Improving health and healthcare for all, with design.
We design products and services that address challenges and unmet needs in health and healthcare.
We do this by putting people and their needs at the centre of our collaborative design process.
Our process includes evaluation of new ideas through user testing and clinical trials, to ensure that they lead to better outcomes, experiences and equity.
We extend our impact by educating researchers and healthcare leaders in our methods, and fully believe in the power of sharing.
Who we are
The Helix Centre is a research lab for design and health co-founded by two world-renowned universities, Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. We are a multi-disciplinary team of designers, behavioural scientists, technologists, clinical experts, and public involvement professionals.
Uniquely located at St Mary's Hospital in London, we have strong relationships with staff, patients and diverse communities, who we work alongside to ensure that people and their needs are at the centre of everything we do.
Our work includes multi-year, cutting-edge scientific research programmes that allow us to develop deep expertise, as well as shorter-term project work for healthcare organisations wanting to address high-priority challenges.
Who we work with
There are a range of ways to work with the Helix Centre, from funded research collaborations through to direct commissions of project and education-based work.
We aim to ensure that our work has a clear path to impact, puts people at the centre of the approach, builds on our existing portfolio and expertise, and strengthens our relationships with local communities, patient groups or staff.
If you have a project opportunity that meets the criteria above then feel free to contact us on hello@helixcentre.com.
Meet the team
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Lord Ara Darzi
Co-Director
Lord Darzi is a Professor of Surgery and Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. Research led by Professor Darzi is directed towards achieving best surgical practice through innovation in surgery and enhancing patient safety and the quality of healthcare. In 2007, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health. Upon relinquishing this role within central government, Professor Darzi sat as the UK's Global Ambassador for Health and Life Sciences until March 2013. Professor Darzi was appointed and remains a member of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council since June 2009.
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Christoph Lindner
Co-Director
Christoph is the President and Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, the internationally renowned postgraduate art and design university. He was previously Professor of Urban Studies and Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon, and Professor of Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. He is a Trustee of the Victoria & Albert Museum and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and Royal Geographical Society.
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Leila Shepherd
Managing Director
Leila has 20 years' experience in developing and scaling healthcare technology from concept to launch. Prior to joining Helix, she was part of the executive management team at NHS Digital where she led key national delivery initiatives as part of the Covid response, as well as shaping the strategy for delivery of digital and data architecture for the NHS. Before this, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, leading multi-disciplinary teams to deliver tangible impact in areas including wearables, advanced analytics, and commercial strategy. Leila began her career as CTO of Imperial spin-out DNA Electronics, a developer of point-of-care diagnostics. She has a PhD in Electronic Engineering, holds multiple patents, and has extensively published novel analytical techniques in high-impact journals.
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Ahmed Latif
Clinical Research Fellow
Ahmed is a Surgical Registrar sub-specialising in Oncoplastic Breast Surgery. Coming towards the end of his surgical training, he has taken time out for research and is completing a PhD at the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), Imperial College London. His PhD focuses on the use of Wearable Technology in rehabilitation. He is working as part of the OnTrack team on the use of Wearable Technology in neurorehabilitation post stroke and post-operative upper limb rehabilitation for Breast Cancer patients undergoing axillary surgery.
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Alex Barclay
Head of Education
Alex is a design, strategy and education specialist who leverages people-centred design, Lean Method and systems thinking to create impactful solutions. With 20 years of experience, including senior roles at BCG and Accenture, he leads our work in Education. Past projects include optimising cancer care pathways, enhancing HIV ART adherence and developing innovation units for large health organisations. As an educator, Alex has trained hundreds of professionals in human-centred design and Agile approaches. He has worked with many organisations to build capability and deliver change. Alex also delivers keynotes, for example, for the NHS's Digital Health Leadership programme, and lectures on topics such as Speculative Design, Game Theory and Systems Theory. Alex also runs Fuzzy, a non-profit health innovation collective combining people-centred, technology-enabled approaches to deliver scalable real-world impact.
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Alex Dallman-Porter
Designer
Alex is a designer within the Design Strategy Team at the Helix Centre, and works on projects concerned with improving quality of life in our later years through monitoring for early signs of age-related decline and reviewing the approach to care at the end of life. With a cross-disciplinary background in biomedical science and design engineering, he synthesises technical understanding of healthcare-related issues with a human-centre approach to design. He has previous experience in healthcare innovation as COO and founding team-member of Charco Neurotech, a startup that developed a wearable, non-invasive device and accompanying support ecosystem that ameliorates the movement symptoms of Parkinson's disease using vibrotactile stimulation and cueing. He holds a BA in Biomedical Science from the University of Oxford and an MA/MSc in Innovation Design Engineering from Imperial College and the Royal College of Art
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Alice Gregory
Designer
Alice is a designer working on a variety of projects at Helix bringing a practical approach to user centred design. She is working with Sussex Integrated Care System on developments to their shared care record and with the London Office for Technology and Innovation on an intervention to reduce isolation amongst people living with dementia. Alice has also co-ordinated the Healthcare and Design Masters module run by Helix for students at RCA & Imperial. Prior to joining Helix Alice worked at the BBC, designing digital tools for content creators and experiences for audiences that help them find the most interesting things within the BBC for them.Alice studied BSc Product Design and Management, culminating in the design of a Mascara package that does not rely on vision in order to apply cosmetics.
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Anna Lawrence-Jones
Public Involvement Lead
Anna is the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Lead at the Institute of Global Health Innovation. Anna works across the IGHI,including the NIHR North West London Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC), the Centre for Health Policy and Helix to support the meaningful involvement of patients, carers and public members in research. Anna supports the team to involve people from under-represented groups and to capture the impact of the involvement. She has been involved in innovative projects to engage the public around complex topics including data sharing (datacanofworms.co.uk) and hearing loss (hearingbirdsong.com).
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Brian Quan
Head of Technology
Brian works with clinicians and designers to build products across mobile, desktop and server-side. He has gained lead development experience in both start up companies and larger organisations, and has a particular interest in applications that seamlessly integrate sensor and wearable data to provide a great user experience. Brian has a profound interest in the field of software engineering, particularly in architecting innovative software solutions. He consistently stays abreast of emerging trends and technologies, and continually refines his skills to meet the evolving demands of the industry. Brian strongly believes that technology can change human life for the better.
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Clare McCrudden
Policy Fellow
Clare is a qualified Social Worker with professional experience working in both hospital and community care settings. Clare works in behavioural science as part of Change Lab, as well as within product innovation at Helix. Clare was previously PPIE Lead (maternity cover) at Helix and is experienced in managing Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) through interagency working between the NHS and charity sector. Clare completed a MSc in Global Health at Maastricht University, and led an evidence-informed public health project in Bogotá, Colombia. Clare works in a cross-cutting way in partnership with researchers, clinicians and patients. Clare is passionate about a holistic, person-centred and social justice approach to health.
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David Sunkersing
Palliate Research Lead
David is the Research Lead for Palliate at the Helix Centre. Previously at UCL, he evaluated integrated care pathways and developed digital health solutions for long COVID patients. His expertise includes quality improvement, healthcare implementation, and digital health adoption. Currently, he is also a consultant for the UK Health Security Agency, co-leading a national study on routine asymptomatic COVID-19 testing. David’s academic passion lies in pioneering healthcare innovation and advancing the integration of technology in patient care. He holds a PhD in Clinical Medicine Research from Imperial College London, an MSc in Biomedical Sciences from UCL, and completed a Neurobiology module at Harvard University. David is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
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Erin Walker
Public Involvement Lead, IGHI (Maternity cover)
Erin has a background in health psychology and patient and public involvement in research, innovation, and health services. Before coming to the IGHI, she was at Evelina London, UCLPartners, the NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital BRC. She has been a co-investigator on 7 NIHR studies as lead for patient and public involvement. She has a keen interest in involving patients, service users, families and end recipients of research and innovation in that work which is meant to serve them. Erin is providing maternity cover for Anna Lawrence-Jones.
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Fiona O'Driscoll
Policy Fellow
Fiona brings together a unique combination of clinical, strategy and design experience to her role at Helix Centre, where she leads the Helix portfolio of work with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. This includes design and research projects tackling a range of challenges, such as equity in healthcare access, improving the cancer care experience and designing accessible information. Fiona developed her passion for improving health outcomes while working as a doctor and then moved to Accenture's Health Practice, where she worked on a range of healthcare and technology projects. She holds a Masters in Public Health with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
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Gianpaolo Fusari
Head of Product & Platforms
Gianpaolo is an Industrial Designer with over 10 years experience in product design and development in healthcare. Since joining Helix, Gianpaolo has applied his product design skills in different projects including improving uptake to bowel cancer screening and reducing pressure ulcers caused by oxygen therapies. He currently leads our work in neurorehabilitation where he is working with stroke survivors and clinicians to develop solutions to improve arm rehabilitation. Before joining Helix he was a Senior Research Associate at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design where he led the design work on the award-winning redesign of the UK ambulance. Gianpaolo holds a joint MA/MSc from the RCA and Imperial.
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Imran Nazerali
Service Designer
Imran is a people-centred designer. Curious, empathetic and adaptable, Imran designs with people rather than for them and has experience in co-creating and solving complex challenges. He holds an MA/MSc in Global Innovation Design from The Royal College of Art/Imperial College London, working on social impact design projects in London, Beijing, and Singapore. At The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Imran worked on inclusive design projects within the space of an ageing population and healthcare. Following this, Imran was a Design Researcher at dxw, a digital agency working with government and third sector organisations to improve their digital services working with Southwark Council, Homes England, and Ofsted. At Nesta, Imran has been involved in co-designing digital solutions with vulnerable parents to improve Early Years outcomes.
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Jess Shields
Impact Officer
Jess is Helix's Impact Officer and works across the Helix centre to make sure that our work reaches the people who most need it. Jess studied completed a BSc in neuroscience specialising in public engagement, her final year project was a board game that aimed to explore complex risk and personal agency in relation to vascular dementia. Prior to her current role, Jess worked as a trainee on the Healthy Ageing project, where she particularly enjoyed Helix's holistic and user centred approach to health and wellbeing in the community. Jess is motivated by a drive for good health to be accessible to all. This drive has informed her previous work and volunteering in food justice organisations and personal projects looking into how histories of gendered health inequality inform women's art and relationship to healthcare.
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Jodie Chan
Public Involvement Officer
Jodie is the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Officer at the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI). Jodie helps to ensure meaningful involvement of patients, carers and public members in research and design projects at IGHI. She sits in the Design Strategy Team, who also work in a cross-cutting way with researchers, clinicians and patients, to ensure projects and services are designed with patients at the centre. Prior to joining the Helix Centre, Jodie worked as Research Manager for the Diabetes Research Steering Groups at Diabetes UK and had a particular focus on the use of research to tackle health inequalities in diabetes. She holds an MSc in Global Health and Development from UCL.
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Kate Grailey
Academic Research Lead and Co-Director of the Behavioural Science Change Lab
Kate is the Academic Research Lead for the Helix Centre and the Centre for Health Policy at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, and she leads the Change Lab, a collaboration between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Imperial College London and the Behavioural Insights Team. With a clinical background as an anaesthestist and a PhD exploring psychological safety, stress and resilience in healthcare teams, her research interests lie in addressing healthcare safety and strategic challenges such as prevention by understanding human behaviour and how behavioural science can be applied to help solve these challenges. She is currently focused on behaviours contributing to the antimicrobial resistance crisis as well as preventing and reversing frailty in older adults.
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Matthew Harrison
Head of Design
Matthew is a designer, leading our dementia theme with the UK DRI Care Research & Technology Centre (CR&T). He brings over a decade of experience in conducting participatory design projects in challenging areas of healthcare, including a clinical task management platform (bought by Google DeepMind), an Advance Care Planning Platform (SBRI Healthcare), the ReSPECT process (used throughout UK), and an emergency paediatric clinical decision support tool (Dosium). Since 2019, he has focussed on designing with people affected by dementia. He works across CR&T to bring public, participant and professional input into the development of software interfaces and devices from Imperial's labs.
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Shuang Wu
Junior Software Developer
Shuang is a MRes graduate from Imperial with backgrounds in both software engineering and medical AI. She also gained product management experience at TikTok, honing her skills in product development and user engagement. After working with the Helix team on the OnTrack Project during her MRes degree, she is thrilled to continue on delivering user-centered technologies to advance healthcare solutions that improve patient outcomes and streamline medical workflows.
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Sophie Horrocks
Designer
Sophie is a human-centred designer and researcher focused on intuitive and inclusive design of products and services to improve quality of life. She has worked and studied internationally across UK, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York, bringing a global perspective to social design challenges. Previous experience has led her to work with clients including Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Kering, Design Trust and exhibiting works at Salone del Mobile and London Craft Week. Sophie worked on third-sector projects across these locations, bringing a sensitivity towards local culture and community to her design approach. She holds an MA/MSc in Global Innovation Design from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London.
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Souradip Mookerjee
Data Scientist
Souradip is a distinguished technologist and medical expert with a strong foundation in both medicine and computer science. He began coding at 12 and went on to earn a medical degree and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Based in London, he works as a practicing doctor and AI researcher, specialising in deep learning applications in healthcare. Recognised for his expertise, he has presented at major conferences and published in top journals like Nature Methods. Dr. Mookerjee excels in deploying machine learning models, contributing significantly to the open-source community, notably with Google's TensorFlow, positioning him at the forefront of medical AI advancements. Souradip is leading on data science in Helix's Healthy Aging project.
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Tori Simpson
UX/UI designer
Tori is a Design Researcher with a background in Social Data Science and Fine Art. She is driven by participatory work, focussing on healthcare, emerging digital technologies, and social innovation. Her previous design work spans various contexts, including stroke rehabilitation, disaster preparedness, conservation, and culturally representative generative AI. Tori has experience as a data analyst and Co-founder of Opportutoring Edinburgh, working to provide English language education to refugee children. Tori has worked and studied across the UK, Singapore, The Philippines, and Japan. She holds a BSc in Social Science and Data Science from UCL, and an MASc in Global Innovation Design from Imperial and the Royal College of Art.
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Tricia Tay
Clinical Research Fellow
Tricia is a Clinical Research Fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) and Helix Centre. Before joining the team, she completed her medical degree in Manchester, Foundation training in Lancaster, and MSc degree in Clinical Education at Edinburgh. She is interested in an academic career in Vascular Surgery, and is undertaking a PhD on the Healthy Ageing Project
Connect with Helix
From the Imperial College website:
Trial of stroke rehabilitation app launches
Design and dementia: putting people at the heart of emerging tech
More Helix news on the Imperial College website
Instgram /helixcentre
LinkedIn company profile
