Chloe Forte is a research associate at the University of Bristol. She has a background in mixed methods research and public health evaluation. She has a particular interest in adolescent and young people’s mental health and physical activity levels.
Dr Florence Kinnafick is the evaluation lead on the Councillors Mental Health Training Programme.
Florence is a Chartered Psychologist and Senior Lecturer in Exercise Psychology at Loughborough University. She is passionate about improving the physical and mental health of people with mental health problems. Her expertise focuses on developing and evaluating interventions within a variety of mental health settings.
Dr Kris Clements is the Programme Manager for PHIRST-LIGHT
Kris provides an underpinning operational contribution to the research activities to the PHIRST-LIGHT team. She provides operational support across the team which team comprises of academics from the Universities of Nottingham, Loughborough, and Lincoln. She is based in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University.
Ann Fitchett, Communications Manager
Ann supports all aspects of communications for NIHR PHIRST. She is currently based in Newcastle Upon Tyne but is a shared resource across all the PHIRST hubs across the UK.
Ann completed a Psychology and Neuroscience degree at Liverpool University. Then undertook a PhD in Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She then worked as a researcher at Durham and Newcastle Universities. During this time she became interested in science outreach and engagement. Especially, how science is shared with non-scientific audiences. For the last 10 years she has worked on internal and external communications within the higher education environment.
Huihui holds a postdoctoral position in Public Health at the University of Liverpool. Her research primarily centers on examining how welfare reforms impact health outcomes. Before joining the University of Liverpool, she pursued her doctoral studies in Economics at the University of Glasgow.
Bronia is a knowledge exchange professional with experience in working at the interface of research, policy and practice. She is passionate about increasing the health of the public and decreasing inequalities through evidence-based, practice-led, experienced-informed services and systems. Working in a relational way, she aims to create a culture of evidence use in local government.
After undertaking a PhD in Developmental Psychology in which she noticed stark inequalities existing from infancy, Bronia pursued post-doctoral research at Durham University to explore early disparities. Motivated to address these early life differences, Dr Arnott then moved to Newcastle University health psychology group gaining experience in developing and evaluating complex interventions. She led Public and Patient Involvement workstream on the NIHR-PHR-funded MapMe project addressing childhood overweight, led the qualitative workstream on the NIHR RfPB MUSE FEP project assessing an intervention to address hallucinations in psychosis, and was PI on the NIHR ARC NENC project co-developing a toolkit for infant mental health service commissioning.
Bronia further developed and applied her expertise as a Senior Research Methodologist with the NIHR Research Design Service North East North Cumbria; supporting investigators to design robust research and develop competitive funding application and building capacity across health, public health and social care professionals. Dr Arnott gained skills in knowledge mobilisation working with local government colleagues through roles at the National Centre for Family Hubs (hosted by the Anna Freud Centre) and in the Policy and Practice team at the Early Intervention Foundation.
Phil Gleeson, Public Representative
Philip Christopher Gleeson is my full name but I wish to be known as Phil.
After becoming ill in the 90’s and enforced retirement, I decided to give back to those who have helped me. Thus, I have volunteered within many areas of the third sector for over 27 years, which provided me with wealth of knowledge within health, social care and the NHS.
As a qualified patternmaker in Engineering, I feel I can greatly contribute to any group needing people with lived experience and use my problem solving skills. After I had to leave engineering I worked my way through a logistics career, finishing by running as a director of the northern distribution centre for an electrical company. My real passion is to ensure that research involves the patient and therefore becoming grounded and true. Without research we have no innovation or forward thinking.
I am a member of Yorkshire and Humber National Institute for Health Research and I chair the Better Lives Board for Adults and Health. I am also involved in Leeds Involving People, Advonet and Touchstone as a trustee, I am a member of the critical friends network within Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Finally, I believe that my lived experience means I can ensure Patient and Public Involvement is true and coproduction is co not faux.
Finally I dislike with a passion, ACRONYMS.
Julia Carey is PHIRST Insight’s Programme Manager. Julia has extensive experience of developing and managing large and complex research projects and programmes in Education, Economics, Engineering and Health Sciences. She is a Fellow and Chartered Manager of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), an alumni of the University’s Leadership Programme and a Registered PRINCE2 Practitioner.
Christina Stokes is a member of the PHIRST Management Group as a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) contributor. She sits on several research and PPI panels and steering groups and co-chairs the Health Protection Research Unit ( Behavioural Science) PPI strategy group. She is also chair of Bristol Older People’s Forum and a trustee of Bristol Refugee Rights. She believes that the effective involvement of patients and the public in research from its inception ensures that the research is relevant to the public and is therefore more likely to lead to positive outcomes.
Dr Jessica Owugha, Research Fellow
Jessica is a Research Fellow for PHIRST South Bank supporting the centre’s research.
She has a clinical research background, as well as public health evaluation and strategy experience across multiple sectors (including national and local government, charity, and commercial sectors).
Jessica is particularly interested in partnership working as a tool to improve health outcomes and making sure the patient/public voice is an integral part of the research we do.
Dr Catherine Jenkins, Research Officer
Cath is a Public Health Professional Development and Research Officer for PHIRST South Bank and assists the Research Fellows and wider team. Her research interests include health literacy and settings-based health promotion. She is a UKPHR-registered Public Health Practitioner.
Thereza is the NIHR PHIRST Fusion Research Administrator at Newcastle University. She has a wealth of experience in coordinating and contributing to the provision of professional expertise for EU and UK funded projects ensuring that the University provides high levels of stakeholder satisfaction. Thereza has a MSc in Business from Newcastle University, a certificate in Research Administration with ARMA (Association of Research Managers and Administrators) and a Certificate in Management with the Open University.
