At Minervation we work with a number of different associates to provide the best possible service to our clients. We find that effective partnership working enables us to put together really effective project teams and it’s also a lot of fun!
Our associate programme includes clinical experts, researchers, project managers, facilitators, designers, IT specialists, information scientists and expert patients.
Please contact us if you are interested in joining our associates programme.
Tom Brooks
Tom set up Olospo in 2011 after spending 4 years in Bristol learning the tools of his trade. Currently based in Oxford, Tom’s skills include Design, front-end development and WordPress development. Since setting up Olospo, Tom has worked with the likes of Oxford University, the NHS and Aardman Animations.
Julia Cartwright
Julia is a research psychologist and director of Flex Business Consulting Ltd. She is an experienced facilitator and coach and has an expert knowledge in patient information and health communications and has worked for a variety of clients in both the public and private sectors in addition to acting as a strategic advisor to HealthQWest Scotland. She has also held research posts at The Picker Institute, The University of Oxford’s Health Service Research Unit and Oxford Brookes University, where she continues to lecture on the Attitudes to Health & Illness module. Julia had a first career as an investment surveyor with a Merchant Bank.
Sarah Chapman
Since 2007 Sarah has worked at the UK Cochrane Centre, conducting a variety of research projects and providing information support. Previously, Sarah has worked for the University of Oxford and the Royal College of Nursing Institute, amongst others, conducting systematic reviews and other types of research in many areas of health. Before that, she trained as a nurse then did a degree in History at the University of Oxford. A further degree in the history of women’s health and illness in early modern England (MPhil., University of Reading), brought together Sarah’s clinical and academic training and interests.
Sarah has a keen interest in exploring ways to communicate the results of health research to both health professionals and the public, and in ensuring that research is shaped by the questions patients want answered. She has recently joined Minervation’s National Elf Service, writing blogs as the Lifestyle Elf, covering topics such as smoking, alcohol, diet and exercise.
Ross Chapman
Ross is an experienced web designer and digital video producer (Skysoclear). He enjoys working with clients across a variety of industries, predominantly in the outdoor, leisure and health sectors. With a background in creating digital media for a commercial UK broadcaster, his expertise is broad, from creating websites, to videos and designing mobile interfaces. He’s passionate about creating simple digital solutions that meet real life communication problems.
David Crowe
As a director of Crowe Associates Ltd David is an experienced and passionate Leader, with extensive experience of organisational development and change in both the private and public sector, both as an Operations Director within a business, and for over 10 years as a freelance Consultant.
David has project managed the successful development of a comprehensive training programme for the Social Care sector, LogontoCare which has involved the training on a range of topics (such as Dementia, Equality and Diversity) using E-learning and blended learning principles. This project won a national Skills for Care accolade in most innovate learning in 2006.
David’s particular areas of specialism are:
- Business planning, organisational development and change consultancy
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Facilitation and development of Leaders and Managers
Sally Crowe
Sally has a nursing and public health background. As director of Crowe Associates Ltd, which provides consultancy, training and project management for patient and public involvement in health, she regularly facilitates workshops and consultation events in health and social care research, and services development. Teaching critical appraisal and understanding evidence skills continues to be a passion. She has recently published a BMJ Wiley Blackwell Patient and Public Involvement Toolkit.
She chairs the James Lind Alliance Monitoring and Implementation Group, a national coalition that aims to tackle treatment uncertainties in health care. This is primarily achieved through partnerships of patient and clinician groups, and Sally is currently working with partnerships for eczema, type 1 diabetes, pressure ulcers and pre term birth. The James Lind Alliance is funded by the Department of Health.
Dr Elizabeth Fairley
Elizabeth has established her own scientific consultancy, EFB Services, and provides a comprehensive range of services to commercial, public sector and academic clients. Areas of expertise include systematic reviewing, critical appraisal, market research, validation, evaluation and quality assurance to enable product development and commercialisation. In addition to Minervation, clients include; Aridhia Informatics, Theia Bioscience, BlueVector, Digital Curation Centre, Department of Public Health (University of Aberdeen), ITI Life Sciences, Textensor and Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN). Her goal is to deliver outstanding results to aid business development and productivity.
In the past, Elizabeth has worked for a commercial bioinformatics venture (Cognia EU) as Science Support Manager. Her responsibilities in this role included quality assurance of curated data, biological ontology and database analysis as part of developing text mining-assisted database curation business unit.
An undergraduate (BSc (Hons) in Genetics from Aberdeen University) and postgraduate education (Ph.D. in Biology from Cambridge University) has provided Elizabeth with an excellent understanding of the biomedical domain. Her successful research career at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Wellcome Trust Centre of Cell Biology (University of Edinburgh) involved working on how mutations in nuclear envelope proteins alter genomic architecture and cell cycle dynamics and the regulation of mitotic proteins. Her main areas of interest are Cancer, Diabetes and Muscular dystrophy.
Dr Carl Heneghan
Carl Heneghan BA (Hons) Oxon, MRCGP has had an association with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine since 1995. Currently holding a Dept of Health Career Development Award, he is a General Practitioner and a senior clinical research fellow in the Department of Primary Care at Oxford University. He has considerable experience in teaching for undergraduates, postgraduates and teachers of EBM practice. He has co-authored the EBM toolkit (BMJ), and is involved in work that promotes the understanding and teaching of critical appraisal.
Carl is the cardiovascular lead within the Department and is currently a principal investigator in the new NIHR Centre for Monitoring of Chronic Disease in Primary Care. Within the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Carl provides teaching, support and resources to individuals and groups to facilitate Evidence-Based Practice. The EBM group undertakes research that focuses on both the general issues of implementation of Evidence-Based Practice and also specific disease related issues. Research interests include the barriers to practicing Evidence-Based Medicine in practice. Currently Carl is lead applicant with Professor Paul Glasziou on a project looking at the utilization of research in primary care. In addition, Carl has research interest in improving the methods used in both primary and secondary research and has an interest in two areas of diagnosis and diagnostic test evaluation.
Sue Lacey-Bryant
Passionate about improving the quality of health care and bringing knowledge to bear on decision-making, Sue has a unique understanding of the development and information needs of Clinical Commissioning Groups and primary care teams. She is one of the pioneers of practical approaches to knowledge management in the NHS, using ‘KM’ as an enabler of organisational development and improved quality, innovation, prevention and productivity. As programmer manager for Quality:UK, Sue led an ambitious programme funded by the Health Foundation, taking a whole system approach to quality improvement of healthcare across Milton Keynes. With a track record of aligning services to priorities and strengthening customer focus, and focused on service improvement to deliver high-quality, user-centered services that fully utilise the opportunities presented by IT, Sue managed a successful portfolio career as an information specialist through the 90s and naughties. Working within the public sector as well as with commercial clients such as Doctors.net.uk, she has wide experience of developing services, people and products.
Robin Layfield
Robin has been keen on programming since he received his first computer (a ZX Spectrum) at the tender age of twelve. He has always been fascinated by the internet: the way he can talk in real time with someone a thousand miles away; or view photographs taken by satellites out in space. He thinks it’s amazing and has been actively working with it for the last 15 years.
Robin is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) although he works mainly with Open Source platforms now he spent several years as an international consultant working with a number of large firms, such as Diageo, Credit Suisse and Philips.
He has also been the lead architect on a number of major projects, including UCEcom (the e-commerce centre of excellence in Birmingham), Ecodesk and the Government-run National Business Angels Network, as well as co-authoring the first UCLES GNVQ in E-commerce.
Robin enjoys problem solving and the incredible challenges that come with trying to make complex applications simple to use. He is interested in design, typography and user experience. In his spare time (which he doesn’t have a lot of between work and his daughters) he plays bass in a London-based indie rock band. He lives in the South-West and work with companies from Oxford, Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham and London.
John Northfield
John has over twenty five years experience working with people with learning disabilities as a direct supporter, services manager and development consultant. He has worked for the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (http://www.bild.org.uk) and the National Development Team (http://www.ndti.org.uk) and was instrumental in leading the development of the Quality Network, an outcomes based service evaluation methodology. In recent years he was project lead for the NHS Evidence learning disabilities specialist collection, and currently writes for the Learning Disabilities Elf. He is committed to ensuring that services for people with learning disabilities are of high quality and based on the best possible evidence.
Derek Richards
Derek Richards is a Consultant in Dental Public Health working across 5 Health Boards in Scotland. He is the Director of the Centre for Evidence-based Dentistry, Editor of the Evidence-based Dentistry Journal, and holds and Honorary Senior Lecturer post at Glasgow Dental School. He helped to establish both the Centre for Evidence-based Dentistry and the Evidence-based Dentistry Journal. Derek is a specialist advisor to the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme and led the development of the Scotishdental.org website. He was involved in the York Review of water fluoridation and the NICE dental recall guideline and is currently chairing a selective update of the SIGN guideline on the prevention of caries in children.. He has been involved with teaching evidence-based dentistry and a wide range of evidence-based initiatives both nationally and internationally since 1994. He is also a co-author of the book Evidence-Based Dentistry: Managing Information for Better Practice (Quintessential of Dental Practice).
Angela Roche
Angela set up Design By Day with a passion for collaboration and a means of providing a real alternative to larger design agencies.
Since Angela graduated from Salford University, with a 1st Class honours in graphic design in 2006, she has been working in the digital realm in web design, development and animation. She started out her career at Manchester agency Bubble, producing moving image based work and designing websites for clients such as Playstation, Wrangler,JD Sports and Urban Splash, before going it alone and working with organisations such as the NHS, Doctors Worldwide, Cornerhouse and the University of Leeds.
Angela has an affinity for all things digital, taking an imaginative and thoughtful approach to all projects, producing beautiful, relevant design with usability and accessibility in mind.
Angela is constantly seeking out new technologies and experiences, and exploring how these can be used in her work to the advantage of her clients.
Sarah Smith
Sarah Smith has 15 years experience as a consumer health information specialist developing health information and information services for patients and the public. She began her career as a registered nurse working in a variety of fields including medicine, gynaecology and orthopaedics. Following her degree she worked for 10 years in the voluntary sector for two health charities, initially working on a telephone helpline and then going on to manage services and develop information strategies. Sarah was Head of Information and a founder member of the Blood Pressure UK (formerly the Blood Pressure Association), setting up, developing and evaluating a wide range of information services, including email services, a telephone helpline, online information and printed resources.
As an independent consultant Sarah has specialised in writing and producing health information for the public and working with a range of clients to create educational programmes, information services and resources which meet the needs of users. This has included research and audit, user insight work (focus groups and reader’s panel), writing, editing and evaluation of consumer health information. Sarah is Operations Director of the Patient Information Forum – the organisation for consumer health information producers, she is also the author of the Guide to appraising the quality of health information,
Sarah’s project portfolio includes working with the BMA (where she is a BMA patient information award judge and reviewer), MS Trust, Scholl (Think Feet project – producing guides on healthy feet for people with diabetes).
Karla Soares-Weiser
Karla obtained her medical degree in 1987 in Brazil, and then completed a residency in psychiatry. During 1992-1994 she completed a MA degree in psychiatric epidemiology, and between 1994 and 1997 a PhD in a programme supported jointly by the Universities of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Oxford (England). During that period she worked intensively with the Cochrane Collaboration. She was also involved with the activities of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, and participated in a series of courses organised by the Centre on methodological design and analysis of randomised trials. In June 1997 she was awarded her Doctorate, with merit, and worked with the Brazilian Cochrane Centre (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and the Ibero-American Cochrane Centre (Barcelona, Spain), teaching and providing methodological support for reviewers.
At the end of 1998 she moved to Israel. She has continued to work closely with the Cochrane Collaboration, specifically with the UK Cochrane Centre (Oxford), where she has been a Visiting Fellow since 2000. She also helped to organize the 15th Cochrane Colloquium, which took place in Sao Paulo in October 2007.
Over the years, she has accumulated broad, hands-on experience relevant to the preparation of systematic reviews of intervention studies, and more recently, of screening and diagnosis studies. She currently manages a small company (Enhance Reviews) that undertakes research work in evidence-based health care.