The Team

Ann John

Principle Investigator

Ann John is a medical psychiatric epidemiologist and former GP with a background in public health. Her main areas of interest are the epidemiology and prevention of suicide, self-harm and the mental health of children and young people. She chairs the National Advisory Group to Welsh Government on Suicide and Self-harm prevention.

She is a Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry at Swansea University Medical School and leads on the MQ funded Adolescent Data Platform. She is a Principal Investigator at the National Centre for Mental Health, leading on the informatics work stream. She has an extensive experience of leading large-scale mental health informatics studies with a focus on inequalities. She has a strength in translating research into policy and practice with extensive media and government engagement.

Professor Simon Thompson

Chief Technology Officer

Simon is a systems architect with many years’ experience in the NHS and academia. He is the Chief Technology Officer of a large team of talented, diverse skilled software developers. Simon leads the innovation, design, development and implementation of all ADP technical system developments. He is responsible for delivering the technical work stream for Swansea as part of the UK network of health e-research centres of excellence.

Sarah Rees

Data Scientist

Sarah is a Data Scientist for the ADP and also works as a Senior Data Scientist for the SAIL Databank. She works with researchers to define their research requirements and provides support regarding the use of health data within research projects. She contributes analytical support to a range of research projects and also contributes to increasing knowledge and awareness about the quality of data within the datasets held by both the ADP Platform and the SAIL Databank.

Ian Farr

Senior Research Officer

Ian is a data scientist for the ADP and also works as a senior research officer for the SAIL Databank. He works with researchers to define their research requirements and provides support regarding the use of health data within research projects. He contributes analytical support to a range of research projects and also contributes to increasing knowledge and awareness about the quality of data within the datasets held by both the ADP Platform and the SAIL Databank.

Amanda Marchant

Data Scientist

Amanda Marchant is a research assistant and PhD student at Swansea University Medical School. Her research interests include child and adolescent mental health, self-harm and suicide prevention and health informatics.

Dr. Yasmin Friedmann is a Senior Research Data Scientist for the ADP. She has a PhD in astrophysics and years of experience in working with complex datasets ranging from sky maps to the human proteome, microbial DNA, production and field data of insulin pumps and now administrative, health and education datasets in SAIL and ADP. She looks to incorporate analysis methods from different fields of research into her work with ADP data.

Professor Ronan Lyons

Clinical Professor of Public Health

Ronan is Professor of Public Health at Swansea University, Honorary Consultant in Public Health with Public Health Wales NHS Trust and an adjunct professor at Monash University, Australia.

He is Research Director at Health Data Research UK (HDRUK), responsible for the Wales and Northern Ireland site, and leads HDRUK’s national Modernising Public Health research programme. He is also Director of the National Centre for Population Health and Wellbeing Research, and Co-Director of the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, the national privacy protecting research infrastructure for Wales.

The focus of Ronan’s research is the use of routine data and cohorts in the evaluation of natural experiments and complex interventions. He has a particular interest in the neglected field of injury prevention and control and chairs the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics.

Professor Anita Thapar, FRCPsych, PhD, FMedSci

Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Anita heads the academic Child & Adolescent Psychiatry section at the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University, UK and also directs the developmental disorders group within the MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics.

Anita graduated in Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine in 1985 and then trained in clinical Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and completed a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology.

In 2015, she served as lead editor (with Dr.Daniel S. Pine, NIMH) of Rutter's Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Anita was awarded a CBE for services to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2017, the President’s Medal from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2015 for contributions to policy, public knowledge, education and meeting population and patient care needs and the Ruane Prize 2015 from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, USA for outstanding Child & Adolescent Psychiatric research.

Professor David Ford

Professor of Health Informatics

David is Director of the Administrative Data Research Centre (ADRC) Wales, an £8million investment by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of its Big Data initiative and is Deputy Director of The Farr Institute CIPHER funded by a consortium of top UK research funders led by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

David is the lead of the SAIL Databank, an internationally recognised data linkage resource formed from a wide variety of routinely collected data from across Wales.

David is Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA) and past Chairman and current Director of MediWales, a membership organisation representing the medical technology sector of Wales. David has received research grants and consultancy contracts valuing over £40million.

Michael Bale

Web Designer & Developer

Mike is the Lead User Interface/Experience Designer for ADP and the wider PopDataSci team at Swansea University Medical School. He works with the technical and marketing teams on a range of projects from designing and developing web-based tools for researchers and analysts, to creating brand identities and marketing collateral.

Keith Lloyd

Professor of Psychiatry

Keith Lloyd is professor of psychiatry at Swansea University where he is also head of its medical school. He has been a board member of Samaritans Cymru and has a long-standing involvement in suicide and self-harm prevention and research. Increasingly his research draws on routine data as applied to psychosis and common mental disorders. He is a member of the professional reference panel for the mental health charity HAFAL. He is co-chair of the Cochrane suicide and self harm prevention satellite and a principal investigator in the National Centre for Mental Health. Keith is also vice president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and works clinically as a community psychiatrist in Swansea.

Sophie Newington

Project and Data Governance Administrator

Sophie Newington is the Project and Data Governance Administrator for the Adolescent Mental Health Data Platform. She provides support for a range of operational aspects of the project, such as coordinating research applications, ensuring a high level of information governance, monitoring project progress, organising events and managing the marketing activity. She has a keen interest in the area of Mental Health. Sophie has gained a wealth of experience in project management whilst working on various projects within Swansea University, as well as within the NHS.

Ember Bryant

Project Administrator

Ember, based at Swansea University, is the Project Administrator for the Adolescent Data Platform (ADP). Ember supports our Senior Project Officer, providing key aspects of administrative support to ensure the project meets targets and delivers outputs, as well as managing the day-to-day clerical processes within the project.

Sarah Garlick

Senior Project Officer

Sarah Garlick recently joined the Population Psychiatry, Suicide and Informatics (PPSI) team as a Senior Project Officer. In this capacity, she supports projects centred around child and adolescent mental health, as well as suicide and self-harm prevention. Sarah works closely with data scientists and researchers, overseeing project delivery to ensure that both outcomes and financial allocations stay on target.

She has a diverse background having worked her way up the administrative ladder through various support roles from Education through to Local Authority and Third Sector before joining Swansea University 5 years ago. Her previous roles have involved providing administrative support across various functions, including operations, HR, finance, and governance.

Olivier Rouquette

Researcher & Data Scientist

Olivier Y. Rouquette, PhD, is researcher and data scientist in the Population Psychiatry, Suicide and Informatics (PPSI) team at Swansea University Medical School, working in prof. Ann John’s team. Olivier’s research encompasses mental health and wellbeing of children and young people using routinely collected population linked data.