Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee

Samia currently works as a Consultant in Communicable Disease Control and in Global Health Protection in the UK Health Security Agency. She also chairs this organisation’s Race Equality Staff Network.

Besides being Chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Samia is a General Board Member of the Faculty anda member of the FPH Global Health Committee and various special interest groups.

Samia is a GMC appraiser, an educational supervisor and an accredited mentor. Her areas of interest are health protection, culturally intelligent leadership, global public health, lifestyle medicine and public mental health. She is a keen advocate for gender and race equality and is the Lead for Women in Global Health Pakistan-UK Alliance.

“I am a passionate public health leader committed to advancing equity, inclusion, and social justice in health systems both in the UK and globally. My lived experiences as a woman of colour fuel me to challenge inequities and dismantle the often unseen systemic barriers that hold back those with intersecting identities.

Wearing various EDI hats I’ve led national conversations on anti-racism, inclusive leadership, and equitable access to health services. I believe in creating compassionate spaces that empower diverse voices, and try my best to lead with authenticity, humility, empathy and purpose. I am on a learning journey and invite you to join me!”

Fiona is the Vice-Chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee and also provides support to the Faculty's work on reasonable adjustments for exams.

Fiona joined the NHS in 2013 and has a background in commissioning and health informatics prior to working in public health. Currently, she is a Consultant in Healthcare Public Health in Specialised Commissioning for the NHS England North West Region.

Fiona is also an educational supervisor, and a Course Tutor PGCert in Medical Education at the University of Cambridge, with academic interests in EDI and supporting healthcare professionals with disabilities and additional needs. Through her continuing work, she brings an understanding of research, strategy, policy and best practice in EDI, and engagement with wider expertise and learning. 

Fiona’s personal interest in work around EDI originally stemmed from lived experience as she lives with an acute long-term complex mental health condition, which has driven her to try to understand and improve the experiences of healthcare professionals who suffer stigma, marginalisation and inequity, including those with disabilities and additional needs. She strongly believes in the importance of visible role models and a fair, diverse and representative healthcare workforce in order for us to collectively best look after the interests of our patients and population. 

Denise is a biomedical scientist by background with a career spanning sexual health, HIV, and public health. With over a decade of experience working in local government, she is now a Public Health Specialty Registrar focused on tackling health inequalities at system level.

Denise has seen how individuals can be marginalised by systems based on their identity or circumstances and how creating inclusive environments can enable people to feel valued, heard, and able to thrive. As Vice Chair of the Faculty's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Special Interest Group, Denise is committed to amplifying diverse voices, breaking down barriers that limit opportunity, and driving meaningful, lasting change to improve equity, diversity and inclusion. 

Helene Denness has more than 30 years of experience in public sector roles. She is currently the Deputy Director of Public Health for North Northamptonshire Council, alongside being a Training Programme Director and Faculty Board Member for the East Midlands. In her role as Deputy Director of Public Health, Helene has the portfolio lead for children and young people, substance misuse, serious violence, and sexual health. Helene’s current registration as a nurse and public health consultant ensures her credibility with clinical colleagues.

Key to Helene’s operational success has been forming strong, trusting relationships across systems. Her career has been infused with a commitment to reducing inequity and inequality and has encompassed local, regional, and national roles. Confident to lead complex partnerships, she led Nottingham’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Community of Practice. Focusing on mental health, Helene worked tirelessly to gain the confidence of community members and bring together statutory and voluntary sector partners to develop shared and owned actions.  

Helene has drawn on her personal as well as professional experiences to inform her work, speaking about both neurodivergence and mental health issues, from a personal and parental perspective in the national media, at conferences and in parliamentary groups, influencing national policy. She is an active member of the National Autistic Society and former trustee of Young Minds.

I'm Rachel, a Public Health Registrar based in Greater Manchester. Originally from London I moved to Manchester and Preston for medical school and was thrilled to secure my specialty training post up here in 2021.

Across my training programme so far, I've been lucky to explore public health in a variety of settings, and to work on the FPH's Fair Training Culture programme, particularly around differential attainment in the exams.

I also have an interest in education and am currently writing my dissertation for an MSc in Medical Education. Outside of work I enjoy swimming, baking, and yoga as well as discovering new restaurants with friends. 

My own EDI journey began in medical school. Growing up in an area as diverse as South London, I was struck by how many voices were missing from the spaces I was now in. Through volunteering with colleagues from different backgrounds, I learnt about the myriad of structural and systematic inequalities embedded across medical and later public health career pathways. EDI work speaks to my core values of fairness and social justice, but it is also fundamental to building trust with the communities we serve and effectively tackling health inequalities.

For me, EDI means taking action to build an inclusive culture where every member of our public health community feels they belong and feels safe to be their true self. It means challenging discrimination and structural inequities, actively listening to and speaking up with marginalised groups, and continuously learning and growing from each other's experience.

I’m Jo McCarthy and I’m delighted to be the Wales representative on the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. 

I am a Public Health Consultant living in Carmarthen with my wife and our three children. My background is in sports science and medicine, both of which I studied at Swansea University (many moons ago) before undertaking public health training in Wales.

My experience in the equity, diversity and inclusion space includes leading on the planning and running of health services at the first welcome centre for Ukrainian people seeking sanctuary in Wales, and in developing our west Wales Community Development Outreach Team and health equity advisory group.

I currently chair the Hywel Dda University Health Board LGBT+ Network. Bringing a Welsh perspective to the committee, I have a focus on Welsh language inclusion where appropriate, rurality and the challenges this can pose around equity of access to training opportunities and events, and ensuring a view from working in a devolved health service is heard, especially in situations where curriculum or exam changes are considered.  

Professor Alison McCallum is an experienced public health doctor who joined the Centre for Population Health Sciences, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh in November 2020 as Visiting (Honorary) Professor of Public Health. Her research focuses on health equity, the commercial determinants of health – particularly trade and public health – vaccine equity, inclusion health and amenable morbidity and mortality.

She co-leads the on-line MPH Global Health Challenges module on Leadership and Management in Public Health. She is currently the Usher Institute link with the Association of Schools of Public Health for the WHO European Region, ASPHER member of the World Federation of Public Health Association Non-Governmental Organisations for Equity initiative, International Association of Public Health Institutes' Social and Public Health Inequalities Committee, and chairs the Vaccination subgroup of the ASPHER Public Health Emergencies Task Force. She is a co-chair of the FPH Europe Special Interest Group and a member of the Faculty's Global Health Committee. She is a research member of the NHS Scotland Public Benefits and Privacy Panel and National Records of Scotland Central Register Stakeholder Group.

Over the last 25 years, she has been a Director of Public Health in Scotland and England, worked at national level in Finland, taught and trained students and professionals in public health, and undertaken collaborative research with colleagues in universities in several countries across and beyond Europe.

Sian is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Primary Care with a strong commitment to addressing health inequalities, particularly in maternal health.

As a Public Health Specialty Registrar representative on the Faculty of Public Health's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Sian brings experience in clinical practice, research, and leadership. She has particular expertise in the intersection of public health, social and structural factors that impact the health outcomes of underserved populations, including women from ethnic minority groups and those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Her PhD explored the impact of co-locating welfare advice services on maternal health and wellbeing for mothers and their families in health settings and its potential to reduce health inequalities. In recognition of this work, Sian was recently awarded the FPH Sam Ramaiah Award. 

Additionally, Sian has lived experience of neurodiversity and hopes to bring this personal insight to her role, both professionally and in the way the committee supports diverse perspectives.

Vinod Tohani graduated in 1976 from Trinity College Dublin, having finished his GP Vocational training in 1979. Later on, he became Fellow and Registrar in Community Medicine.

Vinod has worked on a voluntary basis for the Northern Ireland Practice and Education Council for Nursing and Midwifery (NIPEC) and served on the Food Standard Agency and UK Pesticide Advisory Committee. He has also served on the Public Health Finance and Risk Committee for 10 years, was chair of the Risk and Audit Committee for NIPEC and chaired the Ethnic Minority Group for its Health Board to represent the issues affecting the health and access to healthcare amongst these communities, including dealing with claims of discrimination and staff awareness training on these matters.

Vinod retired after working as a Consultant in Public Health Medicine and Consultant in Communicable Disease Control for 27 years in Northern Ireland.

Dr Justin Varney-Bennett is the Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Special Interest Group of the Faculty. He is an experienced public health consultant with a career that spans local, regional, national and international public health systems. His special interests include diversity and inclusion with specific expertise around LGBT+ inclusion and inequalities, ethnic disparities and disability inclusion as well as a long history of work with marginalised communities.

Justin is the Regional Director for the South West in the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities and NHS England, bridging between the Department of Health and Social Care and regional and local public health systems and partnerships and providing senior public health advice into national policy teams within the NHS and DHSC in England.

Prior roles include Director of Public Health for Birmingham City Council, National Lead for Adult Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, Thinker in Residence at the University of Sydney and Strategy Lead for Business in the Community.

He is currently a member of the Board of the Hippodrome theatre in Birmingham and previously a member of the Board of the Food Standards Agency and the Consortium of LGBT Voluntary and Community Organisations. He holds an honorary chair at the Institute of Applied Research at the University of Birmingham and is an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.

Justin is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion and is excited to support the Faculty in its ambition to tackle structural discrimination of all forms and become an exemplar for work in this space, he believes strongly in the interface of knowledge and understanding with technical skills to drive culturally competent public health practice rooted in exposure to lived experience and collaboration with communities.

Albert has been the Consultant in Dental Public Health of NHS Lanarkshire in Scotland since 2007. He is an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer of the University of Glasgow and a Professional Adviser to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. 

Originally from Hong Kong, Albert studied dentistry in Glasgow. He has a diverse background of working experience in dentistry in the UK, including general dental practice, hospitals, community dental service and teaching in dental schools. He is the co-editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Dentistry (Second Edition). 

Albert is the President of the West of Scotland Branch of the British Dental Association in 2025–26. He was the President of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD) in 2022–23 and the inaugural Chair of the BASCD Diversity Action Group in 2022–24. The BASCD EDI Statement was launched in November 2024.

EDI in the workplace establish a sense of belonging among employees. When employees feel more connected and celebrated at work, they flourish and do the best work of their lives.

Jason is a ST2 Public Health Registrar based in Thames Valley and a representative from the Specialty Registrars Committee. He is currently undergoing placements at Oxfordshire County Council and UKHSA South East Health Protection team. Before beginning his public health specialty training, Jason trained as a medical doctor in Oxford and spent a year working in pharmaceutical consulting. 

Coming from an ethnic minority background, Jason has a strong interest in equity, diversity and inclusion, recognising the importance of building a fair society where individuals from all backgrounds are able to succeed and thrive. He has previously conducted research on children and young people's mental health, with a focus on exploring the underlying causes and strategies to address inequalities. Additionally, Jason contributes to initiatives aimed at reducing training inequalities and facilitating reasonable adjustments for specialty registrar trainees.

Outside of his work, Jason enjoys watching sport, making Neapolitan pizza, and hanging out with his two cats.