Contributors

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Jo Merrifield

As the Education Programme Manager at Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility, Jo, along with her fabulous team, has operational responsibility for the delivery of courses and events for the clinical research community, both locally and nationally. She is a registered adult nurse with a background in Emergency Medicine and works closely with clinical teams to support research staff development and training. She is also the Chair for the UK Clinical Research Facility Network Education working group. 


Ultimately, she is passionate about staff development and continued learning. 



Guests

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Alice Thomson

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.

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Anne Saunderson

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. 

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Corrienne McCulloch

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. 

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Dasha Dyachuk

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. 

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Gearóid Brennan

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

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Jim Macpherson

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. 

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Julia Boyd

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.

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Juliet MacArthur

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.

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Lorn MacKenzie

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. 

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Sarah Gregory

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.