Our team
Researchers from The University of Manchester and the University of Oxford make up our research team.
Project team
Professor Alexander Heazell
Principal Investigator, The University of Manchester
Professor Heazell is a consultant obstetrician and researcher in maternity care.
He has conducted several projects looking at the cases of stillbirth, and how care can be improved after a baby dies.
Dr Mary Adams
Qualitative Research Lead, The University of Manchester
Mary Adams is a midwife, anthropologist and health service researcher.
She has a research background in patient and parent involvement in clinical care and clinical research, as well as NHS staff wellbeing and the disclosure of knowledge of harm in NHS maternity care settings.
Dr Anja Wittkowski
Co-Supervisor for Qualitative Researchers, The University of Manchester
Paul Davies
Project Manager, The University of Manchester
Paul is an experienced project manager and is passionate about the use of research and data to improve our experience of heath and care services.
Professor Jenny Kurinczuk
Co-lead for Quantitative Research, University of Oxford
Professor Jenny Kurinczuk is a clinical epidemiologist who has worked in maternal and child health research for over 35 years.
She has led national work to reduce the number of mother and baby deaths, including work to improve the review of care when babies die.
Professor Oliver Rivero-Arias
Senior Health Economist, University of Oxford
Associate Professor Oliver Rivero-Arias currently leads a programme of work around issues in maternal and child health at the University of Oxford.
One of his research interests include the healthcare and wider societal implications of stillbirth.
Professor Marian Knight
Co-lead for Quantitative Research, University of Oxford
Professor Knight is a consultant public health physician and researcher whose work focuses on severe complications in pregnancy and early life.
She leads the team who investigate the deaths of all women during or up to a year after pregnancy to improve care and prevent women from dying in the future.
Associate Professor Ramon Luengo-Fernandez
Health Economist, University of Oxford
Associate Professor Luengo-Fernandez is a health economist working on issues in maternal and child health at the University of Oxford.
His research interests include the economic benefits of improving care after a baby dies.
Patient and public involvement (PPI)
Our PPI Leads are Charlotte Bevan and Keji Moses, and their role is to make sure parents and families are represented throughout the study.
Charlotte Bevan
Charlotte’s first daughter Hope died shortly after she was born in 2001 after a mismanaged labour.
She worked for Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity for 17 years, and has worked with researchers and national programmes to reduce perinatal mortality for almost two decades.
Keji Moses
Keji Moses is a bereaved parent and founder of Mayah’s Legacy, a charity established in 2020 after the stillbirth of her daughter Mayah, her second loss.
Since then, she has dedicated her time to advocating for safe, holistic, person-centred, and equitable maternity and postnatal care.
Project Advisory Group
We have a group of stakeholders who are led by Charlotte Bevan and Keji Moses, who have helped with co-developing our study materials and reach out to other organisations to help us involve parents and families.
This is to ensure we include the perspectives of a wide range of people with expertise in maternal health/maternal loss throughout the study.
Project Steering Committee
The Project Steering Committee oversee the project and approve of our protocols, monitor our work regularly, and comment on our final report. 75% of this group are independent from the applicant group.
Independent Data Interpretation Group
Because some of the research team have had previous involvement in the development of the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT), we have an Independent Data Interpretation Group.
The group will look at our data analysis to ensure bias is minimised, and that our findings are a true representations of the data we collect.
Contact Us
Email: matrep@manchester.ac.uk
