I am a social scientist, interested in how we make, mobilise and use evidence in policy and practice. With Annette Boaz, I co-direct the research collaboration Transforming Evidence, which brings together funders, decision-makers, practitioners and researchers from a range of disciplines and sectors. We aim to both do research on evidence production and use, and to ensure that the research we do is used.

I started work as a molecular biologist, and moved into social sciences and public health when conducting systematic reviews for policymakers, at the EPPI Centre. Interested in how evidence informed policy, I used social network analysis to explore the role of social structure in evidence use in local government for my PhD. During this work I connected with a hugely interdisciplinary community of researchers with similar interests, which led ultimately to the formation of Transforming Evidence. I have held research and teaching posts at Manchester, Oxford and UCL, and now at LSHTM.

I am currently working as a Fellow in the UK Government Office for Science, exploring how evidence knowledge needs are articulated and acted on by central government. Other bits of work include evaluation of various academic-policy engagement initiatives, working with funders and decision-makers in the UK, EU and USA to understand science-policy systems, and developing the field of evidence studies. I also have a long-standing interest in the evaluation of unintended effects of policies and practices.