Staff Profile

I joined Newcastle University in 1992 as a clerical support officer for a Primary Health Care research project on “Audit of Deaths in General Practice”.  This project was followed by a number of research and teaching projects in the areas of "Improving Mental Health in Disadvantaged Communities", and "Care of the Elderly", both supporting the administration of the projects and carrying out research and data analysis as part of the wider team.

In 2000 I moved into the role of Personal Assistant to the Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health and managed a number of projects of different sizes, from a variety of funders.  For five years I project managed the £6.5m BBSRC project “Centre for Integrated Systems Biology of Ageing and Nutrition (CISBAN)” alongside a number of EU, Industry and other Research Council funded projects, all in the area of ageing.

From 2007-2015 I was Deputy Institute Manager and Research Support Officer for the Institute for Ageing and Health providing research support to over 300 staff.  During this time I was seconded to manage the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing (NUIA) societal challenge theme on a part-time basis, and moved into this role full-time in 2015.

At the end of 2019, I moved into a new role within the Faculty of Medical Sciences as Special Projects Manager, scoping and advising on a variety of projects within FMS and managing the FMS Project Manager Team. 

I lead the FMS Project Manager Team who provide project management support for translational projects across the Faculty.  See https://newcastle.sharepoint.com/hub/medical/Pages/pmteam.aspx for details of the support the team can provide.

I am also the Collaboration Operations Manager for the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration (D-TRC) which is part of the UK government’s response to the growing challenge of Dementia.  The D-TRC comprises eight NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) with dementia-related research themes and three Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs).  These BRCs and CRFs are world-leaders in dementia translational research, based within top NHS-university partnerships.

Each centre is represented by an academic lead who acts as an advocate for the collaboration, provides scientific input into study design, and identifies and supports collaborative business and academic development activities.  The NIHR D-TRC provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with industry, academia, charities, policymakers and the NHS to advance research.

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