Alice is a Senior Research Nurse at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (WTCRF), having worked as a Research Nurse within the WTCRF since July 2021. Prior to this, she contributed to the Nursing Now campaign as a Research Assistant, a role that solidified her passion for a career in research. Alice registered as a nurse in 2018, holding an undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Global Health) from Queen Margaret University. Her areas of interest span many areas of sexual and reproductive health, with a particular focus on enhancing education and training for staff in this field.

Anne is a Senior Clinical Research Nurse in the Clinical Infections Research Group in Edinburgh. With a career in nursing dating back to the 1980s, Anne's passion for research began during her time in cardiac surgery, where she first became involved in clinical trials. Over the years, she has worked in a variety of fields, including obstetrics, gynaecology, and fertility research, and has coordinated numerous studies. Anne’s experience spans from early-stage clinical trials, such as ovarian cryopreservation for cancer patients, to high-pressure work during the Ebola outbreak. 

Chris is an Emergency Department doctor undertaking a Clinical Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, and is currently an investigator on two clinical trials. 

Corrienne McCulloch is the Deputy Director of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (CRF), where she leads operations and provides strategic direction across multidisciplinary teams. With over 15 years experience in clinical research, Corrienne began her research career as a critical care research nurse, initially developing an interest in research through the undergraduate nursing degree programme at Queen Margaret University.  Working in critical care as a staff nurse, Corrienne became aware of clinical research in practice through the Edinburgh Critical Care Research Group (ECCRG), joining them and the Edinburgh CRF in her first clinical research nurse post.  She completed a PhD with the University of Edinburgh focused on the experiences of patients, families and nurses with critical care diaries and was awarded an NRS Fellowship to advance her research, later becoming an NRS Clinician whist continuing to work as a research nurse. 

Daisy Sandeman is a Lead Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Manager for Advanced Practice at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Her speciality areas are Cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology and Respiratory medicine. Daisy is dedicated to fostering a collaborative multi-disciplinary environment and a culture of safe governance supporting clinical decision-making and implementing evidence-based practices to enhance patient outcomes. 

Daisy holds a Ph.D. in Health in Social Sciences and is an Honorary Fellow at The University of Edinburgh supporting their educational and training programmes. Daisy has published research on delirium care and is actively involved in related professional affiliations and memberships, contributing to the development of SIGN guidelines for delirium prevention and management along with other NES Advanced practice toolkits. 

Dasha is a Clinical Support Worker (CSW) at the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility. Originally from Canada, where she is a registered nurse with a Master’s in Nursing, she is currently in the UK for two years undertaking a CSW role to develop her clinical research skills and experience. 

Gearóid is currently the Lead Psychiatric Liaison Nurse in the Department of Psychological Medicine, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He is also an NRS Career Research Fellow. He is currently undertaking research around trauma-informed care in an emergency department context and more generally emergency mental health care. His broad research interests focus on the intersection between physical and mental health. He completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh exploring the role of mental health nurses in physical healthcare for people with severe and enduring mental illness. He is also an Associate Editor for Evidence Based Nursing. 

Izy is a speech and language therapist in the adult learning disability team in NHS Lothian. She is currently studying for a clinical doctorate at the University of Stirling, looking at what autistic adults with a learning disability think about being autistic. In addition to this Izy works as a research fellow in the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) at Queen Margaret University. When she gets a spare moment Izy can be found swimming in the sea!

Jenna holds a clinical academic role between the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside, where she provides leadership for Allied Health Professions research. She is an occupational therapist by background and has spent the majority of her career in health and social science research across a variety of different topics. She is a methodologist with particular expertise in theory building and knowledge mobilisation. She started her clinical academic role in 2018, allowing her to focus on both the theory and the practicalities of supporting research culture and engagement in health and social care. She is driven by perpetual curiosity and strives to make research exciting, useful and meaningful for practice.

Jim is a Senior Research Data Manager for cancer clinical trials within the Scottish Cancer Research Network. He began his career as a medical laboratory scientific officer before transitioning into acting, where he became widely recognised as DCI Michael Jardine in the STV series Taggart. In 2013, Jim chose to shift toward a more structured career path, joining the University of Edinburgh and progressing through roles supporting clinical research, eventually taking on a leadership role in Research Data Management. 

Julia is a Senior Trial Manager at the Edinburgh Clinical Trial Unit, University of Edinburgh and has worked there since 2008. She has a nursing background and also worked in a research lab for several years before moving into the field of clinical research and has experience of working in both commercial and academic environments. During her time in trial management, she has worked on many studies with a focus on Critical Care and ED trials.

Professor Juliet MacArthur is Chief Nurse Research & Development in NHS Lothian and Honorary Professor of Practice Queen's University Belfast.  Juliet has worked in NHS Lothian for nearly 40 years and has held a leadership role in research for around 25 years.  One focus  of her role is on research capacity building and striving to create opportunities for clinical academic careers for nurses, midwives and allied health professions. Juliet is the professional lead for the Clinical Research Nursing and Midwifery workforce in NHS Lothian, which makes a huge contribution to the delivery of clinical trials and other research that improve health outcomes and the effectiveness of the NHS.

Lauren is the Research Governance Manager at Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility, and has worked there since 2023. Lauren is responsible for overseeing the control of studies within Edinburgh CRF, ensuring regulatory and internal approvals are in place for studies to be conducted at site.

Lauren grew up in Orkney, moved to Edinburgh to study her degree in Biomedical Science, and since graduating in 2018, has worked in laboratory roles and office based roles, under Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and Good Clinical Practice (GCP).

Liz Craig is a Senior Clinical Trial Monitor in the joint NHS Lothian and University of Edinburgh Sponsor and R&D office (ACCORD).  Responsible for leading the ACCORD monitoring programme, managing the Clinical Trial Monitoring team and developing systems to ensure adequate monitoring oversight of Sponsored trials, Liz has undertaken this role since 2015. Before this Liz was a Clinical Trial Assistant, Trial Manager and Clinical Trial Monitor across several academic institutions gaining varied experience in clinical trials of investigational medicinal products and medical devices. Liz was also previously a course leader for the R&D forum delivering national training on risk based monitoring.

Lorn is the Quality Assurance Manager for the joint NHS Lothian and UoE Sponsor & R&D Office (ACCORD). Lorn is responsible for leading and implementing the ACCORD quality management strategy, which includes maintaining a system of continuous quality improvement that meets the requirements of evolving clinical research legislation and UK-wide guidance. Lorn has held this role since 2016 and during this time completed a MSc in Clinical Trials from the UoE. In addition to providing training in all aspects of Quality Assurance and regulatory affairs to internal staff and research teams across Lothian, Lorn also delivers the National Research Scotland Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training programme. 

Lucy Whitaker is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and has a Fellowship from the Chief Scientist Office.

Her research focuses on precision treatment to reduce endometriosis-associated pain, designing and delivering clinical trials using multiple modalities that include repurposing non hormonal medical treatments to modify the pelvic environment and surgical trials to address management uncertainties in the operative treatment of endometriosis. She leads separate projects on understanding pain flares in endometriosis, and identification of novel biomarkers. Her clinical work focuses on management of endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain and menopause.

Dr. Sarah Gregory is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh Dementia Prevention, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Edinburgh, UK) and the Chief Investigator of the IONA cohort study at Scottish Brain Sciences (Edinburgh, UK). She has a background in psychology, mental health and dementia clinical trials, as well as large dementia prevention cohort studies. Sarah is particularly interested in Patient and Public Involvement work, as well as ethical considerations of research, serving as a member of two research ethics committees. Her primary research interests are focussed on the role of diet in dementia prevention, and the importance of sex and stress hormones in risk for future neurodegenerative disease.

Sean qualified as a dietitian in 2001 and has spent the majority of his career as a home enteral nutrition dietitian, supporting people living at home with a feeding tube. He became interested in how people make decisions about gastrostomy placement and has been involved in the development of resources to support people with MND making decisions about gastrostomy including the mytube website and being an expert advisory panel member for the decision aid ‘Gastrostomy: Is it for me?’. He has been co-applicant on HighCALS, an NIHR Programme Grant lead by Prof. Chris McDermott, developing and evaluating a complex nutritional intervention for people living with MND. Sean has completed an NIHR Doctoral Fellowship focused on how MND multidisciplinary teams support people living with MND to make decisions about gastrostomy. He is keen to take his doctoral findings forward to enable people living with MND to make quality, informed and timely decisions about their care and treatments.

Tom has more than 20 years’ experience in establishing and directing specialist research infrastructure, including the Image Analysis Core as part of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility and retinal imaging resources at Edinburgh Imaging, which support complex clinical studies across multiple disease areas. The Core supports the development of novel image analysis methodologies, interdisciplinary training, and collaboration with national and international partners.  He oversees a diverse research team who help foster new projects and enhance research capacity across Edinburgh. Their facilities have supported over 60 studies and several clinical trials in the past five years. He also leads a research programme in computational retinal image analysis with application of the technology to stroke, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, and dementia.