Sir Alan Rushton Battersby (CFF 1950-52) All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths, Up to 1959
FRS (4 March 1925 – 10 February 2018) was born in Leigh in Lancashire in 1925 and developed a fascination for chemistry while at school. At sixteen he joined the local electrical cable company to support the war effort while, in his spare time, studying by correspondence course combined with blitz-blighted journeys on Saturdays to Salford Technical College to do lab work. He won a scholarship to Manchester University where he became interested in how nature builds complex molecules. His academic career involved appointments at the Universities of St Andrews, Bristol and Liverpool until, in 1969, he moved to a professorship at the University of Cambridge where he stayed for the rest of his career. Whilst at St Andrews he was awarded a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship and studied at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York, and the University of Illinois. The three months of summer travel, then a required part of the fellowship, gave Sir Alan and his wife Margaret a life-long fondness of the States. Sir Alan was knighted in 1992 and has won numerous awards including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 2000 “in recognition of his pioneering work in elucidating the detailed biosynthetic pathways to all the major families of plant alkaloids. His approach, which stands as a paradigm for future biosynthetic studies on complex molecules, combines isolation work, structure determination, synthesis, isotopic labelling and spectroscopy, especially advanced NMR, as well as genetics and molecular biology. This spectacular research revealed the entire pathway to vitamin B12.”
Last updated: 18th November 2019
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Sir Colin Blakemore (HF 1965-67) 1960s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Higher Education, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
, after studying medical sciences at Cambridge, won a Harkness Fellowship to go to the University of California at Berkeley, where he worked with Horace Barlow, a leading British neurophysiologist. What was meant to be a single year turned into just over 2 years and a PhD; and it changed the direction of Colin’s career. He gave up clinical medicine and returned to teach at Cambridge. He has worked on many aspects of vision and brain development, and was one of the first to demonstrate the importance of ‘plasticity’ in the brain. In 1979, he moved to the Waynflete Chair of Physiology in Oxford, where he also directed the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience. From 2003-7 he was Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, and in 2012 he moved to a personal Professorship in the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where he collaborates with art historians and artists, including David Hockney and Patrick Hughes, in research on visual perception. He has 10 honorary degrees and is a member of 12 academies, including the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and Academia Europaea. In 2014 he was knighted for service to scientific research, policy and outreach. He was the youngest person to give the BBC Reith Lectures. He has given the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, he has made nearly 1,000 broadcasts (including a 13-part series for BBC television), and he writes for national and international media. (This was written in 2018. Sir Colin passed away in June 2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Blakemore
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Nicholas Barton (HF 1968-70) 1960s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Humanities
(1935 – 2023) was born in London and evacuated in WWII to Lincolnshire, staying at the station-master’s house near the Lancaster bomber base where his father was posted. He went to school at Westminster, where he coxed the school Eight, and in 1953 went to Cambridge to study medicine at Pembroke. As a young doctor in London Nicholas met his wife Margaret, who later described him as “a walking encyclopaedia, with boundless curiosity, who reads constantly”. In 1960 he wrote a book called “The Lost Rivers Of London” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1751730.The_Lost_Rivers_of_London which is still considered the definitive history of London’s rivers. In 1968 Nicholas took his young family to Los Angeles on his HF fellowship, studying orthopaedics. He became a consultant in Nottingham in 1971, where he and Margaret brought up their five children. Specialising in hand surgery, his written output was prodigious: over a hundred publications, and seminal books on fractures of the hand and the scaphoid bone. He became Chairman of the British Orthopaedic Association’s Education Committee; President of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand; and Editor of the Journal of Hand Surgery. He delivered prestigious medical lectures such as the Hunterian, the Bradford Eaton, and the Pulvertaft. Much in demand as a speaker on hand surgery at international conferences, he wrote detailed accounts of these trips: 60 diaries covering 2000 pages. His twenty-five years in retirement were spent with his favourite things: his books and his wife.
Last updated: 22nd January 2024
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Michael Wise (HF 1970 - 72) 1970s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
, first dentist to be awarded the Fellowship, obtained an M.Sc.D. in Fixed and Removable Prosthodontics at Indiana University. After a period in academia, he developed his own team in private practice to assess and measure the outcomes of an integrated approach to complex dental restorative treatment. Michael was a Visiting Professor at The Eastman Dental Institute, UCL, GDC recognised as a Specialist in Restorative Dentistry and in Oral Surgery, a Fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons, an invited member of The American Academy of Restorative Dentistry and The American College of Dentists, and a past President of The American Dental Society of Europe. In 1977 he started the first one day a month literature based courses, in his practice for up to 20 dentists, a model now standard in dentistry. At retirement he was leading five groups, two had been with him for over 30 years. Lecturing nationally and internationally, Michael is the author of many publications including a textbook in 1995 “Failure in the Restored Dentition : Management and Treatment”; recognized by the BDA library in its 100th year as one of the most influential books in dentistry. As a recipient of a kidney transplant in 2010 (after sepsis) he became active in projects to improve the treatment of patients with acute kidney injury. In 2017 he published “On The Toss of a Coin“ about his experiences of critical illness. Married to Priscilla, a psychotherapist, for 52 years, they have three sons and five grandchildren.
Last updated: 14th March 2021
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Sir Graeme Catto (HF 1975-77) 1970s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Higher Education
was a lecturer in medicine at the University of Aberdeen, had acquired membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (UK) and was completing an MD thesis when he was awarded the fellowship to study medicine and transplant immunology in Boston, Massachusetts, based at Harvard University and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. After two years, Graeme, his wife and two young children, returned to Aberdeen where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer and appointed honorary consultant physician/ nephrologist to the local health board. His clinical and research work went well and promotion to reader, professor, dean and vice-principal ensued. He became medical director of the teaching hospital, a member of an MRC grants committee and chairman of a large independent school. As a member of the General Medical Council, he chaired the Education Committee before becoming President at a time of some turbulence for the organisation and the medical profession. At the turn of the millennium, Graeme Catto was appointed Vice-Principal at King’s College London, Dean of the Guy’s, King’s College and St Thomas’ Hospitals Medical and Dental Schools and Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of London. He was a founder member and Treasurer of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Qatar Science & Technology Park, Caribbean Accreditation Authority and Qatar Council for Healthcare Professionals. Knighted in 2002 for services to medicine and medical education, Graeme Catto has been awarded a number of honorary degrees and fellowships. Retired from practice, he continues to support medical education initiatives in the UK and abroad.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Colin Drummond (HF 1975-77) 1970s, All Harkness Stories, Economics, Finance & Business, Environment, Health & Social Care
OBE DL found the transformative effect of his fellowship at Harvard Business School invaluable, not least in his 20 years as a bin man. Born in Belfast, he read Classics at Oxford and then worked at the Bank of England in the early days of monetary policy. After Harvard he worked for the Boston Consulting Group for six years before moving into corporate life as a Director of Renold plc (producer of chains and worm gears) and then Chief Executive of Coats Viyella yarns. Joining the board of Pennon Group plc in 1992 he created Viridor, the £4bn recycling and renewable energy company which he ran up until his retirement in 2014. Since then he has been chair of Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and has recently retired as Pro Chancellor and Chair of the University of Plymouth. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators for 2007/08 and again in 2022/23 and is President of Wadham College 1610 Committee which raises funds for the College’s access to excellence programme.
Last updated: 15th September 2024
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David Walker (HF 1977-79) 1970s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Journalism, Broadcast, Films & TV, Politics & Public Services
was senior reporter for The Times Higher Education Supplement when he applied for a Harkness Fellowship, in 1977 — a decision precipitated by voters in the Holborn ward who chose not to favour his candidacy for Camden Council. Interested in lobbying, and the influence of professional associations on public policymaking, as an HF David joined the Congressional Fellowship program, and spent wonderful nine months in Washington DC, working in both the House and Senate as a staffer. The second half of his fellowship was spent at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley where he began work on what became Media Made in California, cowritten with Jeremy Tunstall and published by Oxford in 1981. On his return, just after the May 1979 election, David joined the staff of The Economist and pursued a career in journalism, for The Times, The Independent, the BBC and the Guardian, returning to Berkeley for a sabbatical and feeding insights from his time in Congress into Sources Close to the Prime Minister (with Peter Hennessy, 1984) and The Times Guide to the New British State (1995). David left journalism to become managing director, public reporting at the Audit Commission and is now deputy chair of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, chair of Understanding Society, a member of the ethics and governance council of UK Biobank and co author with Polly Toynbee of Unjust Rewards, The Verdict and Dismembered.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Tom Hayhoe (HF 1978-80) 1970s, All Harkness Stories, Economics, Finance & Business, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
currently chairs the Taxation Disciplinary Board and the Legal Services Consumer Panel. He is also a disciplinary committee chair for the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants, an external assessor for the College of Policing, and a governor of West Thames College. He previously chaired West London NHS Trust which operates Broadmoor Hospital as well as providing mental health services in west London, and West Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust. He attended Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Harkness Fellow, following a year as President of Cambridge Students Union. On returning from his Harkness Fellowship he worked for McKinsey & Company and then WH Smith before establishing the Brackenbury Group retail consultancy (subsequently The Chambers) and chairing the board of Gamestation, at the time the UK’s second largest video game retailer. During his MBA studies he took a course in health economics and policy which lead to him helping develop the health and social care policies of the Social Democratic Party (for whom he stood for parliament in the 1987 general election), taking a series of non-executive roles in the NHS starting in 1985, and ultimately being appointed to his two NHS chair roles. Tom was a keen offshore sailor for many years and served as vice commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. He is a former trustee and chair of the finance committee of Versus Arthritis.
Last updated: 1st July 2024
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Professor Mark Mayer (HF 1980-82) 1980s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
chose a Fellowship which allowed him to train in laboratories in the US that were using techniques in ion channel biophysics not widely available in the UK. Most importantly, the Fellowship gave him the freedom to choose the laboratories that hosted him and to move between labs as his experience grew. As a result, he acquired new skills, leading to a series of studies that he pursued for the rest of his career and to his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Mark’s career focused on analysis of excitatory neurotransmitter receptors in the brain, initially using electrophysiological techniques, with which he discovered that NMDA receptors were calcium permeable ion channels, flux through which varied with membrane potential due to block by extracellular Magnesium. This mechanism forms a coincidence detector that acts as a gate triggering synaptic plasticity. Later he used X-ray diffraction and cryo-electron microscopy to study the structure of glutamate receptors, establishing mechanisms for subtype selective binding of ligands, allosteric modulation, and how desensitization occurs. This work furthers our understanding of a wide range of neurological disorders. Finding limited biomedical research funding opportunities in the UK on his return to London in 1982 led to Mark joining the brain drain and moving to the NIH. Subsequent emergence of the Wellcome Trust changed this, but by then he felt it was too disruptive to return home. Today, the UK is a vibrant place for biomedical research, and Mark often visits for academic collaborations.
Last updated: 29th October 2019
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Professor Nigel Richards (HF 1983-85) 1980s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
thought he was heading for pharmaceutical industry (B.Sc., Imperial College, Ph.D., Cambridge University) when he applied for a Harkness Fellowship. After upsetting at least one member of the selection committee, he was surprised to learn that he had been funded to work at Columbia University, New York. He was fortunate to code a software package for computing the structure and properties of organic and biological molecules, subsequently used in numerous laboratories throughout the world. As a result, he took up a lectureship at Southampton where he was among the first group of researchers to combine experiment and theory to address problems at the interface of chemistry and biology. Back in the USA in 1991, he carried out academic research in enzymology at the University of Florida, eventually becoming a Full Professor of Chemistry and a Distinguished Teaching Scholar. After a brief stint as Head of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at IUPUI in Indianapolis (2012-2015), family reasons caused him to return to the UK where he is presently Professor of Biological Chemistry at Cardiff University. He has been recognised for his work on the biosynthesis of the amino acid asparagine, which seems to lie at the heart of many forms of leukemia and tumour metastasis. He is actively involved in developing small molecules with potential use in treating sarcoma. His current research is aimed at re-engineering enzymes that will be useful in obtaining bacteria with expanded, “alien”, genetic alphabets and in the synthesis of novel anti-viral drugs.
Last updated: 13th July 2022
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Prof. Seweryn ‘Sev’ Ozdowski (1984-86) 1980s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
has significantly advanced Australia’s multicultural and human rights policies and institutions. He has held senior government positions for over 25 years and has published extensively on refugee issues, multiculturalism, and human rights. As the Australian Human Rights Commissioner (2000–05), Dr Ozdowski conducted the ground-breaking review of the Australian mandatory detention system for asylum seekers entitled: “National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. A last resort?”. He was Chair of the Australian Multicultural Council (2014–22). Dr Ozdowski has an LLM and MA in Sociology degrees from Poland and a PhD from the University of New England, Australia. As a Harkness Fellow, Sev spent 1984–86 on postgraduate research at Harvard and Georgetown Universities, as well as the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded Doctor of Social Science Honoris Causa from RMIT University in 2004, and since 2006 he has been an Hon. Professor at the University of Sydney. Between 2006 and 2023, Sev served as Director of the Office of Access and Equity and as a Professor and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at Western Sydney University. Dr Ozdowski is a Member of the Order of Australia and has been awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
Last updated: 10th July 2025
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Professor Mary Ethna Black FRCP FPH (HF 1989-90) 1980s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
is a Northern Irish physician. After attending Rathmore Grammar School, Trinity College Dublin medical school and junior doctor training in Ireland and England, she applied for a Fellowship, intrigued by multi-disciplinary study. Her Master’s Degree at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded with her delivery of the Graduate English Oration at Commencement, and study visits to Alaska, Seattle, US Virgin Islands, and Vermont on public health and environmental protection. In 1991, drawn into the conflict in what was then Yugoslavia, she became WHO Deputy to Sir Donald Acheson, established the medical airlift from the besieged Sarajevo as a Senior Medical Officer with UNHCR, and when pregnant and no longer able to fit a flak jacket—served the humanitarian effort remotely with WHO from Copenhagen. After the war, she established a medical school in Far North Queensland as a Foundation Professor, but returned to Sarajevo and then Belgrade for post-conflict rebuilding. Mary has helped found two successful technology companies, served as a Director of Public Health in London, and was the most senior Public Health Doctor in Scotland during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Her current portfolio career includes Non-Executive Director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation, Trustee of Paintings in Hospitals, Honorary Professor at St Andrews University, Visiting Scholar at the Oxford University Centre for Life writing, and Fellow of Chapter Zero. She publishes essays, fiction and memoir and works on mitigating climate change.
Last updated: 19th January 2023
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Dr Jennifer Dixon (HF 90-91) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
CBE, always had three magnetic poles: science, arts and politics. She made herself pursue science (long story) but after five years of medical school and 96 hour working weeks as a junior hospital doctor, by her late 20’s the other two poles began to take over. Jennifer applied a fellowship soon after, aiming to study why such an intelligent and wealthy society in the US was unable to provide decent health care for 17 million of its citizens? Based in New York in part at Montefiore Medical Center and Department of Health Policy at New York University, she studied why federal reform to improve access to care was blocked and what some states had done to bypass this. The answers included age-old debates about the role of federal government, layered on a culture where the ‘social justice thermostat’ was just set too cold (for European tastes). What wasn’t too cold though was the energising informal can-do witty working environment, as opposed to the cardboard hierarchy she was more familiar with in Britain. Back home Jennifer went on to pursue a career in policy analysis, a PhD, working at the King’s Fund, at DH as policy advisor to the CE of the NHS, and she became the CE of the Nuffield Trust and now the Health Foundation. The latter now co-funds the current Harkness fellowship programme.
Last updated: 20th July 2018
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Andrew Farmer (HF 1991 - 92) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
was a full-time GP in Thame for 17 years when he became one of the first GPs to be awarded a Harkness Fellowship. Based at Duke University, he studied the development of clinical guidelines in the US, looking at how they were being used to guide clinical practice and policy, based on best evidence. Back home, Andrew contributed to initiatives to develop primary care research, including leading his practice to gain the first RCGP’s Research Practice award. After completing a higher degree, in 2001 he joined Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences; he has been Professor of General Practice since 2010. He is now Director of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme, having been Chair of its General Funding Committee (2016 to 2020), and an NIHR Senior Investigator. HTA is NIHR’s largest research funding programme, covering clinical trials and research assessing drugs, tests, therapies and other treatments for potential benefit to patients and the NHS. He has held a number of research management roles within NIHR, has been a member of NICE guideline development groups, a co-lead for the Digital Health and Technology Theme for the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and a member of NIHR Doctoral Training Award Funding Panels. Championing research that is directly relevant to the NHS and involving public and patients, Andrew’s research focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of people with long-term health conditions, especially diabetes. He works as a GP at St Bartholomew’s Medical Centre, Oxford.
Last updated: 19th January 2021
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Baroness Julia Neuberger (HF 1991-92) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Humanities, Politics & Public Services
was no stranger to challenge when she applied to be a Harkness Fellow for the 1991 intake. Prevented from studying Assyriology at Cambridge (she was refused entry to Turkey, because she was British, and to Iraq, because she was Jewish), she studied Hebrew and was ordained as a rabbi aged 27, the second female rabbi in the UK, but the first to be responsible for a synagogue which she ran until shortly before her fellowship. Immediately before her Fellowship, she spent 2 years at the King’s Fund Institute, looking at Research Ethics Committees (IRBs) in the UK, and published a report which led to limited government and medical royal college action to embed review in law and guidance. During her fellowship she studied healthcare ethics at Harvard, looking at values education for young healthcare professionals, hoping to bring best practice back to the UK. On her return Julia became Chair of Camden and Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust (1992 to 1997) and Chief Executive of the King’s Fund from (1997 – 2004). She was Chancellor of the University of Ulster from 1994–2000, and has been involved in a large number of voluntary and philanthropic roles. Julia broadcasts regularly on Pause for Thought, on BBC Radio 2, and has published widely on matters of ethics, morality and caring for older people and the dying. She chaired the independent review of the Liverpool Care Pathway (for dying patients) and is at present vice chair of the independent review of the Mental Health Act. She was awarded a DBE in 2003 and sits in the House of Lords as an independent. She the Senior Rabbi at the West London Synagogue.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Judy Hargadon (HF 1992-93) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Higher Education
OBE was a CEO of a Health Care Trust when she was awarded her Harkness Fellowship, based in Boston, with the Harvard School of Public Health. Interested in our overly hospital focused health care system, Judy studied lessons that the UK could learn from the US about reducing length of stay. Her research into innovative practice took her to Minnesota, Miami, New York, Seattle and Los Angeles – as well as to many health care establishments in Boston. On her return to England, Judy championed and led change projects initially in local neighbourhood care for primary and community services, then later for primary care across London, for complex and sensitive commissioning decisions, and later still the effective use of workforce in the NHS – the Changing Workforce programme. Her last full time role saw her sorting out school meals across England, following the Jamie Oliver expose. Judy was awarded an OBE for services to children’s welfare in 2011. Judy came across the first Take Our Daughters to Work Day when she was a fellow. She and her husband brought it back to the UK and she chaired the trustees for a number of years. She is a member of Council (the governing body) of the University of Exeter, NED for Restorative Solutions CIC, Trustee of the Harkness Fellows Association and volunteers with charities that support struggling families.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Tessa Harding MBE (1993-94) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
grew up in Suffolk, not far from Halesworth, and was delighted to come back home nearly 24 years ago. She was educated at the Lycée Français de Londres (1952-61), a graduate of Keele University (BA Hons 1966) and of Brunel University (MA 1977). As a Harkness Fellow she studied the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the long-term care system in the USA. Tessa worked for three local authorities in various roles, mainly as liaison officer between the Council and the voluntary sector. She joined the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, leading the Community Care Project for six years and later for the National Institute for Social Work on disability issues alongside organisations of disabled people who were developing an ever-stronger voice at that time. Tessa worked for Help the Aged nationally for ten years, finally as Head of Policy, having focused earlier on age equality and human rights. She was a member of the Advisory Committee for New Dynamics of Ageing and of the Attorney General’s Equality and Diversity Advisory Group; she advised the Crown Prosecution Service on policy on crimes against older people. Awards included an MBE in January 2004 (for services to charity, although she protested privately that it should have been ‘for services to older people’), the Alan Walker prize for her contribution to social gerontology in 2009 and the annual Outstanding Achievement Award from the British Society of Gerontology in 2009. Tessa died in December 2024.
Last updated: 26th June 2025
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Terry Kemple (HF 1993-4) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
had been working as a full-time NHS general practitioner in Bristol for ten years before he applied for a Harkness Fellowship. A friend who worked at Cumberland Lodge, where Harkness Fellows met for conferences, encouraged him to apply, as it matched his interests in challenging the status quo, making improvements, and taking sabbaticals. At Harvard, he focused on “How to improve the performance of physicians,” with a particular interest in recertification of a doctor’s competence. After returning to the UK, he continued in full-time general practice and took on many leadership roles, including teaching, training, research, management, appraisals, building premises, launching a GP Out-of-Hours cooperative, gaining Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) by assessment, achieving the RCGP Quality Practice Award three times, founding a multi-practice federation, and starting the Green Impact for Health in General Practice project. During his final sabbatical, he explored how one can “find and spread best practice faster,” and concluded everyone needs to “find themselves a better network.” He was elected President of the RCGP from 2015-2017, and in 2018 he ran for the presidency of the Royal College of Physicians but finished last. He has since held various roles promoting sustainability in healthcare and continues to lead the Green Impact for Health project.
Last updated: 18th November 2024
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Justin Russell (HF 1993-94) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
, currently Chief Inspector of Probation, completed degrees at Oxford (St John’s) and Bristol before an early career in social research in the Home Office. He was based at UC Berkeley looking at substance abuse treatment programmes for offenders across the United States. Arriving back in England he came up with the idea of the Drug Treatment and Testing Order (DTTO), based on the Drug Court model he had seen in the US, which enabled judges in England and Wales to sentence drug related offenders to a programme of treatment and testing as an alternative to a prison sentence. This became law in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, backed up with over £50m a year of funding and by the end of 2003, over 18,000 DTTOs had been given out by UK courts. Justin’s Harkness year was to be the beginning of a 25 year career influencing criminal justice and home affairs policy in a range of settings such as the Home office, No 10, and DWP, and covering a wide range of topics; violent crime, asylum, gang and youth violence, domestic abuse, offender policy, disability and employment, aging and pensions, as well as overall Home Affairs in his time as special adviser to two Home Secretaries (Jack Straw and John Reid) and as a Senior Policy Adviser to Tony Blair in the No. 10 Policy Unit. Justin was Director General for Prisons and Probation Policy at the Ministry of Justice from 2016 to the end of 2018.
Last updated: 19th February 2021
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Simon Stevens (HF 1994-95) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
is CEO of NHS England, which leads the NHS’ work nationally to improve health and ensure high quality care for all. He is accountable to Parliament for over £100 billion of annual Health Service funding. Simon joined the NHS through its Graduate Training Scheme in 1988. As a frontline NHS manager he subsequently led acute hospitals, mental health and community services, primary care and health commissioning in the North East of England, London and the South Coast. He also served seven years as the Prime Minister’s Health Adviser at 10 Downing Street, and as policy adviser to successive Health Secretaries at the Department of Health. Simon also spent a decade working internationally at UnitedHealth Group, including as its Medicare CEO and as president of its global health division, leading health services in the United States, Europe, Brazil, India, China, Africa, and the Middle East. Simon was a Harkness Fellow at Columbia University, New York and working at the New York City Health Department. He is the first Harness Fellow to subsequently become a director of the Commonwealth Fund, on whose board he now sits. Simon was born in Birmingham, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University and Strathclyde University, Glasgow. He is married with two school-age children, and volunteers as a director of the Commonwealth Fund, a leading international health charity. He has also been a trustee of the Kings Fund and the Nuffield Trust and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Liz Sayce (HF 1995-96) 1990s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
OBE was Policy Director of Mind in the 1990s, when Britain’s first disability rights law was about to come into force. She wanted to learn from the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed 5 years earlier, particularly in relation to breaking down discrimination faced by people living with mental health problems – at that time more of a taboo subject than it is today. Based at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington DC, and with links to the University of Virginia, Liz learnt from advocates, academics and experts. The Fellowship resulted in a book – from Psychiatric Patient to Citizen (Palgrave Macmillan, updated 2016). On returning, Liz was a member of the Ministerial Disability Rights Task Force (1997-9), which shaped policy and law for the next decade. Her roles included Director of Policy and Communications at the new Disability Rights Commission (2000-7) and Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK (and one of its legacy organisations) (2007-17). Other roles have included Commissioner, UK Commission for Employment and Skills; Non-Executive Board Member, Care Quality Commission; Trustee of Stonewall; and Member of the Social Security Advisory Committee and Healthwatch England Committee. She led an independent review for Government on employment support for disabled people in 2011. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent in 2014.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Dr Nicola Gray (HF 2001-02) 2000s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Manchester and Member of Council of the former Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain prior to becoming a Harkness Fellow. As a community pharmacist, she had become interested in where young people were getting information about health and medicines, and this had formed the basis of her PhD – at the end of the 1990s, this was their parents (especially their mother), television advertising, and information that they could see in the pharmacy. The internet was a new information channel at the start of the 21st century; her Fellowship explored UK and US adolescents’ use of the internet for health and medicines information, and their health literacy. During the 20+ years since her return, she has followed an academic career within pharmacy practice, health services research, and young people’s health. She continued to attend the annual US Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) professional meeting, becoming a Fellow in 2010 for her research and UK national leadership in the field, and President of their International Chapter in 2014, with a place on the Board of Directors. She then became active in the International Association for Adolescent Health (IAAH) and was elected their Vice-President for Europe in 2018. She is currently Reader in Medicines and Health, Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair ‘Global Health & Education’, and Researcher within the WHO CC for ‘Research in Education and Health’ at the Universities of Huddersfield, England, and Clermont Auvergne, France.
Last updated: 2nd August 2025
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Claire Wilson MRCPsych PhD (HF 2003-24) 2020s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
is an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She is also a Senior Harkness Fellow (2023-24; funded by the Commonwealth Fund). Claire employs a lifespan approach to the development of healthy and resilient families. In her clinical practice she supports perinatal people and those planning for pregnancy in the community of South East London. Her clinical work and research focus on the intergenerational transmission of risk for mental health and disease and opportunities for intervention to prevent adverse developmental trajectories. Claire’s areas of focus include the preconception and perinatal periods and although she is an epidemiologist by training, she uses a range of methodologies to translate her work from the level of the bench or the database, to the bedside, to policy makers and to the public. This includes policy orientated and clinically relevant evidence synthesis and co-design and evaluation of complex interventions. She is particularly interested in how parental multimorbid physical and mental ill health and substance misuse come together in the preconception and perinatal periods to shape offspring outcomes across generations. During her Harkness Fellowship, she investigated the influence of racial inequalities on parental mental health outcomes.
Last updated: 21st November 2024
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Dr Claire Lemer (HF 2004-05) 2000s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
was a paediatric trainee prior to the Harkness Fellowship. Seeing medication safety challenges as part of her clinical experience Claire sought to better understand the research and policy context to patient safety. Claire undertook her fellowship in Boston, at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, researching the role of paediatric computerisation in medication safety. Since her return Claire has finished her paediatric training and practices as general Paediatrician at the Evelina, London, part of Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital. She combines this with policy work for NHSE, as the Associate National Clinical Director for CYP and Transition. Alongside this Claire is engaged in developing integrated care systems for children as part of an RCT. Claire is about to start as Clinical Director for Medicine, at the Evelina. Claire is also actively engaged in the Jewish world as a trustee of the largest synagogal body in the UK and education as a chair of governors of a primary school.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Anna Dixon (HF 2005-06) 2000s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
was a Lecturer in European Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Researcher with the European Observatory on Health Care Systems prior to the Harkness Fellowship. She had also worked at the Department of Health as a policy analyst in the Strategy Unit where she led on issues such as patient choice in the NHS. Her interest in self-management of long term conditions and patient decision-making led her to undertake her fellowship at the University of Oregon working with Professor Judith Hibbard on patient activation, informed choice and consumer directed health plans. On return Anna took up a position as Deputy Director and then Director of Policy at The King’s Fund where she led their work to influence NHS and social care in England. More recently Anna went back to the Department of Health where she was Director of Strategy and Chief Analyst. In September 2015 Anna became Chief Executive of Ageing Better, a new charitable foundation working to change society so more people can enjoy later life. Anna is also a non-Executive Director of Helpforce an initiative to unlock the potential of volunteers in the NHS. She has a PhD in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Last updated: 20th July 2018
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Richard Gleave (HF 2007-08) 2000s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
was the NHS Performance Director before becoming a Harkness Fellow based at Kaiser Permanente and University of California, Berkeley, looking a performance improvement in Integrated Delivery Systems across the US. After working at DH and South of England SHA, he became Deputy Chief Executive at Public Health England in 2013. PHE is the national public health agency which provides evidence based advice to national and local government, the NHS and the public, and delivers specialist public health services to protect and improve the public’s health. He is also a Senior Associate Tutor at Oxford University, where he is undertaking a D Phil as well as teaching postgraduate students in policy and management.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Dr Ted Adams (HF 2014-15 ) 2010s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
MBChB MSc MRCOG FFFMLM undertook his fellowship at Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute in Oakland, California. As an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Ted spent the year fully involved with the policy and improvement teams at Kaiser Permanente, translating some policy from the Affordable Care Act into measurable clinical policies and examining “joy in work” for clinicians. The Harkness project was centred around patient-centred care in maternity services. Ted wanted to put his learning into practice and maintained his clinical and operational focus on his return to the UK. He was inspired by the effort Kaiser Permanente put into its electronic health system and is now the Chief Clinical Information Officer at his NHS trust in the North West of England. In addition to his NHS role, he works for Kaleidoscope Health and Care where he can indulge his love of practical health policy. He is also a trustee of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund and Chief Medical Officer of the UK’s Pony Club.
Last updated: 25th May 2018
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Dr Matthew Harris (HF 2014-15 ) 2010s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care, Higher Education
was at New York University mentored by Prof James Macinko (UCLA) and Dr Don Goldman (IHI). Looking at the barriers and challenges to Reverse Innovation (adopting low cost solutions from low-income countries), he published several studies during that year, including a national study in the US on whether researchers rate research from low-income countries worse than from high-income countries, an Implicit Association Test study to assess the unconscious biases against low-income country research, and two qualitative studies exploring barriers and challenges to Reverse Innovation according to US policy makers’ experiences. Before the Harkness Fellowship, Matthew worked in global public health and research and for several years as a Primary Care physician in Brazil, as a WHO Polio Consultant in Ethiopia and as an HIV Technical Consultant in Mozambique. Matt now leads a research programme on Reverse Innovation at Imperial College London, including the publication of dozens of exemplar low-cost solutions from low-income countries that could be used in the UK NHS and a randomised controlled within-individual cross-over design study that definitively showed how UK clinicians discount research from low-income countries purely because of where the research is from. His work translating the Brazilian Community Health Worker role into the UK NHS led to pilots across England, recently cited as a Best Practice case study in the NHS Ten Year Plan, 2025. Matt was awarded an NHS National Clinical Impact Award in 2024. He has published ‘Decolonising Healthcare Innovation: low-cost solutions from low-income countries’ and ‘The Oxford Handbook of Healthcare Innovation’.
Last updated: 25th June 2026
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Maddy Phipps-Taylor (HF 2014-15) 2010s, All Harkness Stories, Economics, Finance & Business, Health & Social Care, Politics & Public Services
applied to the Harkness Fellowship programme while working as a Senior Policy Advisor to PM David Cameron at No 10 Downing Street. She had, at that point, experience as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and a Civil Servant following an education in Engineering at Oxford. For her Fellowship she was based at UC Berkley in California, researching Accountable Care Organisations (a new healthcare delivery model launched as part of ‘Obamacare’). She travelled the length and breadth of the USA, covering 22 States often with her husband Matt. Her research was published in the Milbank Quarterly, New England Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs. On return to the UK she transitioned into Healthcare Software and now is the Director of Strategy at Allocate Software – the world’s leading healthcare workforce management software provider.
Last updated: 26th May 2018
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Margje (Marthe) Haverkamp (HF 2015-16) 2010s, All Harkness Stories, Health & Social Care
was a 2015 Dutch Harkness Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she worked on value-based care and cost-reduction strategies. Following her fellowship, Marthe helped pharma start-up companies develop their novel therapeutic products. Since 2019, Marthe has been a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Healthcare Industry Group (HIG) in New York, where she works with academic medical centers, physician practices and community-based organizations on strategy, physician governance, and operational efficiencies. She draws from more than 20 years of experience throughout the healthcare sector in the U.S. and internationally. Marthe started her career as an Infectious Disease specialist in the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands with a scholarship of the European Society of Immunodeficiencies (ESID). Along with her clinical work, she served as a supporting member of the Council for Public Health and Healthcare (RVZ). Marthe earned a M.D. from the University of Utrecht and a Ph.D. in immunogenetics from the University of Leiden with a clinical research grant of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). She performed part of her Ph.D. at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on a Fulbright Fellowship and has participated in executive leadership courses at HBS and INSEAD as a Leadership Foundation Fellow of the International Women’s Forum (IWF). She has published close to 40 articles, mostly peer reviewed. Dr. Haverkamp is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), and an Associate Faculty Member of the Ariadne Labs
Last updated: 19th November 2024
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