Fiazia Ahmed Project Manager – Minimally Invasive Therapies and Digital Technologies

Fiazia has worked in clinical trials for the past ten years. She joined the Dermatology trials team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in 2015 and more recently worked as a Clinical Trials Coordinator in Trauma and Orthopaedics in the Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, University of Leeds.

Fiazia has a background in research completing her MRes in Drug safety and a PhD in Pharmacology (Drug Hypersensitivity) at the University of Liverpool in 2015. She is passionate about research and facilitating new therapies to the clinic.

Professor Hemant Pandit – Theme Lead for Assisted Healing and Rehabilitation

Professor Hemant Pandit is a clinical academic based at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS trust. He is Director of the Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and joint-director of the Centre for Health Tech Innovation.  Hemant is also the Deputy Director of Leeds BRC and co-leads a work theme in the Leeds HRC. He will be providing a brief overview of the Centre for Health Tech Innovation including planned activities and ways in which the centre will play an integral role in facilitating all the Health Tech Research (both basic and translational) in Leeds.

 

Professor Carl Thompson – Co-Theme Lead for Assisted Healing and Rehabilitation

Carl Thompson – Professor, Applied Health Research; Dame Kathleen Raven Chair in Clinical Research

Professor Thompson joined Leeds in 2015 from the University of York. His research portfolio reflects his interests in how professionals use technology and information in their judgements and choices and how to get health technologies working more effectively quickly. He established the first Anglo-Dutch MSc in Evidence Based Practice and led the Translating Research into Practice in Leeds and Bradford (TRiPLaB) theme in the first NIHR ARC for Yorkshire and Humber.

During the pandemic he led the NIHR’s Covid-19 Recovery and Learning (HTA-funded) CONTACT study of digital contact tracing in care homes, worked with the PROTECTCovid-19 core research study in care homes and the national CONDOR study of point of care testing in community settings. Professor Thompson is an experienced NHS Trust Non-Executive Director and mentors NEDs faced with innovating in care environments safely.

He provides scientific advice to Australian, Canadian, US and Dutch research funders. He has been part of research teams on more than £20m, published 3 books on Decision Making and Judgement and evaluation in healthcare professions; and has more than 130 peer reviewed articles on decision and implementation science, knowledge translation, evidence-based practice, research methods and, most recently, care homes and epidemiology. He is an academic partner in NICHE-Leeds (https://niche.leeds.ac.uk/) and helped secure Leeds recent entry into the NIHR School for Social Care Research.

 

Ben Foxcroft – Project Manager Assisted Healing & Rehabilitation

Ben is an Advanced Practice Physiotherapist. He has worked in various clinical settings and currently works in a specialist lower limb clinic.  Ben has worked at the University of Leeds since November 2019 as a Pre-Doctoral Clinical academic fellow. In addition to his clinical and academic roles, he recently held a position as a Clinical Research Advisor at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, where he helped to implement the trust’s research strategy and operationalise research projects.

Ben is particularly interested in clinical trials, novel methodology and the utilisation of technology in health and social care.

 

Professor Deborah Stocken – Theme Lead for Timely Clinical and Economic Evaluation

Professor Deborah Stocken PhD Cstat, NIHR Research Professor in Statistics, Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research, University of Leeds UK

Professor Deborah Stocken is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Professor and Director of the Surgical Interventions, Diagnostics and Devices Division at the Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research UK, hosting the Leeds Royal College of Surgeons of England Surgical Trials Centre. She is a member of the NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre executive committee and theme lead for the NIHR Leeds Healthtech Research Centre. She is a member of various NIHR funding committees and Chairs independent trial oversight committees.

Professor Stocken has a broad spectrum of clinical trials knowledge and experience with a successful NIHR and charity funded portfolio ranging from early phase safety studies to international effectiveness trials. Her Research Professorship is Statistical Innovation and Guidance on Methods and Analysis in Surgical research (SIGMA-S), with statistical interests in adaptive trial design and multivariable prediction modelling. She is responsible for developing and delivering methodologically robust research, scalable for NHS adoption and fostering multi-disciplinary links for portfolio expansion.

Professor David Meads – Co-Theme Lead for Timely Clinical and Economic Evaluation

David is a Professor of Health Economics and Director of the Academic Unit of Health Economics at the University of Leeds. He has over 20 years’ experience in health economics and outcomes research across consultancy and academia. He has expertise in decision-analytic modelling; clinical trial data analysis; stated preference survey design and analysis; and health outcomes research across multiple disease areas. His research interests include the use of early economic modelling to inform commercial decision making and pricing and economic modelling to inform payer decision making. He is a previous member of the NIHR HTA and NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research funding panels and has been a NICE Technology Appraisal Committee member since 2016. He is Early Clinical and Economic Evaluation co-theme lead for the Leeds NIHR HealthTech Research Centre.

Dr Armando Vargas-Palacios – Timely Clinical and Economic Evaluation

Dr. Armando Vargas-Palacios, Senior Research Fellow, Academic Unit of Health Economics, University of Leeds

Dr Vargas-Palacios, holds a PhD in Health Economics from the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the economic evaluation of medical devices, new technologies digital health and AI. He is an expert on the use of simulation techniques to evaluate system-wide implications of implementing a new technology or an alternative treatment pathway. As an expert in Health Economics, he supports the development of new technologies in the field of surgery aimed at improving health care provision and quality of life for patients.