South Central

Peter Worsley

Pete is a physiotherapist by background who undertook a PhD exploring outcomes following knee replacement. In his early career he worked as a clinical academic, exploring mechanisms of musculoskeletal pathology. He now leads Southampton’s Skin Health Research Group based in the Clinical Academic Facility at Southampton General Hospital. The group has access to specialist laboratory and clinical research facilities, working with an inter-disciplinary team to evaluate new medical device technologies.

Dr Rhiannon Joslin

Dr Rhiannon Joslin is a physiotherapist who is passionate about improving health services for children and young people experiencing musculoskeletal pain. As a clinical academic, she combines clinical practice as a specialist physiotherapist within a paediatric multidisciplinary chronic pain team in West Sussex, with research and education at the University of Southampton. Her PhD was informed by Q methodology and used novel creative methods to explore the outcomes of treatment that were the most important to young people, and their parents, when receiving treatment for persistent musculoskeletal pain. Her work focuses on empowering young people both clinically and within research, providing a platform to hear their under-represented viewpoint. She was part of the guideline development group for the World Health Organization guidelines on the management of chronic pain in children and continues to represent physiotherapy within this field.

Dr Caroline Belchamber

Caroline’s research interests and areas of expertise include the non-pharmacological approach to breathlessness and palliative rehabilitation, as well as human rights in end of life care, with work published in several peer-reviewed journals and presentations at key conferences. More recently Caroline has focused on COVID-19 recovery and rehabilitation working with Health Education England (HEE) to develop Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) e-learning resources for COVID-19 on the e-Learning for Health platform (e-LfH), as well as writing a chapter on COVID-19, Long-term conditions and supportive, palliative and end of life care in the 5^th edition of Payne’s Handbook of Relaxation Techniques – a practical guide for healthcare professionals and students. Caroline is also a peer reviewer for 3 key palliative, supportive and end of life journals, physiotherapy journal and rehabilitation journal with verified reviews logged through Publons.

Chantel Ostler

Chantel Ostler is a consultant clinical academic working across Solent NHS trust, Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust and the University of Southampton. She has over 20 years’ experience in the NHS as a specialist physiotherapist working with patients following lower limb loss and has been undertaking clinically focused research in prosthetic rehabilitation for the past 12 years.   She is currently undertaking her PhD exploring meaningful outcome measurement and is passionate about real world research that improves clinical care for patients. Within her role with Solent NHS Trust she acts as clinical lead for research, facilitating clinical teams to engage with research in their daily practice and supporting the development of future NHS research leaders. Chantel is a CAHPR NIHR Research Champion.

Charlotte Dando

I am a podiatrist with experience of working in the NHS and private health sector. My PhD focused on developing clinical guidelines using a Delphi methodology. I am a member of the Active Living research group in the School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton. I am an emerging leader in foot and ankle ultrasound imaging, rehabilitation and foot and ankle tissue health. I am building a growing track record of publications in this field whilst collaborating with partners in New Zealand, Australia, Malta, and UK. I am building my research methodology skills in Delphi, semi structured interviewing (NVIVO trained), focus group facilitating, questionnaire and survey design, citizen science, observational study design and randomised control trials.

My career history demonstrates my commitment to clinical practice and applied health research (2016-2021). In my NHS clinical role, I was site co-I for 3 studies (CapToe, INSTEP, OPTiFoot). I also contributed to the wider research network (20+ surveys 3 interventional studies, 6+ qualitative interviews) and worked with communities, local authorities, patients, and carers to improve systems and accessibility of NHS services.

In the private sector, I have designed, developed, and implemented a database system to capture foot health data using current private practice infrastructure. This contributed to generating and translating new knowledge whilst championing others through mentoring/supervision. Translation of my research has occurred through online social media platforms (20+ podcasts and live/pre-recorded teaching sessions) to the public and wider health professional audiences nationally and internationally.

Clare Smith

Clare Smith is a Consultant Speech & Language Therapist & Clinical Lead for Children’s Physical and Developmental Health Services at Solent NHS Trust.

Clare gained her PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Surrey as an NIHR Clinical Academic Trainee.  Her thesis examined the effectiveness of a primary prevention initiative for language development on parent-child interactions and child language outcomes in areas of social disadvantage. Clare’s research interests are concerned with environmental factors on early language development, particularly the impact of disadvantage on families opportunities and capabilities to support language development at home.

Leisle Ezekiel

Dr Leisle Ezekiel is an occupational therapist employed at the University of Southampton as lecturer and researcher. Her research previously focused on social participation and the impact of fatigue after acquired brain injury. She is now researching the use of digital technology and patient generated data to support therapy interventions and self management of fatigue in conditions such as brain injury and long covid. Dr Leisle Ezekiel | University of Southampton – Academia.edu

Professor Lisa Roberts PhD PFHEA MMACP FCSP

Clinical Professor of Musculoskeletal Health (University of Southampton) and Consultant Physiotherapist (University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust)

Lisa is clinical academic in the field of musculoskeletal health. Her research priorities include: communication and decision-making; improving patient experience; and promoting independence using web-based technologies.  She is a former President of the Society of Back Pain Research and WHO Peer Review Group for Musculoskeletal Conditions, has multiple current roles in Eurospine, including the Spine20 initiative to improve spine care globally. Lisa has published widely, gained over £8 million research funding and supervised 35 masters’ and doctoral students.  She mentors and advocates strongly for clinical academic careers, has previously served on the NIHR pre-doctoral panel, and is a current member of the Council of Deans of Health Clinical Academic Roles & Career Pathways Implementation Network (CARINS) and the Community for Allied Health Professions Research (CAHPR) Strategy Committee.

Luisa Holt

Luisa is a physiotherapist specialising in working with people with neurological conditions across different healthcare settings. She has worked for the NHS and mostly recently in private practice. She has undertaken an MSc in advanced professional practice in neurological rehabilitation which re-awakened her interest and involvement in research. This has led on to gaining a senior research assistant role on projects related to increasing physical activity levels in older people and people with long term health conditions.

Ruth Reeve

Dr Ruth Reeve is a Clinical Specialist and Lead Sonographer based in Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust with a background in Diagnostic Radiography.

Ruth’s research interests are focussed on gastrointestinal imaging, ultrasound and patient experiences of imaging surveillance, completing her PhD in 2023. Ruth is an active member of the radiography and ultrasound community working closely with the British Medical Ultrasound Society and College of Radiographers. Ruth is currently an associate member of The Radiography Journal.

Vikram Mohan

Vikram is a senior lecturer in physiotherapy at Bournemouth University’s Faculty of Health and Social Science. Prior to joining BU, he obtained a PhD on “Respiratory Characteristics of Individuals with Nonspecific Low Back Pain and the Effect of Therapeutic Exercise.” In India, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, he worked as a clinician and a member of the teaching staff in a variety of physiotherapy settings and locations. His areas of interest in research include dysfunctional breathing/breathing pattern disorders, the development of outcome measures, pain and breathing, COPD and musculoskeletal disorders, and COPD and pulmonary rehabilitation.

Dr Adam Lewis

Adam is an Associate Professor in Physiotherapy at The University of Southampton on a balanced portfolio, leading the respiratory education on the BSc and MSc physiotherapy programmes and completing research in the fields of chronic respiratory disease and breathing pattern disorder. He is currently completing an NIHR RfPB feasibility study focused on Singing for Lung Health groups after Pulmonary Rehabilitation completion, and is setting up a Southern Respiratory Cohort Database across the Wessex region. He is the Research Champion for The Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care.