Professor Heather Iles-Smith is a clinical academic nurse working in a joint post between the University of Salford and Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust (NCA). She has a track record of research leadership addressing health, social care and public health challenges with £6M associated income. Key areas of her research include long term conditions, psychological wellbeing, and healthcare technologies. Her research methods expertise includes mixed methods and qualitative research.

Professor Iles-Smith has extensive experience of supporting more than thirty successful early career academic and clinical academic staff/students to gain health and care research experience and funded awards. This includes research internships, pre-doctoral clinical academic fellowships (PCAF) and doctoral fellowships. Her experience as a member of the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship panel provides her with greater understanding of what constitutes a high quality NIHR candidate, project and overall fellowship application.

Professor Helen Hurst is a clinical academic nurse consultant. She is a Professor of Nursing at the University of Salford, Consultant Nurse within Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust and a member of NCA’s Centre for Clinical and Care Research. Please view Helen’s  University of Salford profile for more information.

Dr Claire Howard is a clinical academic orthoptist, a neuro/stroke specialist orthoptist in the Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences based at Salford Royal hospital, part of  Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust; an honorary senior lecturer in research (University of Salford), honorary research fellow (University of Liverpool) and a clinical research fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research. She is a DVLA medical advisory panel member for vision disorders and the Greater Manchester hub lead for the Council for Allied Health Professions Research (CAHPR).

Dr Howard’s research interests include post stroke visual impairment, driving, adaptation to visual impairment, hemianopia, blindsight and brain injury. Her research methodologies include mixed methods, observational studies, consensus methods, clinical validation studies and randomised control trials.

Dr Deborah Antcliff is a Chartered clinical academic physiotherapist, an Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner in the Bury Integrated Pain Service, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, a Visiting Clinical Research Fellow (Keele University) and a Clinical Research Fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research.

Dr Antcliff’s research interests include the management of chronic pain, activity pacing as a behavioural change coping strategy, accelerometry to measure physical/sedentary activity, peer-mentorship for osteoarthritis, and pain management among older people with frailty. Her research methodologies include mixed methods, scale development, psychometric testing, consensus methods, and complex intervention development and adaptation.

Dr Kate Grimshaw is a clinical academic dietitian based within Northern Care Alliance, working at Salford Care Organisation. She is an honorary senior research fellow with the University of Manchester, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton and Clinical Research Fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research.

Dr Grimshaw’s research interests include adverse reactions to foods in adults and children including aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of food allergy and also the nutritional adequacy of exclusion diets. The importance of the whole diet and its influence on the gut microbiome and immune system are of particular interest following on from her PhD findings. Her research methodologies include observational studies, randomised control trials including food challenge and blinding methodologies, pattern analysis, and research on dietary intake including food frequency questionnaire design and analysis.