Read more...
Helen is a Professor in Midwifery and Research Group Lead. She is a midwife and established health services researcher. Helen is committed to involving users of maternity services at all stages of the research process and, with colleagues, established the Nottingham Maternity Research Network, a research public involvement group. Another key interest is to build research capacity in midwifery, at all career stages. Helen has experience of working across agencies including the NHS and Third Sector in research and evidence-based practice initiatives. Her research involves a range of methods and her interests include the organisation of maternity care, preparation for and care during labour, early labour, perinatal mental wellbeing and maternity services for women in situations of vulnerability and disadvantage.
Email: helen.spiby@nottingham.ac.uk
View Helen's full profile.
Corine is a Dutch Midwife and a clinical epidemiologist.
Read more...
Corine has worked as an independent midwife in the Netherlands, with (at the time) a home birth rate of over 50% and now (ocassionally) works as a clinical based midwife. She did her Masters in Epidemiology, the title of their PhD dissertation was 'Management of term and post term pregnancy'. Corine's main research interest is in the evaluation of maternity and/or midwifery care and more specifically on optimising physiological labour and birth and client experiences and participation. However, they do emphasize other research to improve care for women. Corine believes it is important for all women to have a positive childbirth experience. Achieving this should be the challenge for all maternity care providers.
Corine's research specialisation is mainly on quantitative research methods, although they also do have experience in qualitative research methods. Being an epidemiologist, they have experience in different research methods, such as RCTs, systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Next to this, they specialised in patient involvement and action research.
Email: corine.smeijers@nottingham.ac.uk
Catrin is primarily a qualitative researcher. Her clinical and research interests lie in maternal, sexual and reproductive health.
Read more...
Read more...
Dr Farzaneh Pazandeh - Assistant Professor in Maternal Health
Farzaneh is a researcher with experience in international maternal health. Her research has included evaluating quality of maternity care, early labour, evidence-based and respectful maternity care.
Read more...
Farzaneh's research interests include global maternal health, improving quality of maternity care, women's maternity care experiences, particularly from a disadvantaged background (refugee, migrant, and ethnic minority groups). Her methodological expertise includes qualitative research, mixed methods, action research and randomised controlled trials. Farzaneh has worked as an academic in Tehran (Iran) and has provided consultancy in developing countries as a Midwifery and Sexual and Reproductive Health consultant.
Email: farzaneh.pazandeh@nottingham.ac.uk
View Farzaneh's full profile.
Dr Gary Adams, Associate Professor
Read more...
Gary Adams is internationally recognised in diabetes education and research with much of this research involving the inter-related disciplines of maternal health care and diabetes.
Funding: Gary has successfully secured funding from internationally recognized funding bodies: Royal Society, BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, GSK, Pfizer Global, Medimmune, Kellogg and InDependent Diabetes Trust (IDDT).
Dr Georgia Clancy - Researcher
Read more...
Georgia is an interdisciplinary social scientist with an interest in maternity care services and experiences. Her mixed-methods doctoral research explored women's childbirth preferences, decisions and outcomes in light of NHS England's Better Births policy – the first in-depth sociological study of this policy.
Georgia’s research interests include the interplay of choice and risk in pregnancy and birth, informed decision-making, service user and maternity professional communication, neoliberal policymaking and body politics. She is particularly interested in considering these issues with an intersectional lens and in relation to health disparities.
Email: georgia.clancy@nottingham.ac.uk
View Georgia's full profile.
Dr Elizabeth Such
Liz is an Anne McLaren Fellow and a recent NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow (2018-22).
Read more...
Dr Habiba Aminu, Research Fellow, BNSc Nursing, MSc Nursing, PhD
Read more...
School of Health Sciences
habiba.aminu@nottingham.ac.uk
I joined the University in July 2023 as a Research Fellow in Modern Slavery Prevention within the Maternal Health and Wellbeing Group. I have been with the University of Sheffield (School of Medicine and Population Health), where I worked on a number of research projects, including those relating to the prevention of modern slavery in the UK, improving equality, diversity, and inclusion in (health) research, and evaluating the Nottinghamshire Healthy Families Programme, Parent-Infant Relationship Initiative (PIRi).
Current research interests include:
vulnerable and underserved populations;
healthcare access, quality and safety;
equality, diversity and inclusion;
coproduction/participatory research approach and
qualitative research methods.
Dr Alison Edgley - Associate Professor of Social Sciences in Health
Read more...
Alison is Associate Professor and health sociologist (in the School of Health Science since 2002). My expertise lies in conducting epistemologically rigorous and theoretically informed qualitative research. I have brought my sociological perspective and skills to topics of motherhood and fatherhood in relation to gender, embodiment, mental health recovery and parental experiences of self-care in children with lymphedema. I am supervising PhD students who are working in the areas of courage in midwifery; maternal experiences of gender disappointment; as well as mental health and peer support.
Email: alison.edgley@nottingham.ac.uk
View Alison's full profile.
Dr Sara Borrelli - Associate Professor
Read more...
Dr Sara Borrelli is Associate Professor and a registered midwife (since 2008) with international experience in clinical practice, education and research. She is currently the Lead for MSc Midwifery and MSc Midwifery Studies, Maternal and Newborn Health and Midwifery Focussed Continuing Professional Development. She completed her PhD in Health Studies in 2015 at The University of Nottingham. Her key research interests include early labour, preparation for birth, care for labour and birth in different birthplaces, maternity care experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, coping with labour pain, maternity care for women affected by modern slavery.
Email: Sara.Borrelli@nottingham.ac.uk
View Sara's full profile.
Dr Kerry Evans - Associate Professor
Director of Clinical Academic Careers at the School of Health Sciences, Associate Professor of Midwifery
Read more...
Dr Kerry Evans is the Director of Clinical Academic Careers at the School of Health Sciences. She is an Associate Professor of Midwifery and a senior clinical academic midwife at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. Kerry has experience in clinical practice and perinatal mental health research and recently completed a HEE/NIHR Clinical Lectureship award, exploring support for women with symptoms of anxiety in pregnancy. Kerry has expertise in psychometric, qualitative and quantitative systematic reviews, complex intervention development and testing and qualitative primary research.
Email: kerry.evans1@nottingham.ac.uk
Dr Gina Sands - Senior Research Fellow
Gina's background is in healthcare human factors/ergonomics and she has experience in a wide variety of health services research methods, both quantitative and qualitative. Gina has a BSc in Ergonomics/Human Factors, and a PhD in healthcare ergonomics and patient safety from Loughborough University. Gina held research posts at Coventry University, the University of East Anglia, and CLAHRC-EM at the University of Nottingham before joining the School of Health Sciences as a Senior Research Fellow in 2017.
Read more...
Gina’s research interests centres around how the environments we are in (both natural and built) can affect our health, safety, and wellbeing. This includes projects around how being in nature may help promote mental health and wellbeing among young pregnant women, and looking at how the design of birthing rooms may better support women’s needs. Gina is also interested in how human factors methodologies and design thinking may improve the effectiveness and safety of the maternity care system.
Email: gina.sands@nottingham.ac.uk