I am a Chartered Physiotherapist, trained in public health and epidemiology, and now working full-time in academia. I am Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Applied Health & Social Care Research (CARe), which draws together researchers from across the School of Health and Social Care (Nursing & Midwifery, Allied Health Professions, and Social Work, and Social Care and Community Studies). My specific interests are clinical, epidemiologic, and data-intensive research to understand and improve musculoskeletal health and care, particularly osteoarthritis.

I joined Sheffield Hallam University in 2022 as Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the School of Health and Social Care (SHSC) and Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Applied Health & Social Care Research (CARe) whose mission is to produce ideas, evidence and knowledge for future health and social care needs.

Before joining SHU I worked in the Arthritis Research UK/Versus Arthritis national Primary Care Centre of Excellence at Keele University, designing and undertaking clinical, epidemiologic, and data-intensive research to understand and improve musculoskeletal health and care. My area of special interest is the application of epidemiologic methods to advance the prevention and management of osteoarthritis and its effects on individuals, populations, and health systems.

I enjoy working in multidisciplinary research teams, and have spent my career working on applied health research with colleagues in academia, NHS, local government, and industry. I am committed to creating opportunities and supporting career progression for diverse research teams, particularly for individuals from nursing, midwifery, allied health professional, social care, and methodology backgrounds.

I have championed open research principles and practice for observational studies, lead-authoring on transparency in a highly-cited BMJ/PLoS Med series on prognosis research with the MRC Progress Partnership, shaping a nationally-cited model of reviewed access for health research data, and being responsible for depositing anonymised cohort data from over 50,000 participants to discoverable repositories and platforms. I am an Accredited Researcher (50105) with the Office for National Statistics.

I have published over 200 research articles (H-index 58), attracting > £12m in external research income since 2012 from NIHR, UKRI/MRC, UKRI/EPSRC, Versus Arthritis, and Nuffield Foundation.