Our core team

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Gayathri De Lanerolle is the founder of the DEBM Lab. She is a Researcher and Charted Scientist. 

Her research interests include Women's Health, Chronic conditions and Artificial Intelligence with a special focus on Disease Sequalae and Multimorbidity. 

She has experience in conducting Evidence Syntheses, Epidemiology and Pre-Clinical studies. 

She has significant experience working with both industry sponsored and academic clinical trials of all phases evaluating a variety of investigational medicinal products, medical devices and complex interventions.

She is also an academic supervisor and contributor to a number of national and international research committees.

She is an expert at developing, setting-up, managing and delivering both commercial and non-commercial clinical trials.  

Jian Qing Shi is a Professor in Medical Statistics working on a variety of Global Health Projects. He is a Professor of Medical Statistics in the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Professor Shi is also Director of the Center for Biostatistics, at Southern University of Science and Technology. 

He was a Reader in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics and, Assistant Director of Cloud Computing for Big Data CDT at Newcastle University. He is a former Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.

His research interests include functional data analysis, missing data and bias analysis and covariance structural analysis. He has had highly impactful publications, including in the Journal of Royal Statistical Society Series B, Journal of American Statistical Association, Biometrika, Biometrics, Biostatistics, Lancet and British Medical Journal (BMJ). He has also published a monograph in Chapman & Hall, CRC ( Gaussian Process Regression Analysis for Functional Data with Choi. T. 2011) in addition to a number of contributions to a variety of academic books.

Ashish Shetty is Consultant in Pain Management at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is a Professor in Pain Medicine at University College London. He is also the Neuromodulation lead at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Professor Shetty completed his Anaesthesia and Pain Management training at Cambridge University Hospitals and a fellowship in Neuromodulation at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London. 

Professor Shetty is also a Visiting Professor at Sri Siddhartha Medical College, India. He serves as the regional advisor in pain medicine for the faculty of pain medicine and is a secretary at the Royal Society of Medicine. 

He specialises in the use of spinal cord stimulation to treat complex neuropathic pain problems such as the persistent back, leg, pelvic, and headache pain. He has a special interest in chronic neck, spinal, pelvic, abdominal and thoracic pain, as well as neuropathic and nerve pain. His research interests include AI, neuromodulation, pelvic and neuropathic pain.

He has worked with professionals from all around the world and continues to collaborate with those in the field of pain medicine. Professor Shetty received the clinical excellence award from the House of Lords for his work in the field.

Peter Phiri, is a Senior Clinical Researcher and the Director of Research & Innovation at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. 

He is also a Visiting Academic in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK. With over 20 years in the NHS working in varied clinical settings with individuals with severe mental illness. 

He has developed Culturally adapted Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Psychosis  (CaCBTp) as part of his doctorate. Dr Phiri is a British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Fellow and serves in the National Conference Advisory Group (formerly Scientific Committee). 

Dr Phiri is a Principal investigator on several research studies. He is an expert at developing, set-up, management and delivery of both commercial and non-commercial clinical trials. He is on the editorial board of the CBT Journal and a peer reviewer on several scientific journals. He has published widely and disseminated both at national and international level.

Om Kurmi is a Professor of Epidemiology.. He worked as a Senior Scientist in Respiratory Epidemiology at the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, the University of Oxford. He worked as an Assistant Professor in Respiratory Epidemiology in the Division of Respirology, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. Currently, he is working as an Associate Professor in Epidemiology and Evidence-based Healthcare Research at Coventry University. 

He is the chair of the Respiratory Epidemiology Group (6.01) of the European Respiratory Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health. He has worked in several large-scale prospective cohorts across all geographical regions, including in biobank studies. His primary research expertise is Respiratory Epidemiology and Environmental Health Epidemiology, and he has been teaching observational research methods and problem-based learning to undergraduate and postgraduate students. 

He has set up a family cohort in two regions of Nepal to understand the major determinants of health, particularly lung health in children.

Sohier Elneil is a Professor in Urogynaecology and Neurogynaecology at University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (including the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London). She started her career in the field of Urogynaecology in the 1990’s. This included the specialist assessment, investigation, diagnosis and management of urinary incontinence, faecal incontinence, and utero-vaginal prolapse. All of these urogynaecological problems led her to pursue further surgical training in gynaecology, urology and aspects of colorectal surgery in order to become proficient in performing complex reconstructive pelvic floor surgery, laparoscopic continence and prolapse surgery, as well as general and complex gynaecological procedures. 

Her research interest led her on to do her PhD at the University of Cambridge to study the physiology and pharmacology of sensory bladder dysfunction in women.This led to her interest in the investigation, diagnoses and treatment of patients with neurological bladder dysfunction. At the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square in London, she is the lead for the sacral neuromodulator programme for intractable bladder and pelvic floor dysfunction.

She has worked closely with many pharmaceutical and medical device companies, both in the UK, Europe and in the USA. 

Over the last decade, she has developed the field of neuro-urogynaecology. Her research programme is based within this field and in particular she is focused on the neuropathology of bladder/bowel/pelvic floor dysfunction and the role of innovative therapy in restoring function to these sites (with the proviso of understanding the mechanism of action). This involves both clinical and basic science research and collaborates with colleagues in the United Kingdom, Europe, America, Africa and Asia. She has been awarded grants for work on sensory mechanisms in the bladder, mechanism of action studies in neuromodulation, the role of chemo-neuromodulation in chronic pain states, obstetric fistula research and female genital mutilation research.

She is also teaching and training colleagues in the UK and further afield. She has recently been honoured with a Visiting Professorship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology to the University of Ibadan in Nigeria (the oldest University in Africa) for her ongoing work in developing and instituting a new postgraduate degree in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, for which she is also a preceptor and trainer. 

Yassine Bouchareb is a Senior Researcher and Scientist. He is an expert in Medical Physics (UK, RPA2000) with over 20 years experience within academia and healthcare. He has worked in leading healthcare and academic institutions in the UK (Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Foundation Trust), Germany, France (including René-Descartes University, Paris)and Qatar. The current professorial appointment at Sultan Qaboos University (Oman) focuses on developing medical imaging approaches suitable for Clinical Radiology settings and clinical research in Artificial Intelligence and Radiomics.

He is the author of several high impact scientific publications in imaging techniques and advanced image processing algorithms, evaluation of the efficacy of new drugs for Cardiovascular Diseases, Brain Disorders, Chronic Pain and Cancer, and most recently in developing Artificial Intelligence and Radiomics-based techniques for COVID19 and Cancer..

His teaching commitments cover Radiology, Medical Physics and Cardiology residents on a variety of internationally accredited programmes, in addition to the supervision of MSc, PhD students and post-doctoral researchers. 

He is an expert reviewer for multiple journals; Radiology, Physics in Medicine and Biology, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular imaging. 

Jeremy Van Vlymen is an Epidemiologist and has worked in primary and acute care settings. He has extensive knowledge and experience working with Electronic Healthcare Data in the UK, including the use of clinical informatics methods during his time at University of Surrey, St George's School of Medicine and University of Oxford. Mr Van Vlymen is also experienced with R programming. 

Ian Litchfield is a senior researcher in the Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, with over 20 years’ experience in high-quality health service delivery research. He is experienced in a range of qualitative, quantitative, and collaborative improvement techniques, working with a variety of stakeholders to design, implement, and evaluate interventions and strategies for improved health and social care delivery. 

Recent and ongoing projects have included the introduction of AI in social care organisations, the development of the Clinical Research Network’s National Strategy for Primary Care, the NHSE’s evaluation of the virtual ward programme, and their integrated primary and social care initiatives, and developing a paediatric screening programme and self-management support for children and young people with diabetes.  

Ian is co-lead of the Centre of Primary Care Improvement at University of Birmingham and Academic Lead of Birmingham Health Partners Evaluation Service

Helen Douglas is a biochemist by training, Helen’s early career research focused on clinical and forensic applications of stable isotope profiling, working as a senior research fellow at the University of Dundee and Queens University Belfast. A former FIRMS Lead Forensic Practitioner and NPIA advisor, Helen shifted direction in 2018 and now works with survivors of complex trauma at Trauma Healing Together, and set up Quercus Counselling in 2024 to support autistic girls and women. 

Her personal experience of a surgical menopause lead her to engage with a variety of hormonal-health advocacy projects in the UK and Nepal. 

Nilanthi Ekanayake is an experienced Project Manager with over 10 years of experience in Software, Search Engine Optimization, International Project Management and Business Analysis. She started her career as a Software Engineer in 2008 and her passion for the career encouraged her to pursue further studies in the field of Information Technology. She has experience in collaboratively leading multinational teams in a  multitude of business domains towards the successful execution of the project lifecycle using various project approaches such as Agile, Predictive and Incremental methodologies. 

She is experienced in the use of scientific management for Project Management from Project Initiation to Project Closing and tailoring the approach for the project environment. 

As a Business Analyst, she has experience working with project stakeholders for the requirement analysis and design of solutions. She has also worked with project execution teams from Discovery to Delivery of projects to collaborate, define and execute change management in relation to the project scope. 

Nilanthi has a passion to continue the study of scientific management of projects to better understand the business value it offers to the organization and the value an organization as well as the project offers to employees.

Ramya Palanisamy is an accomplished professional with a background in cancer research and a special interest in women's health. Her academic journey includes a double-masters Master in Cancer, from a preclinical and clinical perspective with a wide range of topics from developing novel therapeutics, impact and correlation between biomarkers and nutrition, cancer biology and epidemiological outcomes. 

She also has expertise in Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, equipping her to use Data Science approaches.

Ramya has extensive experience in both research and healthcare management, working with multidisciplinary teams.