Cohort Six (2021)

Sophie completed a BSc in Physiotherapy at the University of Nottingham in 2011, after which she worked in the NHS for 6 years, specialising in Acute Stroke Rehab at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield. Sophie became increasingly interested in health systems strengthening, and in 2017  moved to Sierra Leone to work in Health Programmes Management.  Sophie worked firstly with King’s Sierra Leone Partnership on their rehabilitation programmes, and later with Welbodi Partnership, to implement a national maternal health programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

Research interests

Implementation Science; (Global) Health Inequalities; Non-Communicable Diseases

Since completing her first degree in Psychology from The University of Sheffield, and Masters in Health Services Research from the University of York, Lucy has been working in applied health and social care research.

Following her Masters, Lucy spent two years working for a research consultancy firm, supporting a variety of projects, before returning to the University of York as a mixed-methods Research Fellow, firstly within the Department of Health Sciences and latterly within the Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU).

Lucy has worked on a number of multidisciplinary projects covering a range of topics. Her most recent project was a randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of receiving a hearing dog. Lucy is keen to develop my quantitative skills to enable me to undertake more sophisticated and ambitious quantitative work with public health data.

Joseph studied Natural Sciences as an undergraduate at University College London, completing with an MSci in Biomedical Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics.

Joseph is currently undertaking a Master of Public Health programme at Imperial College London and will be completing in the summer of 2021.

For his MPH thesis, Joseph is investigating the uncertainty and drivers of the cost-effectiveness of using mass drug administration for trachoma control.

Esther graduated with a MPharm degree from Durham University in 2018. She then went on to complete her pre-registration pharmacist training in the community pharmacy sector in Cumbria and registered as a pharmacist in 2019.

After qualifying, Esther continued to work in community pharmacy and this is where her interest in public health and health inequalities grew. Esther decided to undertake a MSc in Public Health and Health Services Research at Newcastle University which she will finish in August 2021.

Growing up in the Lake District gave Esther a love for the outdoors. She often spends her weekends fell walking or cycling and is excited to explore more of the Peak District during her time at Sheffield.

Ben completed his Masters in Health Economics at York in 2017. Since then, he has worked with Aviva Health UK (2017-2018), Aviva Life and Pensions Ireland (2018-2020) and Apex Fund Services (2020-2021).

Ben has had an enjoyable time working in the corporate sector having had some great opportunities to see and do new and interesting things. Whilst with Aviva, Ben worked in Financial Transformation Management, Change Management and Financial Risk Consulting and even ended up living in Dublin for 18 months.

James holds a MSc. Health Economics and Policy degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, a BSc. Nursing degree from Moi University, Kenya, and is a Certified Public Accountant. He has more than 10 years’ working experience in health financing, public financial management, nursing, public health, research, accounting, banking, and project management. Since 2018, James worked with UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), as a Health Economist where he supported 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa on various health financing workstreams including health and immunization budget analyses, costing, efficiency, and public financial management for health.

Prior to joining UNICEF, James worked with the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project, a Global Affairs Canada funded project, where he successfully coordinated the implementation of the BSc. Community Health Education degree of Moi University to a cohort of students based in Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya. He also worked as study coordinator and accountant for three NIH funded research projects focusing on HIV risk factors among orphaned children in Western Kenya, under the Moi University-Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) collaboration.

James is passionate about exploring sustainable solutions to health financing challenges facing health systems in low- and middle-income countries, especially for vulnerable populations. He believes that effective and efficient financing of countries’ health systems will contribute greatly towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Elvis holds a BSc and MSc in biochemistry from the University of Karachi, Pakistan and completed his MSc in Epidemiology from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa in 2017 through a WHO/TDR postgraduate training scholarship.

Since December 2017, he has worked in the Health and Systems for Health unit at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya as a research officer and data analyst supporting management and evaluation of projects in the area of infectious disease and non-communicable disease epidemiology, prevention, management and health systems strengthening especially among vulnerable populations.

Among his notable engagements is the impact evaluation of DREAMS interventions in reducing HIV incidence, sexual and reproductive health outcomes among adolescent girls and young women in Kenya, among other sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries included. Among some of his interests include the burden and complexity of multimorbidity, effectiveness and economic evaluation of multicomponent interventions to address this problem, especially in low- and middle-income countries where many gaps exist.