FPH welcomes ten new Honorary Fellows

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) has welcomed ten new Honorary Fellows this year.

Honorary Fellowship is the highest category of FPH membership, awarded to those who have made exceptional contributions towards public health practice or improving the health of the public.

A list and short biography of the new FPH Honorary Fellows is available below. 

Professor Clare Bambra

Clare is Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University. For over 20 years, her research has highlighted the importance of the social determinants of health and how health inequalities can be reduced through public policies. She has published over 250 peer-reviewed publications, is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a Senior Investigator at the NIHR, holding multiple research leadership roles at regional, national and international level.

Clare also holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator fellowship grant on regional health inequalities and co-leads a large NIHR grant on universal credit and mental health. She was the Executive Director of the Durham University’s Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing. She co-founded Health Equity North, working with policy and practice across the North to tackle regional health inequalities.

Dr James Campbell

James is the Director of Health Workforce at the World Health Organisation. He has championed the development of the global public health workforce, including leading on the design of a roadmap to develop the public health and emergency workforce. This work has mobilised national public health institutions and schools to map and measure the size of the workforce, its capacity to deliver essential public health functions, and to review training programmes.

He was the Executive Director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance between 2014 and 2016, contributing significantly to actions to build the health workforce. James has published extensively and co-ordinated the development of the World Health Organisation’s guidance and technical documentation on health workforce development.

Professor Dame Jennifer Harries

Jennifer is Chief Executive at UKHSA. She previously served on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation and has a wealth of public health knowledge and expertise gained from working in the NHS and local government at local, regional and national levels. She played a central role in the UK’s response to COVID-19, Ebola, Zika, monkeypox, MERS and the Novichok attacks.

Jennifer's career highlights include being Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England; Public Health England’s Deputy Medical Director; Local Director of Public Health at Monmouthshire Local Health Board; and a member of the Expert Advisory Group on the NHS Constitution. Jennifer has worked in policy, evaluation, and clinical roles in Pakistan, Albania, India and New Zealand.

Dr Camilla Kingdon

Camilla is immediate past-President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and is a highly respected health leader and a staunch supporter of public health. She has been a consultant neonatologist since 2000 and works at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. Her sub-specialty interests include neonatal nutrition, donor milk banking, and neurodevelopment follow-up of high-risk neonates.

Camilla has a longstanding involvement in medical education at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. She was Head of the London School of Paediatrics and Child Health for five years, and has a particular interest and expertise in medical careers support. She holds a Master’s Degree in Medical Careers Management from the University of Brighton and currently co-leads the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Careers Advisors network. Camilla is especially interested in enhancing the working lives of paediatricians, team morale, and ideas to combat burnout in medicine.

Professor James Kingsland

Throughout his career, James has recognised the limitations of medical solutions alone to address ill-health and emphasised the need to tackle the wider determinants of health in order to deliver sustainable health improvements. His work has been at the forefront of policy implementation, seeing multidisciplinary team arrangements and non-medical services such as the Citizens Advice bureau and return to work advisory clinics established.

James has been a primary care policy advisor to the Department of Health and Social Care and was awarded the OBE for services to medicine and healthcare in 2012. He is currently leading the Complete Care Community Programme with emphasis on collaboration between the health, social care and voluntary sectors.

Professor Christina Pagel

Christina is a Professor of Operational Research at UCL. Starting as an astrophysicist, she is a polymath with Master’s Degrees in Medieval History and Classical Civilisations, as well as in Mathematical Physics and Applied Statistics with Medical Applications.

She is internationally recognised for her work on heart disease in children and paediatric intensive care. The Operational Research Society has recognised her work through the award of the Companion of OR Prize, the Blackett Lectureship, the Lyn Thomas Impact Medal, and through Christina’s election as Vice-President of the Society. She is also a frequent commentator on the media, having receiving awards for science communication by the BMJ, Healthwatch, and the Royal Statistical Society’s Excellence in Journalism Award.

Mayor Marvin Rees

Marvin has been the Mayor of Bristol since 2016. With a background in global policy and health, Marvin entered politics committed to addressing inequality. As Mayor, he focused on creating the conditions for health, including housing and inclusive employment, establishing Bristol as a Living Wage City, and leading Bristol’s response to climate and ecological emergencies as well as city-wide campaigns on domestic abuse, period poverty, and child hunger. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he supported the creation of a network of local businesses, universities, trade unions, and other cultural and local organisations to promote responsive dialogue, which was instrumental in achieving a high level of trust and engagement across a very diverse city. Marvin has worked the Local Government Association and other forums to promote an understanding of issues such as climate change, migration, and public health emergencies.

Professor Alice Roberts

Alice is Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, where she teaches medical students and contributes to the university’s public engagement strategy. She is a biological anthropologist and clinical anatomist, but is best known as an award-winning author and broadcaster, having presented over a hundred television programmes on subjects ranging from biology and archaeology to history.

Alice has written 12 popular science books, including “The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being”, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2015. Alice has given hundreds of public talks over the years, including a sold-out Royal Geographical Society lecture tour.

Professor Margaret Stanley

Margaret is a virologist, epithelial biologist, and research scientist in virology with a particular interest in the human papilloma virus. Her main research was into the pathogenesis of HPV, and early in her career she generated a non-tumorigenic human cervical keratinocyte cell line, which led to research on the process of cervical cancer development.

Margaret serves on the HPV subcommittee of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and is the Vice-President of the International Papillomavirus Society which encourages nations to endorse and utilise the HPV vaccination.

Dr Benoit Varenne

Benoit is the Chief Dental Officer at the World Health Organisation. Over the last 30 years, Benoit has played a key role in advocating for major change in oral health policies and has been a global champion in this neglected area of public health, developing draft resolutions which have significantly raised the profile of oral health at the World Health Organisation and have been influential in supporting oral health policy development at national level in many countries.

Through a variety of roles at the World Health Organisation – and in his capacity as Chief Dental Officer since 2017 – he has provided outstanding global leadership in oral health policy and was instrumental in developing the African Regional Oral Health Strategy, which highlighted the urgent need for public health action to combat oral diseases in Africa including Noma, a life-threatening oral infection linked to poor hygiene, malnutrition and poverty.