About

(Director)

Cecilia Vindrola-Padros is a Medical Anthropologist interested in applied health research and the development of rapid approaches to research.
She works across interdisciplinary teams, applying anthropological theories and methods to study and improve healthcare delivery in the UK and abroad.
She has written extensively on the use of rapid qualitative research and currently directs RREAL.
Cecilia works as a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Targeted Intervention, UCL.
She is the past director of the Qualitative Health Research Network (QHRN) and a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA).

Norha Vera San Juan is a Social Epidemiologist focused on mental health policy and service development, particularly applying research methods that promote stakeholder involvement.
As part of her PhD she developed a measure of recovery as understood by Latin American mental health service users.
This work challenged the traditional focus on clinical views and rather advocated for co-construction of knowledge to promote the sustainable development of health services.
She works currently as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the NIHR Mental Health Policy Research Unit, a commission of the Department of Health that provides timely evidence to policymakers.

Sam Martin is an experienced Digital Sociologist and Digital Analyst with 10 years of expertise in using creative digital methods to analyse Big Social Data and Big Qualitative Data in the fields of digital epidemiology and digital global health.
She is research consultant and digital analytics lead at the Ethox Centre, based in the Big Data Institute at Oxford University, as well as the Oxford Vaccine Group - where she works with an international team of academics on Vaccine Hesitancy amongst healthcare workers, the world of Digital Misinformation, Disinformation and Revelatory Fakes.
She has also been an Alan Turing Research Fellow (Warwick affiliate), looking at the complexities and temporalities of Big Data, as well as Digital Analytics lead at the Vaccine Confidence Project (LSHTM), where she used machine learning and sentiment analysis to research the nuances of sentiment in vaccine confidence discourse across the global diaspora.

Sophie has an MSc in Global Health and Development from UCL.
She has experience in the following areas: guiding rapid research in humanitarian contexts, conducting social media analysis relating to rapid research and health issues, and conducting research relating to community engagement, health seeking behaviour and access to health services.
Her interests include global health and anthropology, particularly in relation to health interventions in humanitarian settings, community engagement initiatives, mental health, health systems, programme evaluations and service evaluations.

Elaine C. Flores is a Peruvian Medical Doctor and mixed-methods researcher. She has an MSc in Epidemiology Research from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Peru and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
She coordinates the ARPEC project, based at The Institute of Population Health Sciences (IPHS) within Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary University.
Elaine is a member of the Centre for Global Mental Health (CGMH), a joint collaboration between LSHTM and King's Health Partners. She is also affiliated with Emerge - the Research Unit on Emerging Diseases and Climate Change at the Faculty of Public Health in UPCH.
Her main work is on the mental health impact of environmental factors and natural disasters, the social determinants of health and other global health topics, especially with an LMIC and interdisciplinary perspective. She is interested in further exploring the links between mental health, climate change and social inequalities across vulnerable groups, especially with a gender lens.

Samantha Vanderslott is a University Research Lecturer at the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford working on health, society, and policy topics.
Her current projects are about: policies for neglected tropical diseases; outbreak response; a history of typhoid fever; and attitudes to vaccines.
She draws on perspectives from sociology, anthropology, history, global health, and science and technology studies (STS).

Katie Gilchrist has completed a BSc in Psychology and Youth Studies at Teesside University and a MSc in Health Psychology at UCL.
Katie’s practical experiences include being a youth worker for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities, a substance misuse worker for at risk youth and a crisis phone line worker for young people experiencing homelesness. Katie has also worked for PwC, gaining project management skills.
Following major surgery to have a brain tumour removed in 2019, Katie’s research interests include patient and carer experiences, patient and public involvement in research and evaluation of healthcare services.

Fran is a graphic designer based in the beautiful city of Bariloche in Argentina.
He is a graduate of the Instituto Superior Patagónico.
In 2018, he worked alongside other communication specialists to coordinate the delivery of TED Talks (Tedx Bariloche).

Laura has a background in Oriental Studies and Anthropology, with a MSc in Development Studies and has spent the past 10 years working as evaluator and researcher in the UK healthcare sector.
Her previous work includes qualitative research on palliative care for people with dementia and evaluating specialist dementia nursing services using mixed methods.
She’s interested in applied research and how qualitative findings can be used to improve healthcare provision and influence policy.

Sigrun Clark has completed a BSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of Bristol and is completing an MSc in Population Health at UCL.
She has previous experience working in the field of medical communications across a range of disease areas including oncology, gastroenterology, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Sigrun's current research areas include the organisation of healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic and research into domestic violence and abuse.

Ginger A. Johnson is a Medical Anthropologist who has conducted public health research in East, West, Central and Southern Africa, North and Southeast Asia, and in the Middle East and North Africa on behalf of the World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Population Services International (PSI), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
She was embedded in West Africa with the IFRC during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and has additionally been involved in conducting research on subsequent public health emergencies of international concern such as Zika in Latin America, Ebola in DRC, polio in Pakistan and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ginger founded RREAL with Dr Cecilia Vindrola-Padros and is a Medical Anthropologist with UNICEF-Pakistan.