Meet the third cohort who are taking part in FLIER, our cross-sector leadership programme:
Dr Rubina Ahmed, Director of Research, Policy and Services, Blood Cancer UK
(Job title at the start of the programme: Dr Rubina Ahmed, Associate Director for Systems Engagement, Stroke Association)
Dr Rubina Ahmed holds a PhD in Immunology and an MSc in Management. She has a background in scientific research funding, organisational strategy, and management, and has built a career across the public and medical research charity sectors.
She joined Blood Cancer UK in July 2023 as Director of Research, Policy and Services. Here she is part of the Executive Leadership team accountable for the “mission-facing” directorate responsible for delivering programmes that benefit people affected by blood cancer. This includes overseeing the research funding programmes, clinical trials programmes, beneficiary services such as the helpline, health information, healthcare professional engagement, policy and advocacy, and involvement and volunteering.
Previously she was the Associate Director for Systems Engagement at the Stroke Association, where she was responsible for a wide portfolio of activities, including research funding, policy, public affairs and campaigns, health inequalities, international engagement, and broader objectives around working in partnership with system decision-makers at the local and national level. Rubina’s team worked collaboratively with NHS England to support the delivery of the stroke ambitions in the NHS England Long Term Plan. She was a member of the NHS England Stroke Delivery Programme Board and Board Member of the Stroke Alliance for Europe.
Other organisations she has worked for include the Wellcome Trust, NC3Rs and Cancer Research UK, working across a range of areas from fundamental and translational research through to clinical trials regulation and delivery. Alongside her work at Blood Cancer UK, she is an experienced charity Trustee and is currently a Council Member of the British Science Association, and a Trustee for Pro Bono Economics.
Professor Alex Casson, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester
(Job title at the start of the programme: Dr Alex Casson, Reader (Associate Professor), Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester)
Alex Casson is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Manchester. He is a specialist in non-invasive bioelectronic interfaces: the design and application of wearable sensors, and skin-conformal flexible sensors, for human body monitoring and data analysis from highly artefact-prone naturalistic situations. This work is highly multidisciplinary, spanning ultra-low power sensing, signal processing and machine learning in power-constrained rich environments, and real-time data analysis towards closed loop systems.
Professor Casson’s ultra-low power sensors work is mainly for health and wellness applications, with a strong background in brain interfacing (EEG and transcranial current stimulation) and heart monitoring. Applications focus on both mental health situations, including chronic pain, sleep disorders, and autism, and physical health/rehabilitation applications including diabetic foot ulceration.
Professor Casson has cross-disciplinary appointments to support this work. He is a Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester; Visiting Reader (2022–2024) in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds; and Honorary Reader (2022–2024) in the Medical Physics Department at Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
He is a Future Leader in Innovation, Enterprise and Research (FLIER) for the Academy of Medical Sciences (2022–2024), Bioelectronics technology platform lead for the Henry Royce Institute, and previously a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute (2021–2023). Professor Casson is currently a Senior Member of the IEEE and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is a past chair of the IET Healthcare Technologies Network, and the Biomedical Engineering joint steering group.
Professor Joan Condell, Professor of Intelligent Technologies, Ulster University
(Job title at the start of the programme: Professor Joan Condell, School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Ulster University)
Professor Joan Condell leads the Human Centred Computing team in Ulster University (Northern Ireland; NI) focusing on (big) data analytics, AI and IoT sensors for a range of applied research sectors. She manages a team of PhD researchers, Research Associates and Fellows across national, EU and commercial projects (led over 120 projects in her career). Professor Condell has published over 250 papers and actively secured grants from external sources with a total project value over £98M.
Professor Condell has considerable commercial experience; she is CEO of a spinout company ActionSense Ltd and exited a previous spinout company (HidInImage Ltd). She has numerous patents filed in the UK and the US, and has completed trials with key industrial players with a range of technologies. She has won Innovation and Enterprise awards for this commercialisation work for creativity and bio-entrepreneurship.
Professor Condell’s main focus is on adoption and implementation of medically aligned technologies into the health service. Joan set up the first NI community testbed, eCareWell, working with 20 local (NI) companies to test their technologies (hardware and software) with NI communities. She works very closely with early-stage companies and SMEs to test their product and/or service in terms of usability, function efficacy and acceptability by their target end-users. She also assists companies on software and hardware development and/or testing necessary for next-stage funding or investment. More recently she has started working alongside housing associations looking closely at the effect on health of net-zero targets and changes planned for implementation NI and wider across the UK.
Professor Bibek Gooptu, Professor of Respiratory Biology, University of Leicester, Director of the Centre for Fibrosis Research, University of Leicester, Consultant in Respiratory Medicine, Glenfield/University Hospitals of Leicester (Job title at the start of the programme: Professor Bibek Gooptu, Professor of Respiratory Biology, University of Leicester)
Professor Bibek Gooptu’s research integrates studies of the molecular structures of proteins with cell and tissue studies and findings from clinical practice, to define and target mechanisms underlying chronic disease processes including inflammation, scarring and dementia.
He is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Glenfield Hospital, a group leader within the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, and Professor of Respiratory and Structural Biology at the University of Leicester (UoL) Institute of Structural & Chemical Biology (LISCB). He leads an initiative to expand UoL’s use of LISCB’s expertise and technical capabilities for Translational Medicine (SCBxTra).
He is the founding Director of the new interdisciplinary UoL Centre for Fibrosis Research (UoL CFR) and Chair of the East Midlands Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) Research Alliance (EMIRA). Both UoL CFR and EMIRA integrate patient panels into scientific meetings to contribute to the development of new collaborative initiatives regionally and internationally.
Professor Gooptu dual-trained in biomedical research and medicine at The University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge (MB/PhD). As a junior doctor he undertook six years of full-time clinical work (East Anglia, Nottingham, London, Essex), before gaining further research experience with Structural Biology methods (crystallography, NMR, cryo-EM) at Birkbeck College and UCL (Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship). He then worked as a Consultant and Senior Clinical Lecturer at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals/KCL prior to moving to Leicester.
Dr Gita Khalili Moghaddam, Principal Investigator, University of Cambridge
(Job title at the start of the programme: Dr Gita Khalili Moghaddam, UKRI Innovation Scholar, University of Cambridge)
Gita is a mission-driven PI at the University of Cambridge, leading multidisciplinary innovation in digital health technologies. She also holds a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with GSK, driving the application of AI in clinical trial design to enhance equitable access to effective treatments.
Her research sits at the intersection of academia, clinical practice, and commercial innovation, with a strong emphasis on scalable approaches for early diagnosis and personalised care. As a (co-)founder of health technology ventures, she develops tools that integrate longitudinal data and behavioural insights to support timely, equitable decision-making in healthcare systems. These initiatives directly contribute to national priorities in healthier ageing, clinical trial optimisation, and reducing disparities in care.
Gita collaborates with over 20 academic, clinical, and industry partners across more than 10 countries. Her contributions have been recognised through prestigious national awards, including the Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences Fellowship, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Young Engineer of the Year Award, and inclusion among the UK’s Top 18 Women in AI and 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness.
She is a mentor for women in AI and advises UK government bodies on the adoption of trustworthy, explainable AI in healthcare, with a commitment to ensuring that innovation delivers meaningful and inclusive impact.
Dr Simon Lambden, Executive Medical Director, Head of Translational and Clinical Data Science & Early Clinical Development Lead; Alexion, AstraZeneca rare disease unit
(Job title at the start of the programme: Dr Simon Lambden, Head of Medical Science, Inotrem)
Dr Simon Lambden is a clinician, scientist and executive with a focus on the development of novel therapies with the greatest unmet clinical needs.
He had a two decade career as an anaesthesiology and intensive care doctor and, having completed his PhD and postdoctoral work in immunology, he developed a range of skills including therapeutic and companion diagnostic development, translational science and clinical development.
As a consultant, founder, executive or Chief Medical Officer in a number of biotechnology companies, he gained a broad exposure to the journey from discovery to late-stage clinical development. This includes the research, business development, regulatory and leadership activities that form a key part of a success in the biotech space.
Simon is currently leading the translational medicine and clinical data science group and is an early clinical development lead at Alexion, AstraZeneca’s rare disease unit in Boston, Massachusetts. His focus in on developing therapies for rare disease across a broad range of therapeutic areas using multiple treatment modalities. Other responsibilities include leadership in business development activities and building the strategic relationship with the wider AstraZeneca organisation.
Professor Julie-Anne Little, Professor in Optometry & Vision Science, Ulster University
(Job title at the start of the programme: Dr Julie-Anne Little, Senior Lecturer in Optometry, Ulster University)
Julie-Anne Little is a Professor of Optometry and Vision Science at Ulster University. Her research focuses on investigating refractive error, accommodation and visual function in childhood, and aims to optimise vision, educational attainment and quality of life through effective eyecare interventions for individuals across the world.
Under her strategic leadership as Research Director for the Biomedical Sciences Research Institute at Ulster University, the multidisciplinary team of >100 researchers spanning nutrition, diabetes, genomic medicine, pharmaceutical and vision science was ranked world-leading in the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021: 5th in the UK for biomedical research, with a 100% world-leading research environment.
To date, she has authored 44 peer-reviewed journal articles with >1000 citations, with publications predominantly in Q1 Scimago-ranked journals in ophthalmology. Her outputs demonstrate her sustained focus on improving vision and eyecare for people with developmental disability, using cutting-edge methodologies coupled with clinical expertise in conducting optometric assessment of hard-to-test groups. They also reflect her research investigating the impact of uncorrected hyperopia in children for reading and near tasks, and epidemiological work on unmet visual need. Her research has been supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust, the Alzheimer’s Society, the EU (Horizon 2020, Marie Curie), NIHR, College of Optometrists, and various other sources.
She contributes to postgraduate and undergraduate optometry programmes and has a strong external profile in optometry as Chair of the European Council of Optometry and Optics Accreditation Agency, and as Chairman of the Association of Optometrists in the UK.
Emma Lowe, Transformation Director, NIHR Research Delivery Network
(Job title at the start of the programme: Emma Lowe, Head of Research Policy: Clinical Research and Growth, Department of Health and Social Care)