Study Public Health

Emma Wilson - Professor of Public Health

Photograph of Professor Emma Wilson

Emma Wilson is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Nottingham.

Emma is the director of postgraduate public health education provision at the University of Nottingham, and has a national track record of excellence in developing public health education and training collaborations and partnerships. Emma is recognised as Principal Fellow of Advance HE for her commitment to delivering reciprocal public health training agreements with non-HE organisations, including; local authority, NHS Digital, UKHSA, OHID and charitable organisations. Emma has a long-standing track record of developing and maintaining partnership agreements with key public health stakeholders to provide academic research and evaluation support to local and national public health teams.

Emma has a broad public health background but her specific expertise lie in health promotion and health education, which includes being an editorial board member for the International Journal of Health Promotion and Education.

Emma has a strong track record of securing a wide-range of public health related research income as PI or Co-I. Where Co-I, Emma predominantly acts as the methodological lead for mixed-methods and qualitative methodologies, which includes evidence-synthesis. Emma’s research is often focused on local-level change with funding to develop interventions into breast health, flooding, educational attainment gaps, primary care medicine. Emma has five current PhD students and has supervised four to completion.

Emma also holds an honorary appointment with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust where she leads the breast cancer inequalities research programme for the Nottingham Breast Institute. Emma also leads extensive community and NHS-based PPI work, including through charitable partnerships including Coppafeel and the Nottingham Hospitals Charity, and delivers public health education in primary and secondary schools.

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Professor of Public Health

Elizabeth (Liz) Orton is a Professor and Consultant in Public Health and has worked at the university since 2010. 

Liz began her academic career in the field of hearing research, working to identify genes responsible for congenital deafness. She studied in the UK and Canada as a postdoctoral researcher. When she returned to the UK she moved out of research to join the NHS Newborn Hearing Screening Programme and then retrained in public health, completing her training as a Consultant in Public Health in 2014, taking up an appointment at Leicestershire County Council. She returned to academic work during her public health training and has gained expertise in health promotion and in particular injury epidemiology and prevention. She also leads the Public Health Interventions Responsive Studies Team (PHIRST-Light), which is funded by the NIHR and is a collaboration with colleagues at the Universities of Loughborough and Lincoln and is an academic advisor to the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration Leicestershire. Liz convenes the Health and Society module with Dr Paul Leighton and Grace Brough.

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Gillian Carleton-Boylan - Assistant Professor in Public Health

Photograph of Assistant Professor Gillian Carleton-Boylan

Gillian is an Assistant Professor in Public Health at the University of Nottingham.

Gillian has a professional background in Environmental Health and worked as a Specialist Environmental Health Practitioner before joining the Higher Education sector in 2008. Gillian has a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Nottingham, as well as postgraduate qualifications in education and teaching and learning and is a Senior Fellow of the HEA.

Gillian has worked within a number of Universities within the East Midlands of England, programme convening undergrade and post graduate programmes across a range of health/public health areas and leading on areas such as graduate employability, internationalisation, online programme development and quality assurance at divisional/unit or school level.

Gillian has extensive experience of delivering high quality online and on campus teaching and learning sessions and championing the development and use of innovative learning resources and assessments.

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Role:

I am a clinical associate professor in rheumatology epidemiology.

Modules:

I contribute to the MPH as a personal tutor and dissertation project supervisor.

Research interests:

My research interests are centred around rare diseases, particularly rare rheumatic diseases, and developing new health data science approaches to the epidemiological research needed to 1) assess the effect of COVID-19 on people with rare diseases, and 2) pave the way for the introduction of new treatments for orphan diseases, and to ensure equity of access to care.

Other academic roles:

I am also an honorary consultant rheumatologist at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and an honorary member of the rare disease team at the National Disease Registration Service within Public Health England.

Outside of work:

I am an outdoors enthusiast, and love hill walking, climbing, kayaking and cycling. However, I am now more often found at weekends watching my kids play football or joining in whatever activities they’re into to promote a harmonious household!

A recent publication:

Rituximab as therapy to induce remission after relapse in ANCA-associated vasculitis

My top tip for the MPH: 

Come and enjoy the breadth of what the course and the division have to offer.

My recommended reads:

The UK Strategy for Rare Diseases 

UK strategy for rare diseases: 2020 update to the implementation plan for England

Guest blog: How can patient data help us understand complex rare diseases

EURORDIS Rare Barometer survey on COVID-19

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Dr Ilze Bogdanovica is an Associate Professor in Public Health.

She has a BSc Public Health, MSc Public Health, MSc Health Economics and Policy and PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology. Her research interests including health policy evaluation, particularly focusing on commercial determinants of health. She has done policy evaluation research for more than 10 years and has been working on projects evaluating policies at local, national and international level. Recently she has also developed an interest in using large commercial and health database for research.

She was awarded Cancer Research UK Career Development fellowship which she successfully completed in 2022. Her teaching activities include convening Fundamentals of Public Health module, supervising research projects and teaching public health to undergraduate medical students.

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Jemma is an Assistant Professor in Public Health and a Registered Nutritionist (Association for Nutrition) specialising in public health nutrition. Her expertise is in maternal and early years nutrition, school food and community-led public health interventions.

Jemma comes from a practice background and worked in NHS (Local Authority funded) public health nutrition teams for over 10 years before starting an academic career in 2016 at the University of Nottingham. Jemma was responsible for the development, management and evaluation of community-based dietary interventions in Nottingham city and county.

Jemma's teaching practice draws from evidence-based research and practice. Jemma’s research interests are in qualitative methodologies and is currently working in collaboration with colleagues at Coventry University exploring social media content targeted towards pregnant and post-partum women in relation to health, diet and fitness.

Jemma is currently the East Midlands regional representative for the Association for Nutrition, supporting and networking with Registered Nutritionists in the region.

Role:   

I am a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology and co-director of the Nottingham Centre for Evidence Based Healthcare: a JBI Centre of Excellence.

Modules: 

I contribute to the running and delivery of the Systematic Review module.

Research interests: 

My research interests focus on the use of evidence synthesis to improve global health and wellbeing, primarily relating to maternal and childhood health.

A recent publication:  

Claire R, Chamberlain C, Davey MA, Cooper SE, Berlin I, Leonardi-Bee J, Coleman T. Pharmacological interventions for promoting smoking cessation during pregnancy. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2020; Issue 3.

My top tip for the MPH: 

Be open to all of the research methodologies we teach you before deciding which one you would like to focus on to underline the research for your dissertation. 

My recommended reads: 

Pearson A, Wiechula R, Court A, Lockwood C. The JBI model of evidence-based healthcare. International Journal of Evidence Based Healthcare 2005;3:205-215

Sambunjak D, Cumpston M, Watts C. Module 1: Introduction to conducting systematic reviews. In: Cochrane Interactive Learning: Conducting an intervention review. Cochrane, 2017. Available here

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Jo is a Professor of Public Health and GMC registered Consultant in Public Health Medicine. Jo works across academia, local government and NHS public health. Her specific expertise lies in health services research and early disease diagnosis (screening), especially in GI diseases.  Additionally she has extensive knowledge of public involvement and engagement methodologies and developing methods of diverse research inclusion.

Current grants that Jo in funded on include NIHR PHIRST-Light supporting local government public health intervention evaluation, improving the reach of symptomatic bowel cancer screening to underserved populations, exploring the needs of women with cerebral palsy in accessing screening programmes, and improving engagement with early liver disease diagnosis pathways.

Jo is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE and has taught on MPH programmes in Nottingham and elsewhere for nearly 20 years.

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Role: 

I am an assistant professor in evidence based healthcare. I am the co-lead for divisional postgraduate research studies. I am a management committee member of and lead researcher at the Nottingham Centre for Evidence Based Healthcare: a Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Centre of Excellence. I am a member of the academic management board, Asia Research Institute. I am also a member of the following committees: divisional postgraduate teaching committee, divisional development funding committee and doctoral programmes committee. I also work at the University of Nottingham's China Campus in Ningbo.

Teaching: 

I teach on the MPH course and co-convene  Public Health Interventions in Practice.   I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate student projects. I also teach on the JBI accredited systematic review course. 

Research interests: 

I work in Asian countries like India, China and Bangladesh.

Keywords:

Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, non-communicable diseases, lifestyle, randomised controlled trials, epidemiology, health services research, mixed methods, development and evaluation of complex interventions, clinical and public health interventions, yoga, ayurveda, traditional therapies, ethnic minorities, low- and middle-income countries

A recent publication:  

Yoga-based cardiac rehabilitation after acute myocardial infarction: a randomized trial

My top tip for the MPH: 

Study hard during your MPH and don't think too much about the job prospects - good marks in your MPH will help you to get a good job.

Contact Kaushik

Laila is a Professor of Epidemiology. Maternal and child health is my main research interest, particularly the epidemiology of pregnancy and the perinatal period and how these impact on the health of women, their children and the whole family. Much of my research is using routinely collected health data linked across multiple sources to create large population study cohorts. I am interested in the increasing data available globally that can advance our understanding of how to address health inequalities particularly in the early years. As an epidemiologist I also have a broad brush across different health areas using mainly quantitative research methods in mental health, respiratory, and gastroenterology areas, and healthcare service use and patient experience in cancer.

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Dr Laura Asher is a Clinical Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Nottingham, UK and honorary consultant in public health medicine at the UK Department of Health and Social Care. Her research interests are the development and evaluation of community-based psychosocial interventions for people with severe mental health conditions in low and middle-income countries. She is interested in models of care delivered by lay workers and people with lived experience. She uses cluster randomised trials, feasibility trials, intervention design and piloting methods, qualitative methods and evidence synthesis. Dr Asher is co-investigator on the NIHR global health research group on Homelessness and Mental Health in Africa (HOPE) and the Wellcome-funded Strengthening CAre in collaboration with People with lived Experience of psychosis in Uganda (SCAPE-U) project. She was co-principal investigator of the SAMRC/MRC-funded Peer-led Recovery Groups for People with Psychosis in South Africa (PRIZE) randomised feasibility trial and principal investigator of the Wellcome-funded Community-based Rehabilitation Intervention for people with Schizophrenia in Ethiopia (RISE) cluster-randomised trial.

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Manpreet Bains is an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Mixed Methods Health Research at the University of Nottingham (School of Medicine). Manpreet completed both her BSc (Hons) Psychology and MSc Health Psychology at the University of Nottingham. She completed her PhD in Occupational Health Psychology at Loughborough University.

Manpreet is experienced in leading the design, delivery and reporting of qualitative research in public health and health service settings. She has conducted interviews and focus groups with different patient groups, healthcare professionals, adolescents, parents and caregivers, teachers, police and public health professionals, across national and international settings. She has successfully led and been a co-applicant on externally-funded projects, providing qualitative methodological expertise. Manpreet is also experienced in organising and engaging with the public, including those representing deprived and minority groups, to inform research design, data collection and dissemination activity.

Manpreet convenes the Qualitative Methods module for the Masters in Public Health and MSc Health Psychology programmes at Nottingham. She also contributes to teaching on other MPH modules. Manpreet provides supervision of students at undergraduate (BMedSci and BSc Cancer Sciences courses), and postgraduate levels and line manages a number of early career researchers.

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Role:

Associate professor in medical statistics

Modules:

Master of Public Health - Data Organisation and Management in Epidemiology. Undergraduate (BMedSci) – Evidence Based Medicine and Divisional lead for dissertation projects.

Research: 

Use of electronic healthcare datasets to carry out research in areas including haematology, rheumatology and oncology. I have a particular interest in using prospective data from these  databases to identify transient risk factors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in high risk groups.

Other academic roles: 

I am currently statistics editor for the Cochrane Skin Group and member of the Cochrane working for diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) reviews

Outside of work: 

Fell running,  marathon running and mountain biking and am interested in reading, current affairs, quizzes and politics.

Recommended reads:

K Rothman, Modern Epidemiology. T Greenhalgh, How to Read a paper (BMJ series from 1997).

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Role:  

I am an assistant professor of health economics within the Division of Primary Care

Modules: 

I am co-organiser of the Health Economics module with Dr Tessa Langley. I also participate in the Fundamentals of Public Health module.

Research interests:  

I am primarily interested in decision analytic modelling for economic evaluation, with a particular focus on smoking with pregnancy. I also work with other researchers to perform economic evaluations such as breast cancer screening and childhood injuries.

Other academic roles:  

I am an internal reviewer for funding applications to the National School of Primary Care.

Outside of work:  

When not at work I spend most of time either working on my model railway or practising church bell ringing. I am tower captain at St Peter's church within the city centre. 

A recent publication: 

A dynamic, modifiable model for estimating cost‐effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions in pregnancy: application to an RCT of self‐help delivered by text message.

My top tip for the MPH: 

Economists are not accountants. We are interested in measuring benefits just as much as we are interested in costs.

My recommended reads:  

The role of economic evaluation and priority setting in health care decision making including the cost effectiveness of public health, and public health interventions and involvement

Economic evaluation in health: saving money or improving care?  

Economic evaluation enhances public health decision making 

Methods for the estimation of the NICE cost effectiveness threshold 

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Neil Coulson - Professor of Health Psychology

Photograph of Professor Neil Coulson

Neil Coulson is a Professor of Health Psychology within the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham. He is both a Chartered Psychologist (British Psychological Society) and Registered Health Psychologist (Health and Care Professions Council). He completed his MA (Hons) Psychology at the University of St. Andrews followed by the MSc Health Promotion & Health Education at the University of Edinburgh. He then undertook his PhD Health Psychology under the supervision of Professor J. Richard Eiser at the University of Exeter.

He has held a number of senior positions within the British Psychological Society (e.g. Chair of the BPS Division of Health Psychology; Chair of the BPS Division of Health Psychology Training Committee) and has made a significant contribution to the development of health psychology training within the UK. He is Past Chair of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit East Midlands Advisory Committee, a former methodologist on Panel D of the NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research and former panel member of the NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship funding committee.

His research interests focus on the role of online health communities in supporting individuals living with a range of long-term conditions as well as the role of social media in promoting health and well-being. He convenes or teaches on a number of Masters level modules, including: REHB4014 Understanding, Predicting and Changing Health Behaviour; REHB4007 Chronic Illness and MEDS4008 Independent Research Project.

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Dr Sonia Gran is an Associate Professor of Medical Statistics at the Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology. She has a BA in Mathematics & French studies, MSc in Medical Statistics, MA in Counselling Practice and a PhD in Database Epidemiology.

Her research interests include conducting large observational studies using routinely collected electronic health data, particularly in the areas of rare skin diseases and skin cancer. She is also involved in diagnostic test accuracy studies. 

Her teaching activities include delivering the Improving Your Chances of Publication optional module to undergraduate medical students and teaching Further Medical Statistics on the Master of Public Health programme. She also organises short continued professional development teaching courses on evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and statistics to healthcare professionals working in dermatology across the UK.

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Sam Crossley - Assistant Professor in Public Health

Photograph of Assistant Professor Sam Crossley

Sam is an Assistant Professor in Public Health within the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham. She is  the lead for student experience for the Lifespan and Population Health Academic Unit, and the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion lead for Lifespan and Population Health. 

Sam completed both her BSc (Hons) Psychology and Master of Public Health at the University of Nottingham. Her research and teaching interests include qualitative research, health inequalities, and local, practice-based public health. Sam is currently working on the qualitative stream of the RELIEF Clinical Trial, exploring the experiences of patients using a new relief inhaler for mild asthma. 

Tessa Langley - Associate Professor in Health Economics

Photograph of Associate Professor Tessa Langley

Role: 

I am an associate professor in health economics.

Modules: 

I contribute to the running and delivery of Public Health Interventions in Practice and Health Economics. I am also supporting the Dissertation module and delivery of the Fundamentals in Public Health module.

Research interests: 

I am public health economist with a focus on tobacco control. I have conducted extensive research on the impact of mass media campaigns and other population-level interventions on smoking and drinking behaviour. Current and recent projects include an evaluation of the impact of recent tobacco control policy in England using secondary data and a study to develop a vape shop-based smoking cessation intervention. I primarily undertake quantitative research, but also have experience of qualitative research and systematic reviews.

Other academic roles: 

I am a divisional lead for postgraduate research – contact me if you are considering doing a PhD. I am a deputy editor for the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research and an Associate Editor for BMC Public Health.

Outside of work: 

I am a keen road cyclist and enjoy cooking and baking and attending live music events.

A recent publication: 

Nyakutsikwa B, Britton J, Langley T. The effect of tobacco and alcohol consumption on poverty in the UK. Addiction, 2020.

My top tip for the MPH: 

You can learn as much from your fellow students as from your lecturers. 

My recommended reads: 

Public Health England Health Matters Health Economics blogs

Walley & Wright. Public Health: An action guide to improving health

Contact Tessa

Contact Tricia