Meet the team

Professor Samantha Johnson

Samantha Johnson is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Child Development in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester. Her research interests are in childhood assessment and  understanding and improving the development and learning of children who were born preterm or with perinatal adversity. Samantha leads the PARCA-R standardisation study. 

Professor Brad Manktelow

Brad Manktelow is a medical statistician (CStat) and Professor of Medical Statistics in TIMMS research group at the University of Leicester. His current work is primarily about the use of data to improve the quality of healthcare that is provided and to improve outcomes, particularly in perinatal, neonatal and paediatric medicine. Brad is the lead statistician for the PARCA-R standardisation study.

Dr Vasiliki Bountziouka

Vasiliki Bountziouka is an applied biostatistician and Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester. She has broad research interests, mainly centred on methodology of dietary assessment, reference equations, health inequalities and life-course epidemiology. Vasiliki is responsible for standardising the PARCA-R questionnaire.

Professor Peter Brocklehurst

Peter Brocklehurst is Professor of Women's Health and Director of the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit, and Professor of Perinatal Epidemiology at the NPEU. His expertise is in RCTs and observational epidemiology. He has Chaired or been a member of several funding panels (including the DH Policy Research Programme Commissioning Board; NIHR HTA Commissioning Board; Wellbeing of Women Research Advisory Group; MRC Methodology Research Programme panel). He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Dr Louise Linsell

Louise Linsell is the lead Statistician at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit Clinical Trials Unit at Oxford University. She has over 20 years of experience of epidemiological research in several medical fields and has extensive expertise in the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of obstetric and neonatal clinical trials. In 2017 she completed a National Institute of Health Research Doctoral Fellowship on predicting neurodevelopmental outcomes in children born extremely preterm.

Professor Neil Marlow

Neil Marlow is Professor of Neonatal Medicine at University College London and current Chair of the NHS England Neonatal Critical Care Clinical Reference Group. His major research focus has been on long-term outcomes following premature birth. In particular his team are evaluating learning difficulties in extremely preterm babies, based primarily on the EPICure study.

Professor Dieter Wolke

Dieter Wolke is a Professor of Developmental Psychology and Individual Differences at the University of Warwick. His research focuses on the brain and psychological development and quality of life of preterm; early regulatory problems (crying, sleeping and feeding) in infancy and their long term consequences; and on peer or sibling victimization (bullying).