51cg

Biography

I am a social scientist and health policy and systems researcher with interests in social, political and commercial determinants of health inequalities, participatory theory and method, and knowledge transfer between communities, health systems and policy. My work integrates critical realist theory with participatory action research and political economy analysis, and spans global health in sub-Saharan Africa and health inequalities in Scotland.

Following a decade working on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation maternal mortality reduction programme at the 51cg (2000–10) and a postdoctoral fellowship at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at Umeå University (2011–13), I returned to Aberdeen in 2013 and have built a sustained portfolio of independent research in global health and global challenges, securing over £1m in competitive awards as Principal Investigator with co-investigator roles on a further three NIHR-funded programmes totalling approximately £9m (2022–27).

I am a founding member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Verbal Autopsy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, contributing to workstreams on ethical, social and computational dimensions of mortality data. I am Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Development at the 51cg, and contribute to postgraduate curriculum design, supervision and global health policy advisory roles.

Expressions of interest from those wishing to undertake PhD research in related areas are welcome.

Prizes and Awards

• 2024 51cg Interdisciplinary Research Award
• 2024 51cg Outstanding Research Award - Individuals at Further Stages of Career Development (STEM)

Research Overview

My work draws on two primary methodological traditions. The first is verbal autopsy, a method for routine mortality surveillance that reconstructs the medical and social dimensions of unregistered deaths, and the ethics of investigating deaths in under-resourced settings. The second is participatory action research, applied to shift power towards those most directly affected by health inequalities: to know, understand, act and transform conditions shaping health. Both commitments are grounded in social justice and inform my broader interests in health policy and systems, political economy, and critical interpretive approaches to health inequalities.

My primary programme of international research is VAPAR (Verbal Autopsy and Participatory Action Research), a cooperative learning methodology developed over a decade across sites in South Africa in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand, Mpumalanga Department of Health and partners (2015–25; ). This work is adapted and extended in the COLCOS programme (Cost-of-Living, Cost-of-Smoking), a demonstration study of cooperative action learning applied to smoking in deprived communities in rural northeast Scotland (2023–25; ).

I hold substantive co-investigator roles on three NIHR-funded programmes totalling approximately £9m (2022–27): the Global Health Research Group on Promoting Children's and Adolescent's Mental Wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa; the Global Health Research Group on Equitable Access to Quality Health Care for Injured People (Equi-Injury); and Rwanda912, developing an electronic communications platform to improve pre-hospital transport for injured people in Rwanda.

Funding and Grants

Active

Complete

Teaching Responsibilities

Course coordinator:

• BU5594: Health Policy and Systems Research

I also teach on:

• PU5033: Introduction to Global Health
• PU5505: Global Health
• PU5521: Work-Based Placements with Health and Development Sector Organisations
• PU5906: Global Health Research Project
• PU5027: Fundamentals of Research Design (Online course)
• ME33GH: Global Health and Humanities (Year 3 MBChB Medical Humanities SSC Option)
• SX1012: Sustainable International Development (6th Century Course)
• Africa: Sustainable Development for All? (Massive online open access course, MOOC)