Tell us a little about you?
I grew up outside Boston (USA) and became interested in science in high school, inspired by a great chemistry teacher, Mr Cody. This led to studying chemistry at university, and moving from Cambridge (Massachusetts) to Cambridge (England) to do a Master’s and PhD, in protein chemistry.
I studied proteins involved in rare diseases, working with individual molecules. I had a great PhD supervisor, Jane Clarke, and research team. Over time, I became interested in working on more common health conditions and problems, and moved from studying chemistry to children’s public health. I also moved to Paris, and then back to the UK again, before joining the Children & Young People’s Health Partnership’s (CYPHP) evaluation team as a lecturer in Epidemiology and Applied Statistics.
How do you see the role?
While changing from chemistry to children’s health services may seem like a big leap, there are several things in common. I’m still committed to rigorous science, and I see the evaluation as an experiment; testing whether the CYPHP model of care improves health, healthcare quality, and the health system for children and young people. Also, I still love working with quantitative data, with the aim of improving health and wellbeing.
What is your hope for the CYPHP programme?
I hope the CYPHP programme will demonstrate that this model of care improves health and family wellbeing. In addition, it’s very important to me that the CYPHP model aims to make healthcare access and health outcomes more fair and equitable.
I hope that if the model is shown, by a rigorous scientific evaluation, to improve things for children, young people, and families that it will be adopted widely, and that the programme will improve health and healthcare locally and globally for children and young people.
To see more of the latest news from CYPHP, please click here.