Petra is a Professor of Public Health at Glasgow University (MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit). 

Petra co-directs SIPHER alongside Robin Purshouse. She is also the Lead for WS8, our Evaluation workstrand, which uses ongoing multi-perspective process evaluation to evaluate SIPHER’s scientific contribution and real-world impact.

Robin is a Professor in Decision Modelling and Optimization at the University of Sheffield. His research interests include modelling, analysis and optimization for supporting decision-making. Robin leads the interdisciplinary ‘CASCADE’ project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, which aims to build systems-based, theory-driven models of alcohol use dynamics in the US. He also develops methods for robust and distributed multi-objective optimization applied to the design of complex engineered products.

Robin co-directs SIPHER alongside Petra Meier. He is also the Lead for WS7, our Economic Evaluation & Decision Support workstrand, which uses distributed, robust multi-objective optimization to develop a cross-sector economic evaluation tool that identifies those strategies that perform well across key policy outcomes and for different assumptions about future developments.

More Information

Email: r.purshouse@sheffield.ac.uk 

Lucy is the SIPHER Consortium Manager and is based at the University of Sheffield. A former researcher in the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group, in recent years Lucy has worked in public health practice in policy fields including Mental Health and Wellbeing, Physical Activity, 0-19 Public Health Nursing and Public Health Programme Evaluation.

Lucy is a member of the SIPHER Directorate, working across the whole of SIPHER to manage the day-to-day running of the Consortium. She is also part of the WS8 Evaluation Team.

More Information

Email: l.gavens@sheffield.ac.uk

Aki is a Professor of Health Economics with a joint appointment between the Department of Economics and the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include valuing health and wellbeing; incorporating equity concerns into social welfare functions; and normative economics of health and beyond.

Aki is the Lead for SIPHER Workstrand 6, Societal Valuation, which provides insight into how people value different policy outcomes and translates the multiplicity of outcomes that arise from a whole-systems perspective into two common well-being measures needed for economic evaluation.

More Information

Alan is Professor of Health Economics and Decision Modelling at the University of Sheffield. Alan leads a large group of around 35 academic staff, undertaking methodological and applied research and consultancy using mathematical modelling in public health and healthcare.

Alan is a Co-Investigator on SIPHER Workstrands 3, 4, 5 and 7.

More Information

Alison is a Professor in Geocomputation at the University of Leeds. Her research involves developing tools from machine learning and artificial intelligence for solving complex spatial problems. A particular focus of her work is the development of individual-based models. Alison holds an ESRC-Turing Fellowship, where she is developing work ranging from anomaly detection, handling uncertainty in simulations and casual inference modelling.

Alison co-leads Workstrands 3 and 5 of SIPHER with Nik Lomax. WS3, Data & System Monitoring, builds a secure data infrastructure, creates detailed simulated populations and develops a system monitoring function to inform adaptive policymaking. WS5, Policy Microsimulation, models the impacts of environment and policy on the characteristics of individuals and households, showing how policy impacts differ across geographic areas and societal groups.

More Information

Anna is a final-year PhD candidate in applied-microeconomics and a research assistant in the Department of Economics at the University of Sheffield. Her PhD thesis focuses on “Measuring well-being through equivalent income over the life course". Her research interests include valuing health and well-being, well-being measures and individual preferences.

Anna contributes to Workstrand 6 of SIPHER. Her PhD is supervised by Workstream 6 Lead Aki Tsuchiya and Bert van Landeghem.

Asif Ishaq is a Policy Lead in the Scottish Government’s Public Health Policy Team. Having led the development of Scotland’s first ever set of Public Health Priorities, in partnership with local government, he is now supporting the wider public and third sectors, and local communities, to adopt and implement the public health priorities in order to improve the health of the population.

Asif is our Scottish Government Policy Partner Lead, working alongside Helen Woodward, Neil White and Dionne Mackison in our Scottish Government Policy Partner team.

Chris graduated from King's College London with a BA, MSc and PhD in Geography. Following his academic studies he worked at the Peak District National Park Authority before beginning a career in Public Health in 2008 at Bradford and Airedale PCT. In 2010 he completed his PGDipPH at The University of Sheffield. In 2011 Chris joined the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) where he worked for six years, firstly on the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme modelling the uptake of NICE approved technologies, and then as a health economist in the NICE Clinical Guidelines team. In 2017 Chris moved back into public health, and now manages a team of Data Scientists in the Performance and Intelligence team at Sheffield City Council. Outside of work Chris is an advocate for strength sports and competes in powerlifting.

Chris works alongside Greg Fell, Louise Brewins, Nicola McHugh and Daniel Chedgzoy in our Sheffield City Council Policy Partner team.

Guoqiang (Chris) is a Research Fellow in Data Synthesis and Simulation at the University of Leeds. Based at the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA), Chris's research centres on large-scale data and behaviour modelling, spatial and policy microsimulation, social and urban informatics, smart cities and mobility. He usually works with individual-based or micro-level models and big data analytics to predict and simulate individuals’ behaviour and demands. He previously worked and studied at the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) at the University of Glasgow.

Chris is the Workstrand 3 and 5 Researcher in SIPHER, working with Alison Heppenstall and Nik Lomax to lead our data acquisition and synthesis and policy microsimulation.

More Information

Clare is a Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University. Her research examines the social, political and economic determinants of health inequalities. She is a Senior Investigator in: CHAIN: Centre for Global Health Inequalities Research; Fuse: Centre for Translational Research in Public Health; and the NIHR School for Public Health Research. She works regularly with policy and practice organisations including Public Health England, Eurohealthnet and WHO Europe.

Clare is a SIPHER Health Inequalities Expert, working across the 8 SIPHER Workstrands to guide and support our focus on Health Inequalities.

More Information

Craig is Professor of Planning and Housing in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield and Research Director of CaCHE (the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence) – a multi-institution initiative funded by ESRC, AHRC and Joseph Rowntree that seeks to work with the private, public and third sector in developing a systemic approach to addressing the UK’s housing challenges. Craig’s research focuses on the structure and behaviour of the housing system and in exploring the relationship between public policy and housing markets.

Craig is a SIPHER Housing Expert, working across the 8 SIPHER Workstrands to shape and support our work in Housing.

More Information

Duncan Chambers is a Research Fellow in public health at ScHARR, University of Sheffield. He has 15 years experience of working in evidence synthesis, including systematic reviews, rapid reviews and health technology assessment.

Duncan is part of the Workstrand 2 Evidence Synthesis team where he works alongside Fiona Campbell, Mark Clowes and Ruth Wong. WS2 is lead by Suzy Paisley.

More Information

Ellen is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society within the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh. She uses qualitative methods to explore public experiences of health issues and to understand how members of the public influence decisions in health systems. Ellen is also Associate Lead for research on public engagement in the Wellcome Trust-funded Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society.

Ellen leads SIPHER's public engagement work, using Lived Experience Panels in Sheffield, Manchester and in Scotland to explore with local people our progress as a research consortium and the tools that we are developing.

More Information

Greg is Director of Public Health in Sheffield. He graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in biochemistry and physiology in 1993. He has worked as a social researcher in a maternity unit and held a number of roles in health promotion and public health before joining the public health training scheme. Greg worked as a consultant in public health in Bradford , then Bradford council. In 2016 he was appointed Director of Public Health in Sheffield.

Greg is our Sheffield City Council Policy Partner Lead, working alongside Chris Gibbons, Louise Brewins, Nicola McHugh and Daniel Chedgzoy in our Sheffield City Council Policy Partner team.

Helen is a Specialty Registrar in Public Health and is currently undertaking a Masters in Public Health at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at The University of Sheffield. She has a clinical background in midwifery with over 10 years experience working with women and families in deprived inner city communities in Sheffield, UK. Prior to joining the public health training scheme she worked as a midwifery researcher. Her current research interests include societal determinants of population health and health inequalities.

Helen contributes to SIPHER's understanding of cumulative disadvantage and healthy life expectancy. Her MPH Dissertation is supervised by Petra Meier.

Helen is the SIPHER embedded researcher within the Scottish Government, based in Health and Social Care Analysis in Edinburgh. She has worked in various Whitehall Departments as an Operational Research specialist. Her work includes forecasting of student loan repayments, local government formula grant (for local authorities, fire, police), modelling of benefit fraud and error, and domestic energy efficiency modelling.

As the Scottish Government Embedded Researcher, Helen works across all 8 workstrands of SIPHER to shape our understanding of evolving policy priorities and to co-produce our models, tools and outputs. Helen works alongside Asif Ishaq, Dionne Mackison and Neil White in the Scottish Government Policy Partner Team.

Jen is a PhD student in the Wellcome Trust Doctoral Training Centre for Public Health, Economics and Decision Science at the University of Sheffield. Her PhD project supervised by Professor Robin Purshouse and Professor John Holmes is investigating the causal mechanisms of the Alcohol Harm Paradox. Jen plans to use theory driven system dynamic models to test whether theories of health inequality can explain the paradox.

More Information

Jess is Principal Researcher for Population Health within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) Research Team. Jess manages a team of analysts that work across GMCA and the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP) to provide insight into the health of the Greater Manchester population. The team also works with the GMHSCP’s population health programmes, advising on data collection, reporting, analysis, and evaluation. Jess also leads a programme of work that seeks to create a unified system of public health analysts within Greater Manchester. Previously, Jess has worked in research and analysis-related roles within healthcare regulation, the fire and rescue service, an independent research organisation, and with academia. Jess is a Fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and an External Research Associate for the General Medical Council.

Jess works alongside Julian Cox, Mary Gogarty and Katrina Hann in our GMCA Policy Partner team.

Jinny is a research associate in complex systems modelling and data analytics at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include data-driven modelling of spatiotemporal systems, detection & estimation of state-space models, and machine learning algorithms for data science. Applications range between electrophysiology, aerospace and social science.

Jinny is the Workstrand 4 Research Associate on SIPHER, working with Visakan Kadirkamanathan to lead our causal system dynamics modelling.

More Information

John is the Dean of the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield and Professor of Health Economics. John has over 25 years’ experience of conducting economic evaluations of health care interventions for policy makers. John was the inaugural Director of the Economic Evaluation Policy Research Unit (EEPRU) which is a joint Sheffield and York Unit funded by the Department of Health in England to undertake applied and methodological research to inform health policy in England.

John is a Co-Investigator on Workstrand 6, which is focused on Societal Valuations of Cross-Sectoral Outcomes and Equity Implications.

More Information

John is a Professor in Alcohol Policy at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on understanding patterns and trends in health-related behaviours and their implications for policy. He is the Deputy Director of the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group and leads projects examining the decline in youth drinking and the effects of minimum unit pricing on harmful drinkers.

John is a Co-Investigator on Workstrand 1, which is focused on Understanding Policy Processes & Evidence Needs.

More Information

Julian is Head of Research at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The GMCA research team supports policy makers across a broad range of thematic areas – including health, housing, the economy, crime, social services, employment and skills, and the environment – by providing data, evidence and insight to support decision-making. Julian also leads GMCA’s work on cost benefit analysis, helping commissioners maximise the value for money of the investment in public services.

Julian is our GMCA Policy Parter Lead, working alongside Jess Smith, Mary Gogarty and Katrina Hann in our GMCA Policy Partner team.

Kat is a Professor of Public Health Policy at Strathclyde University, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, where she is an active member of the Centre for Science, Knowledge and Policy at Edinburgh (SKAPE). Kat employs qualitative methods to study the interplay between public health research and policy, to analyse public policies and policy influence, and to study public perspectives on health inequalities.

Kat leads SIPHER Workstrand 1, Understanding Policy Processes & Evidence Needs, which uses a novel combination of qualitative methods including interviews, system mapping, ethnographic research and documentary analysis. Kat is also a co-investigator on WS8 where she leads the collection of qualitative data for our internal evaluation.

More Information

Liddy is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Sheffield and honorary consultant in Public Health at Public Health England. She is also Director of Research for the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine in Sheffield and leads the NIHR Public Health Research Review Team. She currently leads the NIHR CLAHRC-YH Public Health & Inequalities Theme and is a member of the Executive and Management Committees for the NIHR School for Public Health Research.

Liddy is a SIPHER Health Inequalities Expert, working across the 8 SIPHER Workstrands to shape and support our focus on Health Inequalities.

More Information

Liz is a NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow and a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield. A former analyst for the UK government, Liz has worked in multiple social and public health policy fields including employment and health, employability skills and welfare. As a civil servant she managed the Secretariat for the Ethnic Minority Employment Taskforce led by the Minister of State for Employment. She leads the School of Health and Related Research’s Health Equity and Inclusion group.

Liz is a Workstrand 1, 2 and 8 Co-Investigator and is currently leading a systematic review on Health In All Policies.

More Information

Mark is Professor of Geography at the University of Leeds and Co-Director of Leeds Institute for Data Analytics. He has research interests in spatial modelling and analytics, including micro simulation, agent-based models, geodemographics and spatial interaction modelling. He is also a Fellow and Programme Director for Urban Analytics at the Alan Turing Institute.

Mark is a Co-Investigator on SIPHER Workstrands 3 and 5.

More Information

Mark is a Reader in Economics at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on health, wellbeing and work, using advanced statistical methods applied to large-scale, longitudinal datasets. He was a theme co-lead at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing and is currently Deputy Principal Investigator of a Health Foundation project investigating the causal impact of health on labour market outcomes.

Mark is a Co-Investigator on Workstrands 4 and 7.

More Information

Mark is Professor of Public Health and Deputy Dean of the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR). He is an academic public health doctor and a statistician. Mark’s research interests relate to the management of uncertainty and the value of information in decision making, particularly when using mathematical and computer models to predict clinical or policy outcomes.

Mark is a Co-Investigator on Workstrand 4 of SIPHER.

More Information

Mary is the SIPHER Embedded Researcher at Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), and a Lead Analyst in the Population Health Research Team, providing insight into the health and wellbeing of the population of Greater Manchester. Mary has a background in housing and planning research, and has worked on housing and health policy and projects in Greater Manchester.

As the GMCA Embedded Researcher, Mary works across all 8 workstrands of SIPHER to shape our understanding of evolving policy priorities and to co-produce our models, tools and outputs. Mary works alongside Julian Cox, Jess Smith and Katrina Hann in the GMCA Policy Partner team.

Nicola is an Embedded Research based at Sheffield City Council in the Business Intelligence team. She works on analytical projects supporting portfolios across the Council, and has specialisms in spatial analysis and visualisation, and interest in reutilising routinely collected service data to co-develop greater insight. Most recently, she has been working with the Children and Families service modelling Social Worker case complexity and demand. Nicola also has an on-going research collaboration with the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield in urban tree and ecosystem service analysis.

As a Sheffield City Council Embedded Researcher, Nicola works across all 8 workstrands of SIPHER to shape our understanding of evolving policy priorities and to co-produce our models, tools and outputs. Nicola works alongside Daniel Chedgzoy, Greg Fell, Chris Gibbons and Louise Brewins in the Sheffield City Council Policy Partner team.

Nik is an Associate Professor in Data Analytics for Population Research at the University of Leeds. His research utilises existing and emerging data to produce high resolution estimates and projections of populations and their demographic characteristics. Nik is also a Turing Fellow, where he is developing methods to integrate information on human behaviour which are lacking from current demographic models.

Nik co-leads Workstrands 3 and 5 of SIPHER with Alison Heppenstall. WS3, Data & System Monitoring, builds a secure data infrastructure, creates detailed simulated populations and develops a system monitoring function to inform adaptive policymaking. WS5, Policy Microsimulation, models the impacts of environment and policy on the characteristics of individuals and households, showing how policy impacts differ across geographic areas and societal groups.

More Information

Richard is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield and has previously held chairs at the University of Liverpool, University of Manchester and Bangor University. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the British Academy. Most recently his research has focused on why social risk factors (for example childhood adversities such as poverty, abuse and bullying) provoke the cognitive and emotional changes that lead to psychotic symptoms.

Richard is a SIPHER Public Mental Health Expert, working across the 8 SIPHER Workstrands to shape and support our work in Public Mental Health.

More Information

Ruth is a Professor of Education at the University of Manchester, where her research interests centre around education, disadvantage and place. She also works more broadly in the field of social policy, focusing on poverty and inequality in the UK and particularly on spatial inequalities and policies to address them, including neighbourhood regeneration and city-region devolution. She currently heads the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit at the University of Manchester (IGAU), funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the University. As interest in ‘inclusive growth’ emerges in the UK, IGAU is exploring what can be done locally to ensure more even distribution of the benefits of economic growth.

Ruth is a SIPHER Inclusive Growth Expert, working across the 8 SIPHER Workstrands to shape and support our work on Inclusive Growth.

More Information

Simon McNamara is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. He is a member of the ScHARR Wellcome Trust Doctoral Training Centre in Public Health, Economics and Decision Science. Simon’s research interests include: the valuation of the health and wellbeing benefits of public-policy interventions; application of public preferences in policy-making; and, the ways in which public concern for inequalities in health could, and should, be captured in decision-making.

More Information

Suzy is Director of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer (IKT) in the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield. She is responsible for ScHARR’s consultancy portfolio, IKT Business Team and Short Course Unit. She is an Information Specialist with an interest in information retrieval methods to inform evidence synthesis studies, particularly decision-analytic models of cost-effectiveness.

Suzy leads SIPHER Workstrand 2, Evidence Synthesis, which develops and applies iterative literature search and review strategies that are suitable for supporting complex systems modelling.

More Information

Visakan is a Professor in Signal and Information Processing at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on complex systems modelling and control with applications ranging from aerospace, biomedical and social sciences. A key area of his research is developing data driven dynamic and spatio-temporal modelling methods. He is also the Director of Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in Control, Monitoring and Systems Engineering.

Visakan leads Workstrand 4 of SIPHER on Causal System Dynamics Modelling. WS4 models the dynamics and feedback effects of higher-order causal processes, for example the relationships between unemployment, poverty and mortality.

More Information