Contact the team

Sam was previously Policy Director at The Children's Society, and is also a former chair of the End Child Poverty coalition. Prior to that, Sam completed his PhD in the Social Policy department at the University of York, at which point he was also an adviser at a Citizens Advice Bureau. He is also author of the book "Broken Benefits: What's gone wrong with welfare reform".

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Dr Sabine Best oversees Marie Curie's portfolio of research activities.

Sabine was previously a Biomedical Researcher. She has held research management roles at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council , the Royal Society and Breakthrough Breast Cancer .

Sabine was instrumental in initiating the Palliative and end of life care Priority Setting Partnership with the James Lind Alliance , which brought together more than 30 organisations with an interest in palliative and end of life care.

Through this pioneering collaboration, the initiative helped identify the top 10 palliative and end of life care research priorities from the perspectives of patients, carers and clinicians.

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Hannah's role focuses on managing Marie Curie's research funding schemes and portfolio of funded research grants, as well as working in partnership with Marie Curie-funded researchers to deliver the maximum possible impact from their research.

Before joining Marie Curie, Hannah worked at Macmillan Cancer Support with a similar focus on research management and research impact. Hannah's research background is in psychology and developmental science, and following a PhD at the University of Oxford she spent time working in postdoctoral positions at the University of Southampton and UCL.

Devi's role involves combining, reviewing and sharing information about palliative and end of life care to help healthcare professionals and policy makers improve care and support for people living with a terminal illness. ​
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Before joining Marie Curie, Devi worked at Versus Arthritis communicating about research within and outside the charity and helping to bring the stories to life. Devi has a background in biomedical research. She got her PhD at the University of Nottingham and went on to work there, looking at understanding long-term pain.​

Isabelle's role focuses on ensuring Marie Curie's research activities are communicated widely and meaningfully, both within and outside the charity to maximise reach and impact.

Before joining Marie Curie, Isabelle worked at a clinical trials unit for King's College London, based at St Thomas' Hospital. Isabelle also has a background working within the qualitative market research industry, specialising in branding and communications as well as in healthcare.

Kate Maitland is Research Utilisation Manager and Innovation Lead at Marie Curie. A nurse with broad clinical NHS experience across primary, secondary and tertiary care, a specialist in neuromedical / surgical nursing and critical care. Kate has spent the last 10 years in research engagement, protocol development and delivery. Her current area of focus is in facilitating rapid research implementation and service development.

Emma trained as a nurse at the University of Glasgow and completed a Master's degree in Public Health Research. She has been conducting palliative care research since 2007, starting with a PhD in research methods for palliative care research at the University of Edinburgh. Emma has been facilitating, managing and leading research activity at Marie Curie Scotland since 2014 and works with an extensive network of palliative care researchers in the UK and internationally. ​

Emma is particularly interested in research to improve the experience of unpaid carers of people at the end of life and is Advocate Member of the International Palliative Care Family Carer Research Collaboration (IPCFRC) for Scotland. Emma is also dedicated to ensuring equity in end of life experience for those living in marginalised groups, including people experiencing financial hardship and prisoners. Emma is passionate about collaborative and applied research which impacts policy making and practice and works closely with colleagues within Marie Curie and beyond to drive change. ​

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Gurme's role as Senior Research Governance manager is to enable Marie Curie to take on a leadership position (in partnership with other relevant organisations) in providing guidance and support for research in hospices and to strengthen the evidence base in this area and to verify that all research carried out within Marie Curie is done following the Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care (all four UK countries).

Also, he ensures a consistent, high-quality service is offered to researchers whereby he undertakes assessments as a key part of Marie Curie Approval for research in hospices and will act as an expert on regulatory and legislative matters concerning health and social care research.

Gurmel has been in community pharmacy, Forensic Toxicologist, Senior R&D Scientist, Approvals Specialist (NHS) and Approvals Manager (NHS).

Izzie's is responsible for running Marie Curie's funding schemes and grant portfolio as well as working in partnership with funded researchers to capture and deliver the maximum possible impact on practice and / or policy.

Izzie has previously worked for other not for profit healthcare organisations such as the global charity Sight savers.

Jonny's responsibilities are to help with the delivery of our research funding programmes, our management of funded research, and our work to understand, communicate and improve the impact of the research we support.

Before joining the Research Team, Jonny worked in Marie Curie's Community Fundraising Team in our Edinburgh Hospice and studied undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the Universities of Exeter and Edinburgh in Politics and International Development, respectively.

Briony's background is in health psychology, and she is an honorary senior research fellow at the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at UCL and a research fellow for Pathway. Her research explores access to palliative care for people experiencing homelessness.

Briony is currently developing a programme of online learning aimed at multi-professional groups to promote a collaborative, person-centred approach to palliative care for people experiencing homelessness. Briony also leads the knowledge translation work at Marie Curie.

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Jessica is responsible for supporting and developing our Research Voices Group made up of people affected by dying, death and bereavement, to ensure that Marie Curie engages meaningfully with people with lived experience in our research and policy activities.​

Before joining Marie Curie, Jessica spent 16 years in acute NHS trusts in London as Head of Engagement and Patient Experience. Jessica started her career in the voluntary sector focussing on supporting young people and adults into work and managing the training and research function for a national charity promoting patient-centred care. She also holds a Masters in Social and Market Research.​

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Noura is involved in the planning of the Marie Curie research conference. She is currently involved in a project exploring how covid-19 has affected the palliative care needs of members of the Muslim community.

Noura is a registered pharmacist in Egypt. She has a background in Public Health, having studied an MPH at the University of Edinburgh in 2020. She has previously worked as a Team Leader at Hospice Egypt before joining Marie Curie in 2021.

Jodie is responsible for carrying out qualitative research projects and supporting qualitative data collection and analysis to inform the work of the Policy and Research team and to publish in Marie Curie reports and peer reviewed journals. She also carries out work to support and advocate for involvement of individuals with lived experience in palliative and end of life care research.

Jodie's background is in psychology. Before joining Marie Curie, she has previously worked carrying out palliative and end of life care research in academic institutions including University of Leeds and Newcastle University

Emma is responsible for carrying out quantitative analysis to inform the work of the Policy and Research team and to publish in Marie Curie reports and peer reviewed journals. She also provides oversight of statistics used in Marie Curie outputs.

Emma's research background is in ageing, unpaid care and health, following a PhD at King's College London and work as a freelance researcher. Prior to this she held programme management roles at the British Council and British Red Cross.

Charlotte’s role is to support a range of projects within the research team at Marie Curie.

Charlotte’s background is in public health and epidemiology, with a focus on mental and physical health co-morbidity and the analysis of routinely collected data. Charlotte has previously worked for the Stroke Association and within medical education at academic institutions.

Since qualifying as a nurse in 1993, Hilary has been working primarily in either palliative care or clinical research. More recently, she worked as a Senior Palliative Care Research Nurse within the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, before joining the Marie Curie team in November 2022 as Research Nurse for Scotland.

Hilary completed a MSc in Palliative Care at the University of Glasgow in 2003. The title of her dissertation was "Nurses' Experiences of Caring for Dying Patients within a Hospice Environment." It was while working on this project that her interest in research truly began.

In Hilary's new post at Marie Curie, she works closely with the Research Lead and Research Fellow for the Glasgow and Edinburgh hospices, as they work together to continue developing a research active culture within Marie Curie Scotland.

Hilary is passionate about the impact of research in improving the experiences of patients, their relatives, and the staff providing the care. She believes in creating positive experiences and memories within the difficult situations people find themselves in.

Kasia joined the charity in 2010 as a Registered Nurse and then Senior Nurse, working across various services and teams, before taking up the role of Practice Development Facilitator in 2017, and then the role of Research Nurse in 2021.

Kasia supported clinical staff for many years, but it was her clinical experience during the pandemic which inspired her to undertake her first research project. Kasia's research focusses on lone working experiences, support and educational needs of healthcare assistants providing palliative care in the community. In her role as Research Nurse she works alongside other researchers, policy makers and practitioners, helping to provide important evidence and deliver impact.

Rachel has worked within palliative care for 22 years. Rachel completed her MSc in Health Studies in 2004 and has been involved in palliative care research since. Her role is varied and involves: day-to-day management of studies conducted within the West Midlands Place Based Team; raising awareness of research; and, supporting staff and students to undertake research and disseminate their work. Rachel also works alongside the wider Marie Curie Research and Policy Team.

Rachel has been awarded a Marie Curie small grant to explore the role of the Men's Shed in a hospice day service context. The aim of the study is to identify features of a successful group and develop recommendations that will help to expand the service in other hospices.

Rachel finds it a privilege to be able to offer opportunities for patients, families, carers, volunteers and staff to share their lived experiences and participate in research which is essential to improve palliative care for all.

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Sarah's worked at the Liverpool Hospice since 2013, initially as a nurse on the inpatient unit before undertaking a research secondment in 2017. She has since worked on her own research studies as well as supporting recruitment to external studies.

In 2018 Sarah received the Susie Wilkinson Award in recognition of her personal research development, and in 2022 was shortlisted for the Research Student of the year at the North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards. Sarah has worked hard to develop a research culture within Marie Curie Hospice Liverpool through a regular journal club, staff education and raising the awareness of research activity. As a result of this the hospice has been shortlisted as a finalist for multiple awards.

Sarah's currently undertaking a Masters at Liverpool John Moores University which focuses on digital legacy in palliative care. Sarah's passionate about promoting research within palliative care and providing patients, carers and healthcare professionals opportunities to participate in research studies, as her experiences of working in research have shown this can lead to positive outcomes.

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https://research-liverpool.mariecurie.org.uk/

Georgina joined Marie Curie in December 2022 and is based at the Bradford Hospice. She has a lived experience of Marie Curie Hospice at Home Care and an ongoing passion for Palliative and End of Life research. Her background is in Primary Care, where she undertook an MSc in Advanced Practice.

She continues to work as a Practice Nurse in Leeds, alongside her role as a Research Nurse for Marie Curie. She works closely with The Research Fellow, based at the University of Leeds. Within the role of Research Nurse, Georgina is raising awareness of research activity within the hospice and place, whilst supporting individuals with their research questions/projects.  

She particularly enjoys meeting and recruiting patients and carers into research studies. She enjoys the support of the wider Marie Curie team and meets regularly with the Research Nurses from the different hospices.