The Team: Understanding the Person In Context

Heather Wilkinson is Professor of Dementia Practice and Participation and the director of the Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia. She is also deputy director of the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) and the Academy for Leadership in the ACRC. She has a longstanding involvement in qualitative dementia research and activism and is also a trainee psychotherapist. 

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Sue Lewis is an ethnographer and Senior Research Fellow (Gender, Care, Families and Work) in the School of Social and Political Science. Her expertise includes co-production research on health and inequalities with communities of place and of interest. 

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Catharine Ward Thompson is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of OPENspace research centre, with a focus on inclusive access outdoors and salutogenic environments, at the University of Edinburgh. 

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Louise Robinson is an academic GP, is Regius Professor of Ageing And Professor of Primary Care and Ageing at Newcastle University. She leads one of three national Alzheimer Society Centres of Excellence in Dementia Care Research.

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A Chartered Statistician with a PhD in statistical epidemiology, Andrew uses complex longitudinal data and advanced statistical techniques to understand how health outcomes unfold over time. His principal area of technical interest relates to statistical methods that are applicable to complex longitudinal data that have the capacity to identify temporal trends and how factors impact/shape those trends. His mathematical expertise centres on methodology used to analyse longitudinal continuous and categorical data and microsimulation.

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Emma joined Newcastle University in November 2010 and has since worked on several research projects within the Population Health Sciences Institute. Her research experience has predominantly involved people aged over 60 years, people living with dementia and their families, and has also included being part of a global research project into dementia care in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Qualitative research methods are her primary focus, with experience of ethnography, focus groups and interviews.

Emma is currently involved in a longitudinal qualitative research project, 'Ageing in place successfully: exploring factors which facilitate and hinder independent living with age'.

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John Vines is Chair of Design Informatics in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, and is Co-Director of the Institute for Design Informatics. His research is in the field of human-computer interaction, where he studies the lived experience of digital and data-driven technologies and uses participatory methodologies to design new technologies that have social impact and value.

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Jacob Sheahan is a Research Fellow for Informal Networks of Care and based at the Institute for Design Informatics. With a background in industrial and interaction design and conducting participatory design research, Jacob’s work focuses on socially complex contexts from ageing to health to safety. Having studied at RMIT University, Melbourne, Jacob is well-versed in interdisciplinary and collaborative projects that partner with local communities and organisations to develop socio-technical designs and innovations.

Nichole is a Research Fellow for Images of Care. With a background in visual sociology and media studies, Nichole is researching how care later in life is visually represented and constructed. Her experience in creative and visual methodologies has covered topics in digital sociology, mental health, migration, geography, nationalism, and environment. Prior to working for the ACRC, Nichole was a Lecturer in Sociology at UCSD and an assistant professor at Hiram. Her PhD was conducted at the University of Edinburgh in sociology researching representations of nation and place.

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Nuša studied at the University of Glasgow (BSc Hons Psychology), UCL (MSc Health Psychology), and PhD (Health Psychology and Informatics for the UCL Institute of Health Informatics). She has experience working in academia, private and public healthcare, medical communications industry and consumer health, in multidisciplinary teams using mixed-methods approaches and has interests in psychology, health psychology, AI, femtech, women's health, health content on Wikipedia and innovative health solutions. Her role is a  joint role across WP4 and WP6.

Karen will be working specifically on 4.1, Personal Projects. She has a clinical background as an HCPC registered prosthetist/orthotist but have been working as a health services researcher for the last 15 years. She joined the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Research Unit at the University of Stirling in 2009 and during her time there worked firstly as a research assistant on several maternity research studies. She then undertook her PhD looking at patients' experiences of involvement in prosthetic prescription which I completed in 2015. Karen continued to work in the Unit as a research fellow before taking up a lecturing post in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport at Stirling. Her particular research expertise lies in carrying out research in the NHS setting, intervention development and feasibility testing.

Prior to joining the ACRC she completed a short-term contract at NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland as part of the Scientific Advice team working closely with the Scottish Health Technologies group.

Marta has significant experience of developing, implementing and managing operational support systems in the higher education sector and she is responsible for supporting the research and reporting activities of Work Package 4. As the WP4 Project Administrator, Marta looks after day-to-day business operations of the project and she has assumed a key position in building and maintaining the WP4 Knowledge Network. Prior to joining the ACRC, Marta led the Academic Services Centre at King’s College London and supported delivery of KCL nursing and midwifery programmes at the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care (2017-2021). During this time, Marta had a vital role in supporting practice learning, which included building and maintaining relationships with healthcare partners from the NHS and the private sector.