HEALTH DATA INSIGHT CIC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Health Data Analyst
Amy trained in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Whilst there she primarily focussed on non-communicable diseases, using the CPRD database to research treatment changes, adherence to guidelines, and associated factors in COPD patients.
She has experience of working with clinical data directly in an acute trust setting, where at Great Ormond Street she managed the clinical data and analysis for bone marrow transplants, oncology, infectious diseases, rheumatology and immunology.
Her in depth understanding of cancer datasets came from working within an NHS and Public Health England Partnership aiming to reduce inequalities in cancer across London.
These experiences led her to HDI where she works across several epidemiological studies. Her work includes developing real-world standing cohorts, where registration data are linked to treatment datasets to describe treatment pathways, outcomes and adverse effects as a population level comparator for novel therapeutics.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Senior Software Developer
- HDI 's Senior Software Developer
Brian is HDI's senior software developer and played a big part in getting the Simulacrum up and running. Although he doesn't consider himself a keen cyclist, Brian tries to travel as much as possible by bike.
Job Titles:
- Senior Health Data Analyst
Clare trained in epidemiology at Imperial College with a focus on chronic diseases. Whilst there she completed her dissertation on the associations between anthropometric measures and head & neck cancer incidence. After graduating in 2012, Clare worked as a research assistant at Imperial College focusing on environmental epidemiology and King's College London working on place of death patterns, both roles involved the analysis of routinely collected population-level health data.
Clare has significant experience of using cancer datasets working for the Cancer Research UK - Public Health England partnership for over four years, where she led a variety of projects across the cancer pathway, with outputs including peer-reviewed papers, online tools, blogs and reports. She has a particular interest in utilising data to examine patterns and inequalities along the cancer pathway.
These experiences led her to HDI where she works across various epidemiological studies. Her work involves analysis of cancer registration data linked with secondary datasets to describe patient pathways and outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Principal Health Data Analyst
Craig is an epidemiologist by training and has spent more than a decade analysing a range of retrospective population-based datasets.
He started his career at University College London, where he studied the relationship between different dynamics of alcohol consumption and the risk of non-communicable disease, before moving on to the University of Cambridge where he developed natural experimental studies designed to explore the impact of public policy on human behaviour.
Most recently he has moved into pharmacoepidemiology, working with HDI to establish a series of real-world standing cohorts alongside international partners. Here, cancer registration data are linked to myriad healthcare datasets to explore real-world clinical practice, analyse patient survival, and monitor changes in the therapeutic landscape.
Job Titles:
- HDI Director
- Non - Executive Director
Job Titles:
- Social Science Researcher
Filis began her journey by analysing how illnesses are portrayed in literature, igniting her interest in people's perceptions and experiences of disease. This led her to work as a medical journalist and publish a few features with 20k+ views. To further her research skills and gather insights in the healthcare domain, she pursued a master's in medical anthropology at UCL.
Currently, Filis is interested in the intersection of technology, health, and society. She enhanced her skills in data analysis and became proficient in R and Python before joining HDI. Her current project at HDI focuses on developing an indoor navigation system for hospitals to improve patients' and staff's experiences.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Senior Data Scientist
Gavin is an artist, researcher and software developer with interests in overlaps between visual culture and the sciences. He has worked with HDI on cancer data visualisation and analysis applications since 2015. Projects include tools for examining patient hospital data (HES), the Pathway Toolkit for analysing cohorts of patient level pathway data, and a pipeline for costing cancer diagnostic and treatment events.
He has also worked with NHSD creating a Covid-19 longitudinal record for medical researchers, and prototyping the dataset and analytical tools to initiate a medical devices and implants registry.
His visual arts projects have involved interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers from organisations including the British Museum, UAL, Royal College of Art, UCL Bartlett, University of Cambridge, and the Oxford Internet Institute.
Job Titles:
- Director
- HDI Director
- Health Service Manager
Hilary is an experienced health service manager who has worked at all organisational tiers of the NHS and in the private sector. Hilary's core skills are in strategy and business case development, option appraisal, project management and problem solving. She has led strategy review and development work across a broad range of subjects, including cardiac, cancer, neonatal and community services, and waiting list/time management.
Job Titles:
- Biomedical Engineer
- Data Scientist
Ioana trained as a biomedical engineer, completing her MSc in Neurotechnology at Imperial College London, where she specialised in signal processing and medical device development. She began her journey with a BEng in Biomedical Electronic Engineering at the University of Southampton, which laid the foundation for her technical expertise.
In 2023, Ioana joined HDI as an intern, where she explored the use of LiDAR technology for hospital navigation systems. This experience sparked her fascination with spatial data and its potential in healthcare applications, leading her to return to the team as a Data Scientist, after finishing her MSc. She now applies her engineering mindset to solve real-world health challenges through data-driven solutions.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- HDI Director
Jem Rashbass is a clinician with a background in medicine, molecular biology and histopathology. Since 1997 he has been the Director of the Clinical and Biomedical Computing Unit (CBCU) first within Cambridge University and now the NHS. For three years from July 2000 he held the inaugural Directorship of the Cambridge University Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies, setting up the Centre and establishing its international reputation. In 2003 he became head of the Eastern Cancer Registry and Information Centre, a post he holds in conjunction with the leadership of the East of England Cancer Screening Quality Assurance Services. In early 2011 he took up the role of National Director for Cancer Registry Modernisation with responsibility for establishing a unified National Cancer Registration Service across England.
He is a founder and Director of Clinical and Biomedical Computing Ltd (CBCL), a University/NHS spin-out company specializing in web-based publishing software. CBCL currently develops and delivers all the online publications for the Pharmaceutical Press, including the British National Formulary. Jem is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and an honorary NHS consultant in public health medicine.
Job Titles:
- HDI Director
- Non - Executive Director
Job Titles:
- Project Manager / Communications
- Project Manager and Communications Lead
Karen has over 20 years of experience in cancer audits and research within the NHS, where she has taken on a diverse range of responsibilities. Her roles have encompassed project management, data collection and analysis, securing funding, contract management, information governance, and communications. More recently, Karen has expanded her expertise to include molecular research, working on the International Cancer Grand Challenges PRECISION Study.
Throughout her career, Karen has worked closely with a wide range of stakeholders across the health, academic and charity sectors. She has effectively disseminated the findings of these collaborative projects through publications, presentations and promotional activities. She is also currently pursuing a PhD by Published Work.
Karen has recently returned to HDI as Project Manager and Communications Lead, having previously managed the National Audit of Breast Cancer in Older Patients (NABCOP).
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Chief Operations Officer
- HDI Director
Kim's career started in Bristol in 1989 where he combined working as a veterinary surgeon with developing innovative approaches to teaching and learning. In 1997 he joined the Clinical and Biomedical Computing Unit, set up by Jem Rashbass at the University of Cambridge Clinical School and in 2001 Jem and Kim established the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies at the University of Cambridge. From 2006 to 2019 Kim was Senior Lecturer in Independent Learning, Director of the Development of Academic Staff and, for the last two years, the Course Director for the MSc in Veterinary Education at the Royal Veterinary College in London.
Kim joined HDI as Chief Operating Officer in March 2019.
Kim has presented papers and given workshops around the world including the US (Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Saint Louis), Mongolia, Bangladesh, Ontario, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Dublin and Finland.
Job Titles:
- HDI Director
- Non - Executive Director
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Senior Data Scientist
Lora has a first degree in Economics and Statistics from UCL. She specialized in Data Science by attaining her MSc in Data Science from LSE in 2020.
Lora joined HDI as an intern in 2018 while at UCL and continued to work while studying at LSE. She has experience and keen interest in advanced machine learning and AI methods. She has explored and optimized their applications to privacy preserving data synthesis and prediction of human behaviour from complex longitudinal data.
During her time as an intern at HDI, Lora improved methodologies for creating the Simulacrum, the synthetic data set derived from cancer patient data. Besides technical work, she has provided guidelines (white papers) and held workshops for practitioners to learn about Simulacrum methodology and the scope of its applications. Lora's current work focuses on developing deep learning methods to generate synthetic Patient Pathway Data.
On the personal side, Lora is avid traveller, interested in socio-economic and language aspects of different cultures. In her gap year she spent 6 months travelling in South America. Besides English, she speaks Spanish and Serbo-Croatian.
Job Titles:
- Senior Health Data Analyst
Melissa is a medical statistician by training, with more than a decade of experience in health/cancer data analysis and research, having started off on randomised controlled trials and subsequently moving to epidemiology and national audit. Over this time she has worked with a wide range of stakeholders across academia, healthcare and charity, and disseminated findings from this work through national reports, publications and presentations.
She joins HDI from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she was a Research Fellow in Clinical Epidemiology working on national cancer audit. She worked on the National Audit of Breast Cancer in Older Patients (NABCOP), up to its closure in 2022, and then on the set-up of the two new National Audits of Primary and Metastatic Breast Cancer covering all people diagnosed with breast cancer in England and Wales. Whilst at LSHTM Melissa also completed a PhD, publishing work looking at using routinely-collected national healthcare data to understand the utilisation of oncological treatments among older women with breast cancer. Within this she looked in-depth at treatment data captured within the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset and the Primary Care Prescription Database (PCPD), as well as understanding treatment safety based on hospital admissions data, for people with breast cancer in England. She also has experience of using the Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD) within England, for national audit, with published work looking at changes in radiotherapy treatment prescribing over COVID-19.
Melissa brings to HDI an extensive knowledge of the routinely-collected national cancer, and wider healthcare, data in both England and Wales, along with an understanding of it's capabilities for providing insight into healthcare practice and associated outcomes.
Tasha Wood studied at Leeds University and is a qualified Project Manager. She joined HDI in 2015 to project manage the National Lung Cancer Audit and the National Prostate Cancer Audit, and then also project managed the Post Colonoscopy Colorectal Cancer audit from 2020. Tasha is currently Business Manager for HDI looking after contracts and invoicing.
Education and Awards:
BSc Hons in Mathematics and Physics, Leeds University
Nick studied Computational Science at St Andrews and began his career in 1984 working for Unilever Research developing formulations-analysis software for ice cream and other foods. In 1990, he moved to GEC Marconi Defence's Radar Systems Division delivering software engineering support and managing systems. In 1994, he was appointed to the board of TSB Property Services as IT Director with operational responsibility for the lettings and property management business. In 2000, a spell working for the University of Cambridge was followed by a career change to teaching. Nine years in primary teaching was followed by over ten years in secondary, with senior roles in pastoral care, careers education and teaching A Level Computer Science.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- System Developer
Ollie Tulloch is one of HDI's software developers specialising in the data ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) engines. When not attempting to pull data out of weird and wonderful formats, Ollie loves to travel - particularly around Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Ollie recently became a new father and is looking forward to sleeping again… one day.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Project Manager and Internship Lead
Job Titles:
- HDI Director
- Non - Executive Director
Job Titles:
- Senior Health Data Analyst
Roger Cherry is a Senior Health Data Analyst supporting a range of HDI projects focusing on molecular and genomics data.
Rosemarie has worked for HDI since October 2017 as Office Manager. She looks after day-to-day administratin in the office including accounts, HR matters, travel and conference bookings. She also manages the website which she developed and runs for HDI.
Rosemarie has had a career in administration working for the NHS, Public Health England and Cambridge University. She also ran her own business for many years creating and developing websites for small business clients. Rosemarie started developing websites when they were written just in HTML, before the development of CSS! Now her favourite platform is WordPress for its ease and flexibility.
Spare time interests include spending time with her family, keeping a variety of animals including shetland ponies, chickens and cats. Rosemarie is also a Chair and Trustee for two local history groups.
Job Titles:
- Senior Software Developer
Shilpi Goel has a degree in engineering and is HDI's senior software developer. She's been involved with many projects at HDI, mainly Cancer Audits and the CanGene CanVar project.
Job Titles:
- Principal Health Data Analyst
Sophie Jose is a Principal Health Data Analyst supporting a range of HDI projects including the Simulacrum, Real-world Standing Cohorts and the Patient Pathway tool.
Education and Awards:
PhD Medical Statistics/Epidemiology
MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine
BSc Mathematics and its Applications
Tameera has a first degree in Chemistry with Biotechnology and started her career as a technical writer for a tech company in India. Keen to pursue her interest in interdisciplinary research she studied for a masters by research in computational biology where she researched maximum likelihood and neighbour joining methods for building phylogenetic trees for antibiotic producing bacteria. During her PhD she used machine learning techniques to design in-silico models to predict viral antigenic variability in viruses to expedite the vaccine design process. This involved normalising large genomic and serological datasets before statistically analysing them to look for patterns/relationships to identify variables for mathematical models.
Here at HDI, Tameera manages the data on the colorectal cancer intelligence hub, which aims to bring together datasets that are relevant to colorectal cancer in the UK to form a single accessible cancer data repository (CORECT-R) to ultimately drive improvements in colorectal cancer outcomes. Her role involves generating data in yearly schemas, extracting data sets for the clinical teams in the wider CORECT-R project, ensuring the integrity and security of the data, reporting on, and updating the relevant metadata.
On the CanGeneCanVar (WP1) project that aims to utilise nationally available cancer datasets for evaluating risks relating to cancer susceptibility genes; she undertakes scoping, specifying, developing, and managing data used by the various studies while ensuring sensitive data is handled and shared securely both internally and with external stakeholders.
On PCCRC and PEUGIC projects, she is involved in specifying and preparing the data for the national audits.
Education and Awards:
PhD in Computer Science - 2017
University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom
MSc in Computational Biology (Distinction) - 2012
University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
MA in Media Management (Distinction) - 2008University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
BSc in Chemistry and Biotechnology (First) - 2006
Bangalore University, Bangalore, India