6th UK Implementation Science Research Conference

Meet the Experts

Shalini

Ahuja

Shalini is an implementation science researcher and a physiotherapist by training.

She is the current Research Programme Manager for the ARC Mental Health Implementation Network, which aims to implement and evaluate evidence-based mental health interventions across England. She has a master’s degree in health management, planning, and policy from the University of Leeds and a PhD in public mental health research from King’s College London.

With around ten years of work in health services research, she has experience in evaluating mental health information systems in South Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries, as well as co-developing behaviour change interventions in a variety of health domains, such as “integrated physical and mental health,” infection prevention and control, antibiotic resistance, and chronic malnutrition.

Annette

Boaz

Annette Boaz is professor of Health and Social Care Policy at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
She has more than 25 years of experience in supporting the use of evidence across a range of policy domains. She was part of one of the largest UK investments in the evidence use landscape, the ESRC Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice and has undertaken an international leadership role in promoting the use of evidence. She is a founding editor of the international journal Evidence & Policy and has recently published a book on evidence use: ‘What Works Now.’ With Kathryn Oliver, she leads Transforming Evidence, an international initiative designed to support the use of research evidence in different policy fields and contexts. She has a particular research interest in stakeholder involvement, the role of partnerships in promoting research use, implementation science and service improvement. She has worked in the UK Department of Health and also the Government Office for Science. She is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the WHO European Advisory Committee on Health Research.

Allison

Metz

Professor of the Practice Director of Implementation Practice

Allison Metz, Ph.D., is a developmental psychologist with expertise in child development and family systems and a commitment to improving child and family outcomes and advancing equity. Allison specializes in the implementation of evidence to achieve social impact for children and families in a range of human service and education areas, with an emphasis on child welfare and early childhood service contexts. Allison is Professor of the Practice and Director of Implementation Practice at the School of Social Work, Faculty Fellow at the FPG Child Development Institute, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. Allison previously served as Director of the National Implementation Research Network and Lead of the Implementation Science Division at the FPG Child Development Institute where she also served as a Senior Research Scientist for 13 years. Allison’s research interests include the role of trust, power and relationships in evidence use, competencies for supporting implementation, and co-creation strategies to support sustainable change. She is particularly interested in the development of a workforce for supporting implementation in public systems. Allison is co-chair of the Institute on Implementation Practice and founding director of the Collaborative for Implementation Practice at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work. She is the co-editor of the widely read volume Applying Implementation Science in Early Childhood Programs and Systems.

Brian S.

Mittman

Brian S. Mittman, PhD is a Senior Scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation with additional affiliations at the University of Southern California (USC) and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he co-leads the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Implementation and Improvement Science Initiative.  He previously served as a Visiting Professor in the UCLA School of Public Health and Anderson Graduate School of Management.  

 Dr. Mittman convened the planning committee that launched the journal Implementation Science and served as co-editor in chief from 2005-2012.  He was a founding member of the US Institute of Medicine Forum on the Science of Quality Improvement and Implementation and chaired the National Institutes of Health (NIH) peer review panel on Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health in 2007 and 2010.  He directed VA’s Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) from 2002-2004.  He currently serves on the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Board of External Experts, the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Advisory Panel on Research, and advisory boards for several additional U.S. and international research programs.  He is a past member of the Methodology Committee for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), where he led the Methodology Committee initiative to develop and disseminate methods standards for studying complex health interventions, and a past member of the AcademyHealth Methods Council and Education Council.  He has led or supported numerous implementation and improvement science studies and has taught implementation science throughout the US and abroad.    

  

Marie-Therese

Schultes

Dr Marie-Therese Schultes is an educational and health psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, University of Zurich. Marie-Therese chairs the German Speaking Implementation Association. Her research centres on implementation evaluation, assessment of implementation outcomes, development of implementation competencies and capacity building for implementation science.