of York. His post-doctoral work included a lectureship in Cognition at the Open University and a postdoc role at the University of East Anglia investigating if cognitive training improves the working memory of children that have survived an acquired brain injury. More recently, Darren was an investigator scientist at the University of Cambridge exploring if mindfulness improves the mental health, behaviour and cognitive skills of adolescents. His research expertise covers cognition, development, emotion and mental health, crosscutting intervention work (does it work?) and basic science (how does it work?). Darren joined the RDS in 2022, working across the Cambridge and Hertfordshire sites.
Dr Jonathan Scales
Jon completed a degree in Psychology and Anthropology at Keele University, as a mature student, after service in the RAF. Subsequently he gained a MA in Social Research Methods and a PhD in Applied Social and Economic Research from the University of Essex. His post-doctoral work experience includes research posts in the NHS, the Institute for Social and Economic Research, the Future Foundation and the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University. Prior to his current post as Research Adviser with the NIHR Research Design Service he ran his own social and market research consultancy. He is a certified member of the Market Research Society.
Dr Amber Steele
Amber received a Bachelor’s of Science with Honors from the University of California, Davis in the area of neuropsychology. Following this degree, Amber project managed large laboratories undertaking multidisciplinary research in the areas of psychology, biology, neuroanatomy and genetics at the University of Los Angeles, Neuropsychiatric Institute as well as at the California Institute of Technology. During this time she continued to build on the broad education in health care and in biomedical research that was laid down during her undergraduate degree. This encompassed research at a sperm bank investigating the relationship between pregnancy outcomes and well- being; work at a women’s clinic providing reproductive clinical procedures and general health exams; as well as, research examining dimensions of childhood illness and maternal depression.
With a particular interest in applying a stratified approach to understanding the relationship between hormones and mood in women, Amber undertook a PhD in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology at the School of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. The PhD was awarded most notably for the novel adaptation of a piecewise regression model for analyses of curvilinear trends and adopting the conceptual framework of ‘critical periods’ in longitudinal studies to examine interhormonal, behavioral and psychological dynamics over time.
Alongside her PhD studies at Cambridge, Amber was a student representative on the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine as well as the Faculty Graduate Education Committee. Keenly interested in fostering dialogue across disciplines within medical science as well as across the divide between science and public understanding, she founded and directed the first annual “Building Bridges in Medical Science” Symposium for the Cambridge Department of Medicine.
With a desire to continue fostering and facilitating collaborations Amber began working as a consultant for individuals and organizations where she applied her knowledge of medicine, biomedical statistics and psychology to support research.
Amber joined the Cambridge Research Design Services team as a Research Adviser in December of 2017. Her particular areas of interest and expertise are in biomedical research and applied longitudinal multi-variate statistics as well as building cross-disciplinary collaborations. Amber is the Cambridge lead for Outreach and brings her statistical expertise to the team.
Geri Barrett,
Geri has a Diploma in Nursing, Diploma in Health and Social Care and Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Research. Her previous experience includes working as a Research Nurse in oncology and cardio-thoracic NHS settings where she mainly supported the delivery of experimental research – commercial and non-commercial phase II-III medicinal and device RCTs. She also worked as a Clinical Trials Coordinator at the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit and coordinated the set-up and conduct of multi-centre renal CTIMPs.
Geri joined the Cambridge RDS team as a part-time Assistant Research Adviser in January 2022. As part of her role, she is also a local specialist Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement adviser and Lead for early career Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions researchers for Cambridgeshire.
Dr David Wellsted
David is the Associate Director and Research Adviser at our Hertfordshire office. David also holds the lead role at the Centre for Lifespan and Chronic Illness (CLiCIR) at the University of Hertfordshire. His PhD at Leeds examined the role of attention in guiding listening. David also completed a post doctoral post at the University of York working on a BBSRC funded project designed to determine the role of sound localisation in the formation of auditory objects. His main current role is to facilitate the development of fundable research activity within the NHS in Hertfordshire, with the support of our colleagues in the NHS and those based at the University of Hertfordshire.
Margaret Kyle
Margaret has been employed by the University of Hertfordshire since August 2021 and provides administrative support to the RDS and Central PHIRST. Previously Margaret has worked as a school administrator and as an Assessment Co-ordinator at CACHE (Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education) and has a BA (Hons) History.
Amanda Busby
Amanda is a part-time adviser for the RDS as well as a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Hertfordshire. She has a BSc in Mathematics from the Open University and an MSc in Medical Statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Amanda joined the university in 2017 whilst studying for her Master’s and joined the RDS at the start of 2020, providing statistical support in funding applications.
Dr Annalisa Casarin
Annalisa is a medical doctor, specialist in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Management with an interest in Complementary Medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture). After 11 years of clinical practice, she worked as research fellow on experimental and observational studies in Emergency/Critical Care. She appears in several peer reviewed publications. Annalisa was awarded a Masters in Public Health, Health Services Research, at the University of Sheffield and works part-time for the RDS office based at the University of Hertfordshire. As a Research Adviser she supports researchers in applying for funding and contributes to outreach and public involvement activities.
Dr. Emily Beadle
Emily is a part-time advisor for the RDS as well as research fellow and visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. She has a background in psychology and research methods in psychology and completed her PhD in 2020 in body compassion and physical activity behaviour. She has experience of quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method projects as well as systematic reviews in a range of topics.
Dr. Darren Dunning
Darren completed both a BSC in Applied Psychology and an MSc in Developmental Psychopathology at Durham University, followed by a PhD titled “Does Working Memory Training Improve the Classroom Performance of Children with Poor Working Memory? A Randomised Controlled Trial” at the University of York. His post-doctoral work included a lectureship in Cognition at the Open University and a postdoc role at the University of East Anglia investigating if cognitive training improves the working memory of children that have survived an acquired brain injury. More recently, Darren was an investigator scientist at the University of Cambridge exploring if mindfulness improves the mental health, behaviour and cognitive skills of adolescents. His research expertise covers cognition, development, emotion and mental health, crosscutting intervention work (does it work?) and basic science (how does it work?). Darren joined the RDS in 2022, working across the Cambridge and Hertfordshire sites.
Dr Keith Sullivan
Keith is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire and a Senior Research Adviser for the NIHR East of England Research Design Service. Keith is a former Professor of Epidemiology. He is a nutritional epidemiologist and bio-statistician with expertise in quantitative research methodology and has worked in the arena of nutritional epidemiology and been a senior university staff member nationally and internationally for many years. He is keenly interested in understanding from a quantitative scientist view point the ever growing worldwide obesity epidemic.
Prof. Garry Barton
Garry is a Professor of Health Economics (PhD completed in 2007) and joined the RDS in October 2008. His main area of expertise is in the application and development of the methods of economic evaluation and Garry is a co-applicant (health economist) on a number of pragmatic randomised controlled trials in a variety of clinical areas.
Garry is Deputy Director of the EoE RDS and particularly oversees the RDS advice provided in the Norfolk and Suffolk region of the EoE RDS. He also provides health economics advice across the region, as well as providing general RDS advice.
Outside of the RDS Garry is a member of the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit (http://www.uea.ac.uk/norwichctu/) and panel member for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Post-Doctoral Fellowships (PDF) committee and Programme Grant for Applied Research (PGfAR) panel, he was previously also a member of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme (RfPB) London Regional Funding Committee.
Lisa Rowe
Lisa is currently employed part time at the University of East Anglia and provides administrative support to the RDS team in the Norfolk and Suffolk region. Lisa started working with the RDS in October 2009.
Previously Lisa worked in various administrative roles at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, the University of East Anglia and Optimum Patient Care (an organisation providing audit & review services for GP Practices/PCT’s).
Dr Allan Clark
Allan is a senior lecturer and medical statistics and joined the RDS in 2015. Allan’s main area of expertise is in the application and development of statistical methods in clinical trials. He is a co-applicant of various pragmatic randomised controlled trials in different clinical areas. Outside the RDS, Allan is a Senior statistician for the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit
Dr Jean Craig
Jean worked as a paediatric nurse in a variety of settings prior to becoming a research associate in the Evidence-Based Child Health Unit at the University of Liverpool. Here she carried out systematic reviews and contributed to the development of national clinical guidelines. She was a member of the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Trust Research Review Committee and helped to establish and run a Research Clinic at the Trust for clinicians developing research proposals. She gained her PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2007.
Since joining the NIHR Research Design Service since April 2010, Jean has supported the development of grant applications covering a wide range of topics, study designs and funding streams. She works closely with the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit, contributing to the Trial Adoption Meetings, and is currently an independent member of Data Monitoring (and Ethics) Committees for three NIHR funded trials. She continues to undertake systematic reviews. Her clinical interests include general paediatrics, medicines management, supportive care in children with cancer, substance misuse and dietary interventions. She has a continued interest in the translation of evidence into practice and is currently editing the 4th edition of the Evidence Based Practice Manual for Nurses.
Dr Thando Katangwe
In addition to working as a Research Adviser for the RDS in the East of England, Thando is a Senior Research Associate within Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She works as part of the Process Evaluation team for the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit (CTU), supporting the implementation of process evaluations on a range of feasibility and definitive randomised controlled trials. Her work involves using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. She also has experience in conducting systematic reviews. She joined the RDS as a part time Research Advisor in January 2021.
Thando is also a registered Community Pharmacist. Before joining the Norwich CTU she worked full time as a community pharmacist in Norfolk before undertaking an NIHR funded MSc in Clinical Research and then a PhD at UEA. Her PhD focused on using behaviour change frameworks, in particular the COM-B, to develop diabetes prevention services within the community pharmacy setting.
Dr Lisa McDaid
Lisa is a social scientist and expert in qualitative research methodologies. She is a member of the UEA Addiction Research Group working on studies focusing on health behaviour change. Her particular topics of interest are smoking cessation, medication adherence, sexual health and implementation. Lisa gained her first degree in Psychosocial Studies from the University of East Anglia, followed by an MSc in Social Research Methods at the Open University, and a PhD in Health Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Lisa has worked on several large-scale National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded studies.
Lisa is passionate about enabling people to have a voice in research which might affect their lives. She has been a public involvement lead for both the Research Design Service (RDS) East of England (Norfolk and Suffolk) and Norwich Clinical Trials Unit. She also established the UEA Addiction Research Public Involvement Panel.
Sarah Pyne
In addition to working as a Research Advisor for the RDS, Sarah is a Senior Research Associate in the Health Economics Group at the University of East Anglia (UEA). She completed her MSc in Health Economics (distinction) at UEA in 2017 and undertakes economic evaluations for randomised controlled trials in a variety of clinical areas.
Before joining UEA and the RDS EoE in October 2019, Sarah worked for consultancies specialising in policy and economics and healthcare communications. She has also worked as a freelance Medical Writer for more than 10 years.
Helen Risebro
Helen is based at the University of East Anglia and employed part-time in the role of research adviser for the RDS EoE. She obtained an MSc in Health Sciences from the University of York and has worked for the York Trials Unit and the Centre for Health Economics, Research and Evaluation (CHERE) in Sydney.
Helen joined Norwich Medical School in 2004, working on numerous projects concerning the epidemiology of waterborne disease supported by the European Commission, WHO, the FSA and Defra. Projects include four RCTs of bathing water quality in Mediterranean and Hungarian waters involving 7000 volunteers, a prospective cohort study of consumers drinking from UK private water supplies, a prospective cohort study evaluating the impact of a bottled water system in Cambodia, and systematic reviews to inform risk assessment models. More recently, Helen has been aiding with the economic evaluation of clinical trials in the areas of stroke, epilepsy, pharmacy, cancer and psychological therapies.
Helen has been an adviser for RDS since March 2010, she is the Public Involvement lead for Norfolk and Suffolk.
Prof. Lee Shepstone
Lee is a Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of East Anglia. His main area of expertise is in the application and development of statistical methods in clinical trials. He is a co-applicant of various pragmatic randomised controlled trials in different clinical areas and is Associate Director for Norwich Clinical Trials Unit.
Erika Sims
Erika Sims is a Senior Advisor in Trials Delivery and has a background in laboratory research, epidemiology and clinical trials. She is currently Operations Manager at Norwich Clinical Trials Unit. She has experience in the design and delivery of clinical research studies including trials of medicinal products, complex interventions and training interventions, delivered in primary, secondary and community care, including care homes as well as epidemiological studies. She is currently working across a number of trials including a secondary care deprescribing trial, speech and language intervention for children who stutter, exercise for depression in adolescents, and reflective training intervention for foster carers as well as supporting a cohort study in Meniere’s Disease. Although much of her work is on large scale multicentre trials, Erika also supports Research Fellowship and RfPB applications. She is currently focusing on maximising the use of routine data in clinical research studies, as well as adaptions to research trials in the post co-covid era.
Susan Stirling
Sue has a part-time role with the RDS as a statistician. She also works as a statistician with the Norwich Clinical Trials UNIT (Norwich CTU). She completed an MSc in Medical Statistics at Leicester University in 1988. She has previously worked for the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (1946 birth cohort), and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, before joining the University of East Anglia in 2012.
Sue joined the RDS EoE in January 2013, and since then has advised on a variety of grant proposals, in conjunction with other RDS advisers.
David Turner
David is currently employed (0.2fte) with the RDS as a health economist. He is a member of the Health Economics Group (HEG) at the University of East Anglia. David has considerable experience (around 20 years) of providing health economics support and advice to researchers, both for RDSs and their pre-cursor organizations. He has fulfilled this role while working for the Universities of East Anglia, Southampton, and Leicester.
David’s main research expertise is in the design, conduct, and analysis of economic evaluations alongside clinical trials, as well as wider issues relating to trial design and conduct. This includes designing instruments to collect resource use and cost data as well as collection and analysis of health related quality of life (HRQoL). He also has expertise in constructing health economic models, both Markov and decision tree.
David has degrees in economics and health economics as well as 20 year’s experience as a practicing health economist.