About the authors and NIHR course development team

Noni Mumba, Head of Engagement, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP)

Noni Mumba is an engagement practitioner with over 10 years expertise in community engagement for global health research. This expertise also includes engaging broadly with specific publics of interest, including local and national policy makers in Kenya. Her role at KWTRP includes development of engagement strategies and innovative approaches for the engagement and involvement of host communities, stakeholders, and policy makers in research planning, conduct, and uptake of findings into policy. She also supports monitoring, evaluation and learning of engagement activities.

Noni is involved in building the capacity of KWTRP engagement staff and researchers on engagement. In the last 5 years, this capacity strengthening has extended beyond KWTRP through webinars, teaching engagements, and collaborative research projects.

She is a member of the Global Health Bioethics Network, the NIHR CEI Advisory Network, and has authored a number of manuscripts on community engagement and ethics. Previously, she was part of an Ethics Advisory Board for Target Malaria, a consortium looking for malaria solutions through mosquito gene editing. She holds a Master of Arts degree in development communication.

Rodrick Sambakunsi, Science Communication and Public Engagement Practitioner, Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme

Rodrick Sambakunsi is a science communication and Community Engagement and Involvement specialist, with over 20 years of practical experience working in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). For over 10 years, Rodrick has been working in health research where he has developed Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme’s CEI strategy, which is currently in use, and has continued to manage other innovative CEI initiatives to support research teams conduct excellent research projects. More recently, Rodrick has led an implementation of an African-led collaboration of creative engagement practitioners, community groups, experts, and policy makers to promote dialogue and research about vaccine development. Over the years, Rodrick has acquired invaluable expertise from continuously networking and collaborating with global leaders in health research and CEI, thereby providing leadership to CEI teams and students in areas of development and implementation of novel, innovative CEI and science communication.

An excellent team player, Rodrick holds a master’s degree in communication of science and innovation, a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health, and has excellent interpersonal, analytical, and problem-solving skills, as well as experience in training and facilitation.

Gill Black, Managing Director and Head of Engaged Research, The Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation

Dr Gill Black has been working in the field of global health for over 25 years. Her experience is balanced between 13 years in academia as an infectious diseases immunologist and 12 years as a director, researcher, and practitioner in the NGO sector. Gill has worked in multiple LMIC contexts including Kenya, Brazil, Malawi, Vietnam, and Thailand. As a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine post-doctoral fellow, she was based in rural Malawi for five years, before moving to Cape Town, South Africa in 2002.

Over eight years, Gill held two positions as senior researcher in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch. In 2010, she co-founded the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF), a non-governmental, public benefit organisation and independent, not-for-profit research and engagement company. As a director and head of Engaged Research at SLF, Gill has co-led numerous community engagement and participatory action research projects. She has acquired extensive experience in ethics, co-production, policy engagement, and transdisciplinary research, and gained a specialist skill set in participatory visual methods. Through cross-sectoral collaborations and world-wide partnerships, Gill works to address health inequities and guide the development of practical, contextually relevant, community-driven strategies to strengthen public and global health.

Alun Davies, Senior Programmes Manager Mesh, The Global Health Network, University of Oxford

Alun leads Mesh, The Global Health Network’s platform for community engagement with health research. With a team of coordinators embedded in health research institutions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Mesh contributes to strengthening practice through sharing skills, knowledge and resources among engagement practitioners and researchers.

A major personal achievement for Alun is the establishment of a large school engagement program with science in Kenya. It began as a pilot scheme in 2009 and has since become a flagship element of the KEMRI-Wellcome Research Programme’s public engagement strategy, gaining international reputation. Alun has broader experience in leading engagement in multi-country projects in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. Of note, Alun led a WHO technical working group on Good Participatory Practice for a multi-country Covid-19 Vaccine trial. Alun’s PhD in Public Engagement evaluation drew on mixed methods and participatory approaches, including participatory video to explore the impacts, outcomes and influences of engagement.

Helen Latchem, Public and Community Engagement Consultant

Helen is an independent Public and Community Engagement Consultant based in the UK. Until 2023, she managed Mesh (mesh-ce.org), The Global Health Network’s knowledge hub and online network for people working in community engagement with global health research. Previously, Helen worked at Wellcome for 8 years and led their International Engagement Programme, managing a large funding portfolio and workshop series supporting researchers, engagement practitioners, creatives, and others around the world. Her background is in experimental psychology, clinical trial coordination, research funding, and science communication.

Robin Vincent, Learning, Research and Evaluation Consultant

Robin Vincent is a freelance research, evaluation and learning consultant, with over 25 years experience working in the international development and UK community development sectors. Robin has advised international research teams on evaluation of community engagement and complexity sensitive evaluations methods for this purpose. He recently co-led a realist review of community engagement with health research with Sassy Molyneux, and is currently co-leading a follow-up realist review of participatory health research at the Oxford Centre for Tropical Medicine with Sassy and an international team.

Robin is a social anthropologist with an interest in better applying the insights from social and cultural theory to the challenges of participatory and democratic social change. His evaluation work focuses on the value of integrating qualitative and quantitative inquiry. This ranges from realist evaluation and critical realism, and complex case comparison methods, to taking stories and narratives of change seriously. Robin is also currently advising Sport England and their local UK teams on evaluation and learning for 'whole systems' and 'placed based' approaches to tackling inequalities in physical activity as part of a consortium based at Sheffield Hallam University. He is also a contributor to NIHR Global Health Community Engagement and Involvement advisory group.

Heidi Surridge, Senior Research Manager, Global Health Community Engagement and Involvement and Research Inclusion, NIHR (course lead and contributing author)

Heidi started her career in nursing, going on to gain a BA (Hons) in Social Sciences and a Masters in Sociological Research in Health Care. She subsequently worked as a qualitative health care researcher in the UK within areas including dermatology, patient-defined “clinical effectiveness”, and service development. 

Over the last 15 years, Heidi has worked for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) enabling, supporting, and advocating public and community involvement in research and research funding. She is dedicated to enabling communities, patients, and the public to have ethical, relevant, and inclusive involvement in health and social care research worldwide and at all stages of research; from defining research priorities and designing research through to research implementation and dissemination.

Liz Winterton, Research Manager, Community Engagement and Involvement, Global Health Research, NIHR

Liz started her career in primatology, working in orangutan conservation in Borneo and researching Kinda baboons in Zambia. Liz subsequently trained as a science teacher and taught science and environmental education in secondary and special needs schools in the UK and Thailand.

Liz joined the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) at the end of 2022 as part of the Global Health Research team. She has contributed to the development of NIHR’s approach to community engagement and involvement and the evaluation of community engagement activities of funded researchers.

Doreen Tembo (contributing author, formerly NIHR), Head of Public Involvement and Engagement, Health Data Research UK

Doreen Tembo is Head of Public Involvement and Engagement at Health Data Research UK and the Strategic Lead of the Public Engagement with Data Research Initiative. She spent her early career working in the social economic development sector in Zambia, where she developed her unending passion for the active engagement and involvement of public partners in health and care research, policy, and delivery.

Doreen has research, partnership and stakeholder development, and management experience from the national and global health research sector having held leadership positions with regional, national, and global programmes in the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) since 2010. Doreen has worked with the higher education sector, including the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton, Norwich, and Essex as a researcher and patient and public involvement and engagement consultant.

Gail Thornton, Public Contributor

Gail has been a public contributor in health research for 14 years. She has been involved with the NIHR on national funding committees, with the regional (former) Research Design Service, multiple one-off national projects (including helping to develop the PPI online course for NIHR public reviewers and funding committee members in the UK), and, at local level, on individual research studies as a Public Advisory Group member. She is currently a member of the NIHR HTA Programme

Oversight Committee and a public co-applicant (research team member) for three NIHR-funded studies with the University of Bristol. She is interested in all aspects of health promotion and research, but has a particular interest in equality, diversity, and inclusion in research, mental health, public health, clinician wellbeing, ethics, and the wider determinants of health inequalities. She was previously a Local Government Officer and lives in Bristol, UK, with Ludo the dog.

Tom Beare, Research Manager, Global Health Research, NIHR

Having studied biology and biomedical sciences, Tom worked in various roles in the UK National Health Service (NHS), specifically in laboratory-based and helpline roles within cancer screening. Tom then moved into medical communications, mainly focusing on managing events and producing medical education materials for pharmaceutical clients.

Tom joined the NIHR Global Health Research programme team in early 2023, with a focus on fostering equitable partnerships and facilitating sharing of learning between research teams. He works closely with the community engagement and involvement (CEI) team.

Katie Porter (formerly NIHR), Project Manager, Agora Digital Centre, University of Southampton, UK

Katie is a project manager at the Agora Digital Centre which offers training and consultancy services for patient and public participation, engagement, and involvement in health and social care research. She currently manages the development of the Agora Digital Centre, and co-ordinates a range of public engagement and involvement activities and events at the University of Southampton and beyond. Katie previously worked in the patient and public involvement team at National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), where she contributed to the development of NIHR’s approach to community engagement and involvement in global health research and the evaluation of community engagement activities of funded researchers.

Gary Hickey, Senior Public Involvement Manager, NIHR and Agora Digital Centre, UK

Gary is a Senior Research Manager at the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and also the head of the Agora Digital Centre at the University of Southampton. He is passionate about developing trust between the public and professionals. He works with researchers and the public, providing advice, guidance, and training on patient and public involvement in health and social care research. In addition, he writes, presents, and is involved in several podcasts on these issues.