Dr Louisa Pollock

Consultant in General Paediatrics and Paediatric Infectious Diseases; Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow 

Louisa Pollock has followed an unconventional career path, training in General Paediatrics but with detours into global child health and infectious diseases. She had no formal research time as a trainee but hustled enough research experience over time to secure a Wellcome Clinical PhD fellowship post CCT. 

She now works as a Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases in RHC Glasgow. She is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the MRC University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, with a research interest in childhood virus infections. She is Co-Chair of GAPRUKI (General and Adolescent Paediatric Research Collaborative UK and Ireland) which aims to build capacity in General Paediatric research.
Siân holds an MSc with distinction in Allergy from Imperial College London, specialising in oral allergy syndrome in children. She trained at prestigious London hospitals, including St Mary’s and St Thomas’s.

An Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Exeter Medical School, Siân lectures on Allergy and Immunopathology while driving improvements in paediatric allergy training nationally through the RCPCH. She also champions less than full-time (LTFT) work as her trust’s LTFT and SuppoRRT lead and chairs the RCPCH LTFT committee.

Professor Damian Roland

Head of Service, Children’s Emergency Department; Leicester Royal Infirmary 

Professor Damian Roland is an experienced Paediatric Emergency Medicine clinician who is passionate about improving the care of the ill and injured child.

He has internationally recognised expertise in the creation and evaluation of interventions (including education) to improve the differentiation of well from deteriorating children in emergency and acute care settings. Previously he has developed the Paediatric Observation Priority Score (POPS), now available as an app. He is currently clinical lead for the NHS England National Paediatric Early Warning System.

He has a strong interest in Social Media as a means of Knowledge Translation using the twitter account @damian_roland and blog http://rolobotrambles.com
A passionate mentor, Professor Sutcliffe guides a team of five core staff alongside Masters and PhD students. His clinical PhD students have consistently won awards, with one now serving as his associate professor. He has published over 240 papers and holds an intellectual property portfolio that includes a novel treatment for preventing premature birth.

In recognition of his contributions to women's health, he was awarded the FRCOG and received a Beacon of Light Award from Rishi Sunak for his voluntary efforts.

Dr Emma Thorley

Clinical Research Fellow; The Institute of Cancer Research 

Emma is a ST3 paediatric trainee currently on OOPR undertaking a PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, following completion of an Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) there. Her research focuses on the role of extrachromosomal DNA in driving therapy resistance in high-risk neuroblastoma.  

She is also the co-lead of the Academic Subgroup of the London School of Paediatrics and she founded the PAPERS (Practical Academic Skills for Paediatricians) project, a major teaching initiative that has been successfully delivering academic training to trainees in London since 2023.
She is Co-chair of the RCPCH Trainee Research Network (TRN) and Chair of PenTRAIN, with experience as a sub-investigator for NIHR clinical trials. Holding a Master’s in Clinical Education, Eva lectures on evidence-based healthcare, advocating for junior-led research and building research skills in child health. She balances LTFT training with clinical practice, academic projects, and life administration.

Dr Francesca Neale

Academic Clinical Fellow; Imperial College London 

Francesca is an ST3 paediatric trainee currently undertaking integrated research time with the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. Her research uses large, routinely collected datasets to explore patterns of childhood infections, with a particular focus on Group A Streptococcus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Francesca is also a member of the Academic Subgroup of the London School of Paediatrics, where she leads their initiatives to support trainees in accessing research opportunities and applying for Academic Clinical Fellowships (ACFs).

Dr Rachel Sippy

Postdoctoral Research Associate; University of Cambridge 

Dr Sippy is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and a Research Fellow at Clare Hall. She works to improve data quality and to generate data resources by standardising routinely-collected data for use in research and service improvement. Dr Sippy advocates for improvements in the teaching of and communication about epidemiology, data, and statistics, both in formal classrooms and to the general public. She has led courses/workshops on computing for epidemiology/statistics, statistical modelling, machine learning, data management, and data visualization.
His research focuses on pragmatic trials in paediatric ventilation, critical care epidemiology, infection biomarkers, and AI in decision-making. He led the FIRST ABC RCTs, the largest trials in paediatric non-invasive respiratory support, and currently leads the BACHb trial in bronchiolitis. He has contributed to major trials like CATCH, Oxy-PICU, and PRESSURE.

Professor John Wright

Director of Research; Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 

John Wright is a doctor and epidemiologist with a background in hospital medicine and public health in the UK and in Africa. He established and leads the Bradford Institute for Health Research and Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research. He Director of the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration and Visiting Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at the Universities of York, Bristol, Leeds and Bradford. In 2007 he set up the Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort study and in 2016 set up the world’s first interventional birth cohort Born in Bradford’s Better Start. He leads Connected Bradford, one of the richest whole system datasets in the UK and established ActEarly to develop a whole systems City Collaboratory approach to improving the health and life chances of children from deprived communities in London and Yorkshire. John has worked to develop sustainable public health programmes in Africa for 30 years and has reported for the BBC on programmes covering Born in Bradford, Ebola and The NHS Frontline.

Professor Amos Burke

Professor of Paediatric Oncology, Head of Department and Director of Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit; University of Birmingham 

Amos Burke is Professor of Paediatric Oncology at the University of Birmingham and an Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Birmingham, Women and Children’s Hospital. He is Director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU) and leads research strategy for one of the UK’s largest and an internationally important clinical trials units that delivers a trial portfolio over a wide range of cancers occurring in children, young people and adults. His research is focussed on childhood non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

Professor Paul Dimitri

Vice President for Science and Research; RCPCH 

Paul currently works at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust as a Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology and the Clinical Director of Innovation and Child Health Technology. He has worked in paediatrics since 1998 and specialised in paediatric endocrinology since 2004. Paul leads the Hypothalamic and Pituitary Tumour Service at Sheffield Children’s Hospital and co-leads the Paediatric Late Effects Endocrinology service, supporting childhood cancer survivors with hormonal complications. He is Professor of Child Health Technology at the University of Sheffield, and Professor of Child Health at Sheffield Hallam University. Paul is Vice President for Science and Research at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Director of

the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health.  He was the NIHR National Children’s Specialty Lead from 2016-2024 during which time he strategically led NIHR children’s research and supported 15 Local Clinical Research Networks. Paul was recently appointed as an NIHR Senior Investigator. The NIHR Senior Investigator award is a prestigious

award that recognises outstanding leaders in applied health and social care research who have made significant contributions to the National Institute for Health and Care Research community.

For over a decade, Paul has led on the development and implementation of national technology networks that specifically focus on the development and adoption of technology for paediatrics and child health through private and public sector collaboration. In addition to being the Director of the NIHR HRC in Paediatrics and Child Health, Paul also serves as the Clinical Lead for the National TITCH (Technology Innovation Transforming Child Health) Network, and was the Director of the NIHR Children and Young People MedTech Cooperative from 2018 to 2024, supporting the development and adoption of child health technology. Since 2014, these networks have leveraged over £50 million, and he currently leads the development of the

£24.4 million National Centre for Child Health Technology in Sheffield, to ensure that children nationally and internationally receive the best and most advanced healthcare.

Emma Sparrow

Head of Children, Young People and Engagement; RCPCH

Emma Sparrow is the Head of Children, Young People & Engagement at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health where she has worked for the last 9 years. She has extensive experience in children and young people’s participation in decision making, service design and delivery with health, social care, the Police, local authorities and in local and national charities. Her qualifications in youth and community development (BA/MA) alongside Level 6 in British Sign Language, ensures that the work delivered by her and the team is inclusive and accessible to all, drawing from youth work principles and a rights-based approach. You can follow Emma on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-sparrow-engagement-specialist/ or email and_us@rcpch.ac.uk for more information about the RCPCH approach to engagement.