Staff

Linaker, Cathy

Senior Research Fellow

Linaker, Cathy

Name
Dr Cathy Linaker
Qualifications
PhD BN RGN
Role
Senior Research Fellow

I am a senior research fellow with a special interest in work and health and am a co-investigator on the Health and Employment after Fifty (HEAF) Study. I am also the training lead for early career researchers in Programme 2 and the Arthritis Research UK/MRC Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work (with research aimed at identifying cost-effective ways of minimising the substantial adverse impacts of musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace).

I graduated in Nursing Studies at the University of Southampton in 1990. I worked as a clinical research nurse in the Department of Medicine at the University of Southampton where I completed a PhD in 1997 that explored the effects of nitrogen dioxide on asthmatic symptoms in school-aged children.

I joined the MRC Unit in Southampton in 1997 and subsequently set up and coordinated a number of large scale community longitudinal studies of upper limb disorders. This included the development and piloting of a standardised proforma for the upper limb and neck (the Southampton Examination Schedule) and the subsequent training of other researchers and clinical staff in this technique.

I have also coordinated a number of other occupational studies including: a case-control study of occupational and lifestyle risk factors for carpal tunnel syndrome; a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of physical activity and physiotherapy in the management of distal arm pain; the Health and Employment After Fifty (HEAF) study; a NIHR-funded feasibility trial of Individualised Placement and Support for unemployed people with chronic pain (InSTEP) and the Well@Work Project with Southampton City Council that aims to provide support to people with musculoskeletal and/or mental health conditions who are at risk of losing their jobs.

Cathy Linaker's Publications

Marshall-Cox, Philip

Building Facilities Manager

Marshall-Cox, Philip

Name
Philip Marshall-Cox

Qualifications
BSc, PGCE, NVQ Level 3 Electrical Installation, NVQ Level 3 Electrical Inspection and Test, NEBOSH National General Certificate

Role
Building Facilities Manager

Philip graduated with a Degree in Physics from Southampton University in June 1998 and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in 1999. He spent approximately 12 years teaching GCSE and A Level Physics in a number of Hampshire Secondary schools with a brief interlude on medical grounds during which he also retrained to cover the Primary phase.

Leaving teaching in 2012 to pursue practical ambitions, he studied for a string of vocational qualifications before trading independently as an Electrician ahead of being invited to join the MRC as a part-time Building Manager towards the end of 2013. Whilst continuing to conduct business as a sole-trader away from the MRC, Philip studied for the necessary Health and Safety qualifications to enable him to take over the role of Building Facilities Manager full-time in January of 2015.

Since 2015, Philip has overseen the external refurbishment of the building, working closely with Jerry Draper and the external contractors to keep the project on course and ensure the building remains viable for the foreseeable future. In addition, he has worked toward agreeing a review of the electrical specification of the building, working closely with Martyn Poxon and Ray Smith to complete a total rewire and a doubling of the incoming capacity to accommodate future freezer provision.

Philip is a regular member of the Faculty of Medicine Health and Safety panel with Karen Walker-Bone and liaises regularly with Mark Pickett to ensure continued compliance with Health and Safety updates.

McGill, Karen

Research Nurse

McGill, Karen

Name
Mrs Karen McGill

Qualifications

Role
Research Nurse

Having qualified as an RGN in 1986, Karen went on to become a midwife and worked at the Princess Anne Hospital, Southampton, for a number of years. She is interested in health promotion and has also worked on smoking cessation initiatives with pregnant women.

Karen joined the Southampton Women’s Survey in 1998 as a research nurse. She worked on the Southampton Women’s Survey and on a study within the SWS on maternal diet, body composition and protein metabolism before and during pregnancy, and their relation to fetal growth. Most recently she has been involved in the MAVIDOS and SPRING maternal Vitamin D studies.

Nield, Heidi

Trial Director

Nield, Heidi

Name
Heidi Nield
Qualifications
Role
Clinical Trial Operations Director

Ntani, Georgia

Senior Research Fellow

Ntani, Georgia

Name
Dr Georgia Ntani

Qualifications
MSc, PhD

Role
Senior Research Fellow

Georgia completed her diploma (5-year degree) in Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece, before completing an MSc in medical statistics at the University of Southampton. She then joined the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in 2010 as a medical statistician mainly working with the research team of occupational epidemiology. In 2017 she obtained a PhD in medical statistics looking at approaches to the analysis of clustered data arising from multicentre studies. Since then, Georgia has been working at the MRC LEU as a senior research fellow researching the effects of musculoskeletal problems and related disability.

The specific projects that she is involved in include: cultural effects of musculoskeletal pain and related disability; the associations between work and health among people around the age of retirement; short and long term outcomes for patients going back to work after hip/knee arthroplasty; effects on post-operative return to work timescales for patients undergoing carpal tunnel release. Even though Georgia’s main research interests focus on the effects on musculoskeletal pain, she is also particularly interested in the methodological aspects of epidemiological investigation.

George Ntani's Publications

Osborne, Matt

IT Support

Osborne, Matt

Name
Matt Osborne
Qualifications
MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional), Comptia A+ Computer Support Technician, Level 3 Diploma in ICT Systems and Principles, Level 3 Diploma in ICT Professional Competence
Role
IT Support Assistant

Matt Joined the unit in January 2016. He’d previously been working in the Pharmacy IMT & ePrescribing team at Southampton General Hospital maintaining their equipment and systems and ensuring that they were functional and fit for purpose.

He currently works on the IT helpdesk answering calls and queries from people in the unit about their equipment and software, fixing problems that arrive and procuring new equipment as needed.

Osmond, Clive

Emeritus Professor of Biostatistics

Osmond, Clive

Name
Emeritus Professor Clive Osmond

Qualifications
MA, PhD, CStat

Role
Medical Research Council Senior Scientist and Professor of Biostatistics

Current Position: 1980 to present. Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, UK. Medical Research Council Senior Scientist and Professor of Biostatistics.

Summary: I am a collaborating applied statistician with a special interest in the early life origins of health and disease. I worked for thirty years with the late Professor David Barker as he developed these ideas. I research how events early in life programme consequences later in life, studying cohorts in which early life measurements were measured in particular detail. I have close collaborations with birth cohorts in the UK, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Jamaica and New Delhi. I am a member of the COHORTS collaboration, a collection of such studies in Low and Middle Income Countries.

Education:

1977 MA Mathematics Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, UK

1980 PhD Mathematics University of Bath, UK

Collaborators:

Professor Bo Abrahamsen, Glostrup Hospital, Denmark

Dr Saleh Al-wasel, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia

Professor Linda Adair, University of North Carolina, USA (COHORTS collaboration)

Dr Marieke de Beer, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Professor Johan Eriksson, Helsinki University, Finland

Professor Caroline Fall, University of Southampton

Professor Tom Fleming, University of Southampton, UK

Professor Terrence Forrester, University of the West Indies

Dr Eero Kajantie, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Professor Dan Lackland, Medical University of South Carolina, USA

Professor Michelle Lampl, Emory University, USA

Professor Andrew Lotery, University of Southampton, UK

Professor Francisco Mardones, Santiago, Chile

Professor Reynaldo Martorel, Emory University, USA (COHORTS collaboration)

Professor Shane Norris, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa (COHORTS collaboration)

Professor David Phillips, University of Southampton

Professor Katri Raikkonen, Helsinki University, Finland

Professor Tessa Roseboom, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Professor Harshpal Singh Sachdev, Sitaram Bhartia Hospital, New Delhi, India.

Professor Graham Serjeant, Sickle Cell Trust, Kingston, Jamaica

Professor Umberto Simeoni, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland

Professor Thorkild Sorensen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Professor Minerva Thame, University of the West Indies

Professor Kent Thornburg, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, USA

Professor Cesar Victora, University of Pelotas, Brazil

Professor Susan Walker, University of the West Indies

Professor Chittaranjan Yajnik, KEM Hospital Pune, India

Graduate Advisor: I mentor the statisticians in our department working on these topics. I provide statistical advice to members of Sneha (the India developmental origins society), and have advised the equivalent groups in the Nordic Countries and Thailand.

Thesis advising: In the last five-year period I have supervised six PhD students to completion and two are still active.

Clive Osmond's Publications

Parsons, Camille

Senior Research Fellow

Parsons, Camille

Name
Dr Camille (Millie) Parsons

Qualifications
MSc, PhD

Role
Senior Research Fellow/statistician

Millie originally joined the Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in 2012 as a statistician within the musculoskeletal programme of research in the unit. She has recently completed a PhD entitled “Definition of trajectories of joint space narrowing in knee osteoarthritis in the presence of measurement error”. In her thesis Millie developed and contrasted statistical methods that identify change in a continuous variables used to monitor osteoarthritis disease progression, knee joint space width measurement, over time within individuals diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis. Millie’s research interests include monitoring and understanding longitudinal change and risk factors, with a particular focus in osteoarthritis and bone health.

Before joining the Unit Millie obtained an MSc in Statistics with Applications in Medicine from the University of Southampton in October 2010. She initially worked as a research assistant at the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College, using routinely captured health data to develop measures of quality in healthcare. She has also worked as a clinical statistician at Southampton Biomedical Research Unit, Southampton General Hospital.

Camille Parsons' Publications

Pearce, Jane

Personal Assistant

Pearce, Jane

Name
Mrs Jane Pearce

Qualifications

Role
Personal Assistant

Jane joined the unit in 1997, and is PA for Caroline Fall (and colleagues from the research centres in India), and also provides secretarial support for Clive Osmond (liaising with the COHORTS group and other overseas collaborations).

She is also HR Administrator for the Unit.

Jane undertakes the administration of the Epidemiology for Clinicians course, and also supports the day-to-day running of the International DOHaD Society.

Percival, Amanda

Executive Assistant

Percival, Amanda

Name
Amanda Percival
Qualifications
BA Interior Design & Decoration
Role
Executive Assistant

Act as first point of contact; plan and provide a confidential EA service, filtering enquiries and exercising sound judgement, diary management, management of the Director’s emails – prioritising and drafting emails and correspondence on his behalf and responding where appropriate, co- ordinating all travel arrangements and preparing itineraries, visa applications, organising meetings and taking minutes, maintaining up to date records. Line manage part time secretary and office assistant including carrying out appraisals, organising induction packs for new members of staff and provide coaching/training to colleagues as appropriate.

Phillips, David

Professor

Phillips, David

Name
Professor David Phillips

Qualifications
MA, PhD, FRCP

Role
Professor of Metabolic and Endocrine Programming

David Phillips graduated in medicine from the University of Cambridge. After obtaining an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1981, he was a Wellcome Research Fellow at the University of Southampton from 1981-85. He spent a year in North Kivu, Zaire as Field Director for the MRC/Oxfam programme of research into iodine deficiency in the following year. On his return to Britain, he was Lecturer in Endocrinology and Honorary Senior Registrar in General Medicine, Diabetes and Endocrinology at University of Wales College of Medicine. He joined the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit in 1991.

His main research interest is in the mechanisms of endocrine and metabolic programming. Persisting changes in the set-point of major endocrine axes appear to be one mechanism by which events in early life influence the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. Recent evidence from animal studies and preliminary evidence in humans have suggested that altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity plays an important part. Currently his group is studying the way in which low birth weight is linked with altered (HPA) axis function and how this in turn is linked with metabolic disease. The group has access to several unique studies of men and women with details of their birth records and also has clinical and laboratory facilities for detailed studies of these men and women.

David Phillips' Publications

Price, Adam

Data Processor

Price, Adam

Name
Adam Price

Qualifications

Role
Data Processor

Adam is a Data Processing Assistant and has been working at the MRC since September 2013. He is responsible for accurately entering medical research data from surveys into the appropriate databases. Previously he worked as a coder for a market research company.