Membership of the committee
Core membership
Chair: The Chair is an independent academic health scientist appointed, through an open recruitment process, by Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox, Chief Investigator for QResearch. The initial term is for 2 years which can be renewed annually for a further 3 years.
Deputy Chair: The Deputy Chair is an independent academic health scientist appointed, through an open recruitment process, by Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox. The initial term is for 2 years which can be renewed annually for a further 3 years
Members: There will be a minimum of 8 members of the committee including the Chair, Deputy Chair, Chair of the QResearch Advisory Board and Professor Hippisley-Cox (Chief Investigator and Founder of QResearch). New members of the committee will appointed by the Chair of the Science Committee and Chief Investigator for QResearch following an advertised open recruitment process to increase diversity. The initial term will be two years. Members are invited to apply from relevant academic disciplines including, for example, clinicians, statistics, epidemiology, health economics and patient experience from within and external to the university. A minimum number of members for the meeting to be quorate is 4 members.
Secretariat: The secretariat is provided by Ms Charlotte Edwards Rosscamp
Observers: Observers are welcome to join specific meetings by prior arrangement which can be organised by contacting [email protected].
Dr Paula Dhiman (chair)
Joined November 2020, third term, chair from August 2021
Dr Brian McMillan (Deputy Chair)
Dr Brian McMillan is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research, a practising GP, and a Registered Health Psychologist. His research interests include the application of digital technology and psychological theory to improving patients' experiences of primary care. He is currently exploring how patients’ online access to their primary care health record could enhance patient activation.
Brian is funded by the NIHR as an NIHR Advanced Fellow. After qualifying with a BSSc in Psychology from Queen's University Belfast, he completed a PhD at the University of Leeds and worked there as a Research Fellow before returning to student life to study Medicine. He completed his medical academic foundation training in York, was an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Sheffield during his GP training, and then moved to Manchester to take up a post as an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care in 2016.
Joined September 2021, third term
Dr Rebecca Harmston
Rebecca is a research scientist and has worked at both Cancer Research UK and The University of Cambridge. She holds a B.Sc (Hons), M.Res, and Ph.D in molecular biology and the life sciences. Rebecca has been working in patient involvement in research as a patient representative for nearly eight years. Rebecca is an active member of a number of health research panels including a NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Committee and the NICE Health Technology Assessment Committee D. She has a wealth of experience including writing patient facing documents, ethics, reviewing grant applications and experience as a research co-applicant.
Rebecca is living with a number of long term health conditions and a hidden disability. She is the main carer for a child with special education needs. She hopes to bring a patient perspective to the committee and make sure that research is relevant and important to patients, carers, and their families.
Joined November 2020, third term
Dr Hui Guo
Dr Hui Guo is Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics and Lead of the Centre for Biostatistics at The University of Manchester. Hui has been a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute since 2018. Her research focuses on causal inference (in particular, Bayesian Mendelian randomization) and multimorbidity from observational studies. She is also interested in exploring biological causal pathways/networks of certain diseases by using large-scale multi-omics data.
Joined January 2021, third term
Dr Koen Pouwels
Koen Pouwels is a senior researcher at the Health Economics Research Centre in the Nuffield Department of Population Health. He holds a PhD in pharmacoepidemiology and an MSc in Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences (University of Groningen). Having previously held posts at Public Health England (2015-2018), he came to Oxford in January 2019. His research focuses on causal inference, spatiotemporal modelling, infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, economic evaluations, and Bayesian statistics.
He has co-designed the national COVID-19 Infection Survey, a large longitudinal community survey, and has extensive experience with analysing large primary care and linked secondary and intensive care databases. His work has directly informed national policies in the UK and the Netherlands, ranging from COVID-19 mitigation measures, to decisions about vaccinations against various infectious diseases, as well as national targets for antibiotic prescribing in primary care.
Joined January 2021, third term
Dr Kate Best
Kate Best is a senior research fellow based in the Academic Unit of Ageing and Stroke Research at the University of Leeds. Kate is a medical statistician interested in applying statistics to routinely collected health data in order to improve the health and social wellbeing of the population. She has experience developing and validating prognostic models using large linked primary, secondary and social care data. Previously, Kate was based at Newcastle University where she developed predictive models to estimate prevalence and survival of rare congenital conditions using linked population-based register data.
Joined March 2023, second term
Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox (Chief Investigator for QResearch)
Julia Hippisley-Cox is the Chief Investigator for QResearch and Professor in Clinical Epidemiology and Predictive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London. She is an Honorary Consultant Barts Health Care Trust and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and a GP. Her key research interests are in the development and validation of algorithms for predicting risk of disease and evaluating safety of commonly prescribed medications.
Competing Interests: JHC was founder and shareholder of ClinRisk Ltd. In 2023, 100% of the share capital of ClinRisk Ltd was donated to Endeavour Health Care Charitable Trust and the company renamed to Endeavour Predict Community Interest Company. JHC is a consultant for Endeavour Predict CIC and her husband is a non-executive director.
Joined Sept 2019