Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology and Statistics and Deputy Programme Director on the MPH/MRes Postgraduate Programmes in Public Health and Primary Care

I am a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Programme Director on the MPH/MRes Postgraduate Programmes in Public Health and Primary Care in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health. I lead the Practical Statistics for Population Health course unit in semester 2 and I teach on the Fundamentals of Epidemiology course in semester 1.

Having enjoyed a successful research career in epidemiology and statistics I first got involved in the online distance learning MPH programme in 2005 becoming module lead for Biostatistics 2006 and re-writing the module in 2007. I reduced my research commitments and continued to develop my teaching role taking the lead in the Fundamentals of Epidemiology module from 2008 to 2017. I have recently completed a second re-write of my module, now named Practical Statistics for Population Health.

As one of the Deputy Programme Directors I am involved in many other aspects of the programme including leading the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) awards process, selection and recruitment of CSC students, EDI co-lead, curriculum development, programme amendments, student experience and linking with the Divisional PGT lead.

Additionally, I carry out research in teaching and learning with specific focus on transnational students’ experience and outcomes on the MPH programme.

I graduated from Aberdeen University with an honours degree in Statistics in 1991 and obtained my masters degree in Medical Statistics from Leicester University in 1992. I began working for the NHS Information and Statistics Division in Edinburgh before moving to Glasgow University to work on a research project on seasonal patterns of morbidity and mortality. During my time at Glasgow I completed my PhD titled ‘Seasonal patterns of mortality and morbidity in Scotland: modelling time series of counts’ and I was involved in other research projects on heart failure and housing and health.

During my research career at the University of Manchester I was based at the National Drug Evidence Centre, the Evidence for Population Health Unit and the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre. During this time I was involved in research on prevalence of problem drug use in Greater Manchester, the population impact of interventions for heart disease, the influence of infant growth on risk factors for CHD and several other research projects in population health. In 2008 I moved from research into teaching as a Lecturer in Biostatistics and Epidemiology on the MPH/MRes programme.

My research interests are applied statistical methods for population health and coronary heart disease and differential attainment among PGT students.

I am a senior lecturer on the MPH/MRes Postgraduate Programmes in Public Health and Primary Care offered. I lead the Practical Statistics for Population Health course in semester 2 and I teach on the Fundamentals of Epidemiology course in semester 1. The Practical Statistics for Population Health teaches statistics from a regression perspective enabling students to gain a deeper understanding of how to carry out and interpret regression based analyses. Traditional (univariate) methods are covered later in the course with a focus on how these methods link to regression methods. Therefore the course is particularly relevant to current statistical practice.

I supervise and mark student dissertations, provide statistical support to dissertation students and supervise PhD students. I contribute to the wider teaching of statistic and research methods across the Faculty of Medicine, Biology and Health in a number of different roles. 

Higher Education Academy

Society of Social Medicine

Royal Statistical Society

My methodological expertise lies in applied statistics in epidemiological and population based research studies. I have a wide and varied experience of most statistical techniques and their application to real life data. One of my particular strengths is providing statistical help and advice to other researchers and students on the best techniques to use to analyse their data.

More recently I have applied my statistical expertise to analyse the factors associated with differential attainment between home and overseas students on PGT programmes.  

BSc Statistics (1st Class hons), University of Aberdeen 1991

MSc Medical Statistics, University of Leicester 1992

PhD Statistics and Public Health, University of Glasgow 2000

CStat Royal Statistical Society 2008

Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, University of Manchester 2017

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 2019