About Us

Hannah Patrick

Dr Hannah Patrick is an Educational Supervisor for the Faculty of Public Health in the UK. She is a clinical advisor to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence with experience in public health practice and evaluation of health technologies and services. She also works as a clinical hematologist in South East London. She volunteers as a mentor because she is fascinated in, and committed to the principles of public health practice; in particular avoidance of preventable disease and reduction in inequalities in health experience.

Richard F. Heller

Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Manchester, UK and Newcastle, Australia. Dick is a medical graduate from London University and has worked in the UK, the US and Australia. He retired in 2006 from the post of Professor of Public Health in the University of Manchester, UK, having previously been Director of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was also a consultant physician at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. Educational highlights have been the involvement with INCLEN, an organization originally funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which involved capacity building in a number of medical schools across the developing world. As part of that he developed a distance learning master’s course from the University of Newcastle, and subsequently built a fully on-line master’s course in Public Health in Manchester.

He is the originator of the idea for the Peoples-uni, to help with Public Health capacity building in developing countries, using open access resources on the Internet. His research interests have been in the causes and prevention of heart disease, and in developing measures to describe the population impact of disease risks and the benefits of interventions.

Nick Osborne

Associate Professor Nick Osborne, BSc(Hons), MAgSci, PhD, Fellow Higher Education Academy.  He is a research and teaching academic at the School of Public Health, University of Queensland where he works as an epidemiologist and toxicologist with research interests in using environmental epidemiology to examine aetiology and pathological pathways of disease.  

He worked for several years at the charity People’s University where he was the module lead for epidemiology which saw the delivery of public health education online to low and middle income countries.  He currently is program directior of the Masters of Environmental Health Sciences and in past roles has been program director of the BHSc at UQ and director of the Masters of Public Health at UNSW.

Nick’s research interests have seen him work in a range of countries and has seen the positive effect of sharing knowledge.

Kingsley Agyemang

Kingsley Agyemang is the Registrar of the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat. As head of the Secretariat, he oversees the strategic development of human capital in Ghana and abroad. He introduced the first-ever decentralized scholarship scheme to increase scholarship accessibility to people in low socioeconomic settings. In its first year of inception, the scheme led to scholarship awards for over 29,000 applicants. Kingsley is also an insurance expert with over 15 years of experience contributing academically and technically to the insurance industry.

He was a senior lecturer at the Ghana Insurance College, and his responsibilities included providing critical skillsets on insurance policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. He has a vast experience in stakeholder engagement research and exploring mechanisms to improve health systems through evidence-based and policy-relevant approaches.

He is passionate about effective collaborations between governments and global public health institutions. Key among these is supporting the establishment of a collaborative relationship between the Ministry of Health (Ghana) and Brunel Global Public Health Academy. He collaborates with the Ghana Statistical Service to conduct health-related surveys in Ghana.

Nana Anokye

Nana Anokye is Director of Division of Global Public Health, Brunel University London. He is a Professor in Health Economics with research interests in economics of public health in lower and middle income countries. Nana’s work on Economics of Physical Activity has been used by NICE to formulate three national public health guidelines on exercise referral schemes, and brief advice for adults in primary care. Nana is the Chair of ISPAH low and middle-income countries research council and a member of the Africa Research Excellence Fund College of Experts. As an ILM certified coach, mentor, and a former broadcast journalist, Nana is passionate about communicating research and supporting research careers. He is the founder of the African Health Economists in the Diaspora (AHEAD) mentoring scheme.

Erica James

Professor Erica James, PhD, PFHEA is a member of the Praxis steering group. She was previously Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) and lead of the Master of Public Health program at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Public Health Institutions of Australasia (CAPHIA). Erica has a keen interest in health promotion, reducing inequity, and public health workforce development. She is available as a mentor for individuals and small groups interested in health promotion practice.

tanmay Bagade

Dr Tanmay Bagade is a Lecturer in Medical Education and Global Health at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he is the coordinator of a number of courses in the Master of Public Health degree. He is an Obstetrician who has worked as a clinician and project manager to build capacity in various healthcare settings in India, Somalia, and Papua New Guinea. He completed his PhD (Gender and Health), where he has analysed data from 193 countries to investigate the interrelations of indicators of gender equality with maternal and child health from a global human rights perspective.

His study uses a women’s rights-based framework to explain the critical challenges that should be addressed to improve women’s and children’s health and well-being. His research area is focused mainly on Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health (RMNCH).

Perihan Torun

Dr. Perihan Torun, MSC Epidemiology, FHEA (UK) is a public health professional and academician with a background in general practice. She has many years of international experience in the design, development and delivery of internationalised and constructively aligned curricula, and assessment of teaching from the perspective of adult learning principles and theories. 

She has worked with the universities of Liverpool and Sheffield (UK) and also with the Peoples-uni education initiative to teach online MPH classes in the past and is currently teaching on an MPH/PhD programme in İstanbul with the University of Health Sciences, Turkey. Perihan is available for mentorship for designing curricula and drafting research papers.

Rajan Madhok

Rajan Madhok is a public health doctor from Delhi, India who came to the UK in early 1980s after graduating and over the years held senior medical management positions in the NHS until his retirement a few years ago. Rajan lives in North Wales and is helping various capacity building and leadership development projects – details of his works are also available at ramareflections. He joined Peoples-praxis as a director and he will also be available as a mentor.

Ben Harris-Roxas

Dr Ben Harris-Roxas is a Senior Lecturer in Integrated Care at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is an experienced health services researcher, impact assessor and evaluator with more than twenty years of experience in universities, government and the private sector. He has also consulted for the World Heath Organization South East Asian and Western Pacific Regional Offices.

Ben convenes Masters-level subjects on health service management and primary health care, and supervises several PhD students. Ben volunteers as a mentor because he is committed to empowering people and supporting mentees to set and develop their own direction. He also advice and collaboration on peer-reviewed publications.

Paul Cooper

A finance professional with a breadth and depth of operating and systems experience gained in a range of senior management positions at national and international companies.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (FCMA), MBA (Warwick University), MSc Environmental Economics (Open University) , BSc Chemical Engineering (Bath University).

Taher Qassim

Taher is currently the chair of the British Yemeni Society, a member of the Yemen Special Interest Group, Faculty of Public Health UK, and a member of the Peoples Praxis. He worked as a public health practitioner for Liverpool City Council, Department of Public Health UK and played the lead role in improving the uptake of bowel cancer screening and exercise for health until he retired recently. His work in primary health care, health service, and public health in Yemen, Sweden, and England spans more than four decades.

Taher was a founder and a leader of a few local and national voluntary organisations including the founder and chair of Liverpool Arabic Centre, the founder and chair of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, a chair of Merseyside Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) consortium, a chair of the National Yemeni Community Coordinating Council (YCCC) UK, and a co-founder of Liverpool Friends of Yemen for peace. He was awarded MBE in September 2007 for his contribution to improving achievements in education among BAME communities in Liverpool.