Meet the team

Hollie has a first degree in sports/MSK injury and exercise rehabilitation. Her PhD considered paediatric sports injury prevention, which Hollie completed while working clinically in Rugby Union.

Hollie’s extensive teaching experience includes clinical human anatomy, musculoskeletal injuries, therapeutic interventions and MSK injury prevention, as well as supervision of student projects from undergraduate to doctoral level.

At Warwick Medical School Hollie has extended her expertise in innovative curriculum design. Hollie coordinates admissions activities and leads on optional modules, teaching optional modules across the medical school in physical activity for health, exercise as medicine, and health and care in sport.

Dawn completed a BSc in Zoology at Cardiff and PhD in Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology at Aberdeen. Following post-doctoral fellow positions in neurophysiology and behaviour at the Université Laval, Québec and the Royal Free/UCL, London; Dawn started at Warwick in the School of Life Sciences, before moving to a permanent position in the Medical School at Warwick.

Dawn ran the neurobiology teaching for Phase 1 of the MBChB for many years before focussing on undergraduate teaching, and has research interests focussed around fear and anxiety and the neurobiological basis for these behaviours. Dawn has a passion for teaching and teaching development and a keen interest in technology enhanced learning. She also serves as Senior Tutor, offering further pastoral support for undergraduate students.

Farhan graduated with a degree in Psychology before completing a Health Psychology Master’s degree and later a PhD focused on behavioural medicine for non-communicable disease prevention. His post-doctoral career entailed working on the NIHR-funded REACT study in addition to working on the Community-based Prevention of Diabetes (ComPoD) and BioBank studies. Farhan then worked as a Consultant Educator for Diabetes UK where he was responsible for training community health champions to confer diabetes-related protective knowledge in hard-to-reach communities.

Presently, Farhan's main role on the course team is as Year 3 lead. As year lead for finalist students, Farhan oversees all aspects of student development and graduate destinations. His broad teaching expertise spans an array of Health Science areas including Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Public Health, Behavioural Medicine, Medical Sociology and Sport Psychology. Farhan has taught from undergraduate to doctoral level and supervised graduate students’ research projects.

At Warwick Medical School, Farhan has a vested interest in enhancing students’ learning experience through innovative and engaging teaching methods. Farhan translates and implements considerable research and teaching experience across the Health Science topics. In addition to this responsibility, Farhan is module leader for the 'Concepts in Health and Medical Sciences'; the 'Wellbeing: Mental health and neurobiology'; and 'Health Psychology' modules.

Erin obtained a 1st class degree in BSc Biomedical Sciences (Hons) and completed a PhD in Developmental Biology. She worked as a postdoc for five years at the University of Edinburgh in the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health before being awarded a prestigious MRC Career Development Award fellowship to set up her independent lab. In 2019 Erin was recruited to the University of Warwick as Assistant Professor.

At Warwick Medical School, Erin leads a team of researchers exploring the pathophysiology of the chronic inflammatory disorder endometriosis with a specific focus on the role of macrophages as well trying to pin down pain mechanisms in the disorder. She has significant experience supervising students from undergraduate to doctoral level. As Medical Lead for the module ‘Illness - Inequality and Susceptibility’, Erin brings significant reproductive health knowledge, and substantial experience of interdisciplinary research skills and project supervision.

Leda completed her PhD in the field of epigenetics and cancer. Prior to that, she achieved a Master’s degree in Toxicology and a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology. She has worked in multiple international research institutes and set up her independent research group in the field of epigenetics and ageing at the University of Birmingham prior to joining the University of Warwick.

At Warwick Medical School, Leda is actively working towards personalising the learning and education experience and to transfer the multidisciplinary and international nature of research to teaching and learning. She is involved in the design of innovative interdisciplinary curricula and assessments, and contributes to several research and education groups.

Keith is a clinical academic, working between the University and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. Keith’s PhD focused on the use debriefing as a strategy to improve quality of care following in-hospital cardiac arrest.

In his NHS role, Keith works as a critical care outreach nurse.

At Warwick, Keith is based in the Clinical Trials Unit, where his research focuses on cardiac arrest and care of the critically unwell patient. He conducts a broad range of health services research including clinical trials, observational studies and systematic reviews.

Claire graduated with a degree in Physicochemical Biology and a Master’s in Human Nutrition. After completing a PhD in Metabolic Biochemistry, Claire worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the US. In 2009, Claire established her independent research group at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, USA supported by the National Institutes of Health. She held a joint appointment at Warwick Medical School before permanently moving to the Division of Biomedical Sciences in 2015 where she continues working on nutrient sensing regulation in disease models.

At Warwick, Claire is the Director of Graduate Studies, actively contributes to the MRC-funded funded Doctoral in Training Partnership and is the Course Director for the MSc in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. She delivers lectures on metabolism in health and disease and supervises MSc and PhD students.

As Module Lead for “Food: Nutrition and Malnutrition”, Claire brings substantial experience of research, and teaching, and aims to develop an interactive, dynamic and reflective learning environment.

Nithya is a NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Warwick Medical School and a clinician in Diabetes and Endocrinology. She completed a PhD in Warwick Medical School in the topic of 'Novel Biomarkers in the prediction of Gestational Diabetes' and has a particular interest in area of maternal nutrition and metabolism during pregnancy and its contribution to long-term clinical outcomes for a woman and her offspring. Her research portfolio includes longitudinal pregnancy and birth cohorts in the UK and related RCT’s and she has published widely in this field. She takes an active role in teaching both at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Warwick Medical School. She is also member of the Maternal Medicine-Gestational diabetes mellitus Clinical Study Group and has been involved in writing national and international guidelines on this topic.

As Module Co-lead for “Food: Nutrition and Malnutrition”, Nithya brings together her clinical and academic interest in nutrition and human metabolism and aspires to provide unique perspectives into the health science, public health, biomedical and clinical aspects of this area of study.

Dan’s undergraduate degree was in mathematics, which was followed by a MSc in medical statistics. He has worked with Warwick Evidence for the last 5 years as a medical statistician and a project leader, previously working in Warwick CTU. Warwick Evidence is one of NICE’s external assessment groups and play a major role in informing NICE’s decision making processes. Alongside this Dan has been completing a PhD which evaluated the utility of current and emerging methods of estimating treatment benefit in NICE technology appraisals.

Dan is a personal tutor, and co-leads the project planning module, in addition to supervising a range of student projects.

Olalekan completed his first degree in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at University of Ilorin, Nigeria and MPH and PhD in Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. He received the FAS Marie Curie International Postdoc Fellowship to pursue research on the social and contextual determinants of HIV/AIDS, with a special emphasis on cardiovascular risk factors among HIV infected individuals.

Ola’s current post as Professor at University of Warwick means he is directly contributing to the excellence in public health education training. He is developing and maintaining an internationally competitive Global Health Informatics for Improving Quality of Healthcare research programme including: (1) Application of innovative machine learning algorithms for identifying the opportunities for prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases; (2) text mining / natural language processing of electronic health records / social media big data for public health surveillance and; (3) mHealth – mobile survey/data collection and clinical decision support system.

Ola’s research has supported policy makers at local, national and international level in making health care decisions, including the World Health Organisation and UN International Labour Organisation internationally; the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) UK, Public Health England, and the UK National Screening Committee nationally; and Coventry City Council locally where he led a Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund project to measure the impact of establishing three new primary care schemes on hospital activity. Ola’s immediate research agenda focuses on harnessing the power of big data and innovative ensemble of machine learning algorithms for identifying the opportunities for prevention and treatment of non-communicable disease. His long-term goal is to translate these methodological advances in big data and machine learning into real- world systems that can be deployed and used to benefit precision Global Health.

Ola’s teaching ideology is centred on the following guiding principles. The course should be also balanced in term of theoretical aspect as well as practical applications. It is paramount that the students have good grasps of both theory and applications using different case studies. They should be able to understand the connection between different theories to their applications in real world settings. Ola is looking forward to applying these principles to Interaction: Environment and Genes module.

Aparna did her PhD in Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai where she studied the mechanisms involved in melanoma metastasis. She then worked as a postdoc for two years at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Brisbane studying the mechanobiology of epithelial junctions. She then moved onto investigating cell migration in developing embryos at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria where she was supported by the prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship. In October 2018, Aparna joined the Warwick Medical School and Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology as an Assistant Professor supported by the Wellcome-Warwick Quantitative Biomedicine Programme where she established her research group.

At Warwick Medical school, Aparna and her research team studies the mechanical and biochemical regulation of early embryonic immune migration using Drosophila macrophages as a model system.

Georgina has a mainly customer service based background, previously working in hospitality. Her first role at Warwick Medical School was as a secretary within the postgraduate education team.

In her current role, Georgina is one of the first points of contact for our undergraduate students, providing information, advice and administrative support on all aspects of our undergraduate courses working along side Leah Brooks.

Prior to her current role Leah worked in the hospitality industry for nearly ten years. In the last year Leah took on the role as a Duty Manager at the conference centres on campus. She has been in this role with WMS since January 2023.

In her current role, Leah is one of the first points of contact for our undergraduate students, providing information, advice, and administrative support on all aspects of our undergraduate courses working alongside Georgina Barrett.

Helena has a MSc degree in Nutrition and Sociology from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and she completed a PhD in Applied Social Studies at the University of Warwick. Her PhD thesis was in the area of food anthropology/sociology, focusing on the food habits of Ghanaians in London. Before coming to work at Warwick Medical School in 2014, Helena held research posts at a number of internationally renowned research institutions in the UK and abroad.

Since 2014, Helena has been working in the area of Youth Mental Health and some of her current research interests are linked to the associations between food/nutrition/commensality (eating together) and mental health and wellbeing. Helena co-leads the Public Mental Health & Wellbeing module which is part of the MSc Public Mental health course and supervises several PhD students.

Helena’s current research projects include the EVATE study which evaluates ethnic variation in access to eating disorder treatment, involving four NHS trusts in the West Midlands. The LunchChat project is an MRC funded intervention development project associated with commensality and university student mental wellbeing. Helena is also involved in school-based mental health research in the West Midlands and in an international project involving India and Nigeria (ISOBAR). Previously, Helena was the scientific research manager on an EU-funded 8-country project (MILESTONE, 2014 to 2019) focusing on the transition of young people from child to adult mental health services in Europe.

Frances Griffiths is Professor of Medicine in Society at Warwick Medical School and Professor of Health Systems and Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Frances undertakes research on digital health implementation and health systems research related to mental health in the UK and Sub Saharan Africa. She worked one day a week as a general medical practitioner in Coventry for twenty years.

Anthony earned a degree and PhD in Biochemistry from University College Cork, Ireland. Following his PhD, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research focused on neuroinflammatory changes in ageing and neurodegenerative conditions and while in Trinity, he was the recipient of a prestigious Irish Health Research Board Fellowship.

Subsequently, Anthony taught for a significant period of time in medical schools in the Caribbean and the USA, during which time he was involved in curriculum design and teaching of Biochemistry, Physiology, Histology, Medical Genetics and Neuroscience. He also served as module/block lead for the Nervous System. He has extensive experience in admissions having served as chair of the Admissions committee for the medical school in Pacific Northwest University of Health Science.

Over the last few years, Anthony has taught in Keele University School of Medicine and Ross University School of Medicine, Barbados. While teaching interests have broadened over the last number of years, he has always stayed true to his biochemistry roots while also taking on block lead in the mechanisms of disease block for the MB ChB program in Keele Medical school.

His interest in admissions continued, whereby he was co-chair of the Admissions Committee in Ross University Barbados. He has also been Academic Conduct Officer for the medical school in Keele University. He brings a wealth of knowledge and a diverse teaching background and is looking forward to teaching various topics on the Health and Medical Sciences BSc as well as being module lead for the 2nd year module on Interactions: Environment and Gene.

A GP by training, Helen now works full-time in higher education. Helen oversees delivery of the education quality strategy at WMS and leads the Education Quality Team.

Helen teaches on various WMS modules and themes on the MBChB, Masters in Medical Education, and HMS Pathways (Understanding Trauma and Adversity; Trauma-informed Approaches).

Helen’s research interests relate to professional learning, EDI, wellbeing and trauma-informed approaches.

Surangi obtained her first degree in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. She subsequently pursued a Master of Science (MSc) and Doctor of Medicine (MD) in Public Health at the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

She was awarded a research scholarship by the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine in Sri Lanka, which facilitated her research fellowship at Warwick Evidence, where she contributed as a member of the external assessment group for the NICE guidelines formulation process. Surangi is a board-certified specialist in Public Health with extensive clinical experience as a doctor across various medical disciplines, including medicine, surgery, psychiatry, and public health.

Her professional tenure in Sri Lanka encompasses work in both primary care settings and tertiary care hospitals, providing her with a comprehensive skill set in clinical medicine and research. Furthermore, she possesses extensive teaching experience, with a particular focus on fostering student research and its potential to contribute significantly to the advancement of knowledge.

Surangi joined Warwick Medical School in 2022 as a full-time educator. She is deeply engaged in curriculum design and enhancement, focusing on improving student experiences through educational innovation. She leads the research methods module and the optional clinical skills module for undergraduate students while teaching various modules in Public Health and research methods for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. In addition, she supervises both undergraduate and postgraduate student research projects.

Ying’s background is in law (LLB). She later specialised in medical law and ethics, completing an LLM at the University of Edinburgh and a PhD at Newcastle Law School, where her interdisciplinary research focused on human heritable genome editing.

She is part of the Values, Law and Ethics (VLE) team at Warwick Medical School where she delivers all the ethics and law sessions for Year 1 HMS students, helping to build a foundational understanding of ethical and legal issues at the core of the course. She also leads the Year 2 optional module ‘Reprogenetics’, which explores the wider socio-legal and ethical implications of science, in particular genetic reproductive technologies.

Julie is Professor at Warwick Clinical Trials Unit. Her undergraduate degree was in Health Sciences followed by a MSc then PhD in Public Health. Her PhD investigated how to measure and monitor poor outcome after surgery, focusing on outcomes of infection and chronic pain. She worked as an epidemiologist at the University of Aberdeen before joining University of Warwick.

Julie is co-investigator on a range of studies, including clinical trials investigating treatment for ankle fracture and hip surgery. Other trials include testing rehabilitation for people after ICU admission, post-stroke and after surgery for breast, also head & neck cancer.