The Helix team
Our team includes clinicians, designers, technologists, engineers and academics. We are united by our motivation to create positive impact on people's lives through applying our creativity to healthcare challenges.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Anika Petrella
Head of Behavioural Science
Anika is a behavioural scientist with over 10 years' experience designing and testing interventions that help people live well with and beyond illness. Her research spans cancer survivorship, digital health trials and mixed-methods co-design. Within Helix, she brings a behavioural science approach to developing and evaluating solutions for clinician- and public-facing healthcare challenges. Before joining Helix, Anika held research roles in the Health Psychology group at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London, the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit at University College London Hospitals, and Surgical Oncology at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto, where she identified mechanisms linking physical and mental health and tested innovative behavioural medicine approaches to improve quality of life after cancer.
-
Alex Dallman-Porter
Designer
Alex is a designer 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. He also supports the Fleming Initative's education programme. 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
-
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.
-
Amna Gugnani
Impact Officer
Amna is the Impact Officer at the Helix Centre. She has held operational roles across various third-sector organisations both internationally and in the UK, with experience in sustainability, local government, and global public health. Her expertise lies in operational support, project management, and healthcare systems, the latter informed by her work with Selfless, an NGO focused on tackling health inequity in Bangladesh. Amna's interests centre on understanding socio-economic and health inequities within minority groups, and how these challenges can be addressed through collaboration and place-based interventions. As part of the Pakistani diaspora, she is particularly interested in the social and cultural norms that shape health outcomes for South Asian women, and how these can be improved.
-
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).
-
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 works in a cross-cutting function 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.
-
Shuang Wu
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. Shuang supports technology development across our rehab, dementia and health ageing projects.
-
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.
-
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.
Helix Associates
Our extended team of Helix associates provide a broad range of skills and expertise to support our projects.
-
Hutan Ashrafian
Senior Clinical Advisor
Professor Hutan Ashrafian is Lead for Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. He is a clinician-scientist, entrepreneur and active surgeon translating novel technologies and therapeutics in healthcare and policy. He has over 20 years of translational clinical, computational physiology, robotic surgery, health policy, digital and AI trial and product development experience including fundamental contributions in the systems biology and clinical practice of Metabolic-Bariatric Surgery, development of novel bio-incubator COVID vaccines, online teaching tools and national tracing apps.
-
Nicholas Appelbaum
Clinical Advisor
Nicholas is a South African trained clinician with a surgical and global health background, and was a Helix Centre Clinical Research Fellow in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London. He is the CEO of Dosium, a Helix Centre spin out. As a Resuscitation Council (UK) Fellow he led our NIHR-funded project building decision support tools for the frontline in paediatric emergency medicine. Nicholas has a particular interest in frugal innovation and the provision of quality care in lower middle income countries and worked in multiple peri-urban clinics and hospitals in South Africa prior to joining Imperial.
-
Alex Barclay
Senior Associate, Healthcare Strategy and Design
Alex is a healthcare strategy, transformation and human-centred design leader with over 20 years' experience turning complex challenges into sustainable value. His work combines human-centred design, systems thinking, behavioural science, digital, AI and business design. He specialises in redesigning healthcare services, building businesses and organisational capabilities, and bridging the gap between innovation and implementation. Alex has led work across NHS cancer pathways, elective care, digital health and clinical workflows. His experience includes senior roles at BCG and Accenture, and founding Fuzzy Group CIC, a mission-led innovation collective. He has led education at Imperial's Institute of Global Health Innovation and Helix Centre, contributed to NHS leadership programmes and taught at the Royal College of Art. His career began at Disney, where he discovered the power of creativity and technology to create meaningful human connections.
-
Pip Batey
Associate Designer
Pip spent many years as a Designer on a variety of projects within the Helix Centre and the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI). Pip's research focused on co-designing experiences, services and products that help to shift mindsets and equip communities to become resilient in times of crisis. Prior to working at Helix and IGHI, she trained as a UX/UI designer at a digital product design agency, Ostmodern, specialising in VOD platforms, then went on to work for a range of digital healthcare startups. Pip also completed an MRes in Healthcare & Design at RCA, where she co-designed probes to reduce anxiety in children undergoing surgery.
-
Calandra Feather
Clinical Advisor
Calandra is the Implementation Lead and Clinical Safety Officer at Dosium. Dosium, a spin out from the Helix Centre, has developed and evaluated Touchdose, an indication-based, patient-specific prescribing tool. Calandra maintains an honorary health services researcher role in the Centre for Medication Safety and Service Quality at Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust and is an honorary Clinical Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Calandra completed her PhD at IGHI, focused on user-centred, mixed-method studies to evaluate prescribing practice, indication documentation, and the use of Touchdose compared with current practice, and was a Research Associate and Advisor in our End of Life medication administration work with Palliate. Calandra is a registered Paediatric Nurse, her clinical 'home' was in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit before moving into clinical academic research.
-
Ella Gibbs
Clinical Advisor
Ella is a physiotherapist with a specific interest in neurological rehabilitation. She is providing advice and support to the Helix Centre on OnTrack, a stroke rehabilitation project aimed at enhancing arm recovery. Ella's main interests lie in improving patient outcomes and staff efficiency. She has experience of delivering therapy in the public and private sector in both acute and community settings. She is currently doing a MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London.
-
Kate Grailey
Behavioural Science Advisor
Kate is currently the Behavioural Science Pillar Lead for the Fleming Initiative, and was previously the Academic Research Lead for the Helix Centre and the Centre for Health Policy at the Institute of Global Health Innovation. Here she led the Change Lab, an applied behavioural science unit collaborating across 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.
-
Jonathan Gregory
Clinical Advisor
Jonathan is a former Consultant Orthopaedic Oncological Surgeon, who now works at the intersection of healthcare, digital technologies, and AI. He has established a Healthcare consultancy dedicated to helping to deliver the digital transformation of healthcare. He has provided clinical input into Helix’s Healthy Ageing and End of Life care research. He is also working on initiatives with MD-TEC and the West Midlands Health Technology Innovation Accelerator program. As an Honorary Research Fellow in the faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, Jonathan co-produced a public guide on data and AI in healthcare to foster public participation in trial and digital product development. Jonathan is co-investigator for a digital clinical trial on the NIHR portfolio which is testing a novel methodology to gather patient experiences and outcomes at scale.
-
Sarah Huf
Behavioural Science Advisor
Sarah is a Consultant Breast Cancer Surgeon and was a Clinical Lecturer in Behavioural Economics at Imperial College. Her PhD was in the use of behavioural economics to improve engagement with cancer screening programmes in the NHS. She went on to found and lead The Change Lab, an applied behavioural science unit based at Helix, collaborating across Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Imperial College London and The Behavioural Insights Team. This brought behavioural science to other aspects of healthcare including vaccination uptake, patient safety, addressing inequality and the wider prevention agenda. Sarah was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in healthcare policy and practice, which she spent at the University of Pennsylvania. Sarah has extensive experience in embedding pragmatic randomised controlled trials on the healthcare frontline both in the UK and the US, which rigorously test clinician-, patient- and public-facing behavioural interventions to inform healthcare policy.
-
Ahmed Latif
Clinical Research Fellow
Ahmed is a Surgical Registrar sub-specialising in Oncoplastic Breast Surgery. He took time out of his clinical training for research and to complete a PhD at the Institute of Global Health Innovation. His PhD focused on the use of Wearable Technology in rehabilitation, using Helix's OnTrack wearable technology platform for post-operative upper limb rehabilitation in Breast Cancer patients undergoing axillary surgery.
-
Charley Pothecary
Associate Designer
Charley Pothecary is an experienced user researcher and service designer with a focus on inclusive design. Charley has extensive experience working across the healthcare sector, charity sector and public sector. Charley has often supported the NHS, a variety of Government departments and charities to run inclusive research and improve services. Charley has a graphic design background and loves using co-design approaches throughout projects to ensure that service improvements truly meet the needs of users. Charley has worked with the Helix team across a number of projects, one focused on creating a more holistic care planning process with the NHS and another was focused on improving end of life services within hospital environments.
-
David Sunkersing
Honorary Research Associate
David was 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.
-
Tricia Tay
Clinical Research Fellow
Tricia is completing a PhD in the Helix Centre, Institute of Global Health Innovation, within the Healthy Ageing research theme. Her PhD is on the engagement and impact of digitally-enabled interventions to reverse and prevent unhealthy ageing among older adults. She completed her medical degree (MBChB) at the University of Manchester, her Foundation Training in the North West of England deanery, and part-time Master's in Clinical Education from the University of Edinburgh. She has been awarded a Fellow in Advanced Higher Education (FHEA). Passionate about general (vascular) surgery, she has completed both parts of the intercollegiate Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) examinations.
-
Ivor Williams
Honorary Practice Fellow
Ivor is a designer, developing new ways of thinking about and experiencing death and dying in the 21st century. His expertise includes design research, communication and product design. He lead the end-of-life care project at the Helix Centre for 8 years, and co-founded the first Helix Centre spin-out venture, Digital Care Planning. He co-leads the development of Cove, a flagship mental health app available on the NHS, with his social tech company Humane Engineering. He is visiting lecturer at Imperial College London, and was visiting professor of Information Design at the University of Venice from 2014 to 2016. Prior to joining Helix, Ivor was an art director at Tellart and studio director at the Italian research centre, Fabrica.
Work with us
Visit our Join Us page to view current openings with the Helix Team.
