NHS Grampian
Adam Coldwells is Director of Strategy and Deputy Chief Executive for NHS Grampian with a real interest in research and innovation. In strategic terms, Adam spends much of his time considering the sustainability of the Health and Care system. Innovation is one of the fundamental approaches that will be required to make the Health and Care system sustainable as it competes for resources, be that money or people.
Dr Andy Keen is the Clinical Lead for Innovation. He is a Consultant Health Psychologist and former Electronic Design Engineer. His area of expertise is chronic disease management. He manages a range of services across primary and secondary care focused on maximising health and wellbeing outcomes for adults, children and young people with long term conditions and injuries. He is a former Chief Scientist Office NRS career research fellow. He has acted as referee and source of expert advice for scientific journals, funding bodies such as NIHR, and the Scottish and UK Governments.
Maggie Cruickshank has a personal chair in Gynaecology at the University of Aberdeen and is an Honorary Consultant Gynaecologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. She is the Director of Research and Development for NHS Grampian. Her clinical practice focuses on lower genital tract disease. She is past President and a trustee of the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (BSCCP) and President-elect of the European Federation of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (EFC). She currently co-chairs the Education and Training Committee of the International Federation of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (IFCPC).
Hazel Dempsey has a background in both adult nursing and public health programmes and joined NHS Grampian in 2003. Hazel brings expertise in programme management and enthusiasm for delivering supporting creative, technological solutions to healthcare challenges. The role of Programme Manager for Innovation is multi-faceted which contributes to the delivery of innovation programmes and projects in the Grampian Region and beyond, where we are engaged in cross-region collaboration. Day to day, Hazel liaises and collaborates with a wide range of clinical and managerial staff in our organisation, and other NHS regions, academics, industry representatives, and innovation bodies.
Opportunity North East
Lorna joined ONE in 2018 and is responsible for delivering transformational projects in the Life Sciences sector, including the ONE business growth, commercialisation, innovation and leadership programmes and BioHub. A graduate of University of Aberdeen, Lorna has a passion for science and entrepreneurship. She joined Scottish Enterprise Grampian in 1991, becoming Senior Manager for business start-up and key sector development in 2001. In 2008 Lorna set up an independent consultancy business specialising in economic development and European fisheries policy. She was Executive Director of the North Sea Advisory Council from 2012 to 2018.
University of Aberdeen
Ian Stansfield is Director of Research in the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, University of Aberdeen, a role in which he has responsibility for research strategy, its knowledge exchange activities, and developing the School’s translational medicine interactions with the NHS. His personal research interests span the molecular biology of neurodevelopmental disorders, through to innovation in the biotechnology of gene expression systems.
Dr Rattray has extensive experience of research administration, project and contract management together with commercialisation of research (from collaborating with industry, knowledge exchange, licensing to new company formation). She has held board positions with a number of companies, and previously been a member of the Scottish Funding Council’s research committee. The Research and Innovation section plays a key role in supporting the University to deliver upon strategic priorities for research and knowledge exchange in line with the Institutional Strategic Plan. The section provides support for research development, commercialisation, knowledge exchange, enterprise activities and provides administrative support for research policy and the newly formed Graduate School for post graduate research students.
Robert Gordon University
Professor Nick Fyfe is an internationally recognised researcher in the field of policing and criminal justice. Prior to joining Robert Gordon University in March 2021, Nick was Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Dundee. Between 2006 and 2018, he was also founding Director of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and in 2020 he was elected to the fellowship of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences in recognition of his outstanding contributions to research and the application of social science to policy, education, and society. Nick is passionate about promoting interdisciplinarity and the public value of research and is currently a member of the Scottish Funding Council’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee and a Trustee of the UK Police Foundation.
Nirmalie Wiratunga is a research professor at RGU’s School of Computing, with over 20 years’ experience in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and education. She leads the AI and Reasoning group at RGU and is also adjunct IDUN professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is best known for her work on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR). Her recent projects funded through EPSRC, Innovate UK and EU’s FET schemes explore the use of CBR and Conversational AI to deliver explainable methods for neural computation models applied to clinical reasoning, active ageing and self-management of chronic diseases. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS) and serves on numerous programme committees including the premier international joint conference on AI and its co-located Health workshops.
