People

ICLS is an ESRC funded research centre based at UCL, but with additional expertise from researchers at the University of Manchester and the University Hospital Orebro in Sweden.

The Centre's multidisciplinary team includes leading epidemiologists, sociologists, biologists, statisticians, psychologists, clinical scientists and demographers.

Its Director is Professor Yvonne Kelly and its Deputy Director is Dr Anne McMunn. Former Director Professor Amanda Sacker monitors the Centre's impact.

Yvonne Kelly

Professor Lifecourse Epidemiology,UCL ICLS Director

Professor Kelly leads work on health and development during childhood and adolescence. Of particular interest are: i)the causes and consequences of social and ethnic inequalities ii) the ways in which familial and broader social contextual influences combine to shape health and development, iii)the uptake and retention of health related behaviours during late childhood and adolescence, iv) the links between early life exposures e.g. drinking and smoking in pregnancy, birthweight and infant feeding and later health and development. To do this work she makes use of longitudinal datasets including the Millennium Cohort Study, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, the 1958 and 1970 Birth Cohort Studies.

Anne McMunn

Professor of Social Epidemiology, UCL ICLS Deputy-Director

Dr McMunn investigates the potential influence on health and wellbeing of aspects of work (defined broadly from a gender perspective), and social relationships (including within the family), how gender structures work and family relations, and the impact of social change in this area on children and families. Her work mainly uses longitudinal quantitative techniques to analyse data from the British birth cohort studies, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the UK Household Longitudinal .

Amanda Sacker

Professor of Lifecourse Studies

Professor Sacker's research focuses on social inequalities in health and life-course social epidemiology. Her particular interests are the statistical modelling of complex longitudinal processes and the developmental origins of poor physical and mental health in adult life. She is currently working on several cross-national projects that examine how different policy contexts moderate effects on health throughout life. She took over as director of ICLS from Professor Mel Bartley in January 2013 (25/03/13).

Staff / Visiting Fellows /Current Students

Mel Bartley Professor Emerita of Medical Sociology, UCL	Professor Bartley's work has included research on health inequalities in men and women, with particular emphasis on measurement of social position and circumstances, and the relationships of unemployment and social mobility to health. Her book "Health Inequality: an introduction" is widely used in teaching and a second, extensively revised edition has recently been published. Her current interests include the effect of life-course processes on social and health advantage, disadvantage and resilience, and how these are influenced by economic and social policies. Her blog is called "Social-Biological musings" reflecting the exciting new directions in social research to include biomarkers, and her Twitter name is @melb4886/. Professor Bartley is the former director of ICLS 2008 - 2012. 21/08/2017
David Blane Professor Emeritus of Imperial College London. Honorary Professor, UCL	Professor Blane has a background in medicine and social science. His general research interests include: health inequalities; life course studies; social gerontology. Current specific research interests include: causes of increase in life expectancy at middle age; social-biological transitions; measurement of social class after labour market exit. Professor Blane is the former ICLS Co-Director (2008 - 20012) and a member and former (2011) Director of organising committee of European summer school on longitudinal and life course research (25/03/12).
Noriko Cable Senior Research Fellow, UCL	Dr. Cable's research investigates social determinants of mental health and alcohol misuse across lifecourse and compares international differences in the relationship (26/03/13).
Tarani Chandola Professor of Medical Sociology, Cathie Marsh Institute and Social Statistics, University of Manchester	Tarani is a Professor of Medical Sociology. He joined the University of Manchester and the Cathie Marsh Institute in April 2010, was the head of the Disciplinary Area of Social Statistics (2012-2014) and the director of the Cathie Marsh Institute (2013-2016). He was formerly at the UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and prior to that completed his PhD and post-doc at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He is a co-director of two ESRC centres: the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM: www.ncrm.ac.uk) and the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health (ICLS: www.ucl.ac.uk/icls). Tarani's research is primarily on the social determinants of health, focusing on health inequalities and psychosocial factors, and the analysis of longitudinal cohort studies. Much of his research is on stress at work, and its effects on health and related biomarkers. He leads the academic network on Health, Work and Wellbeing (manchester.ac.uk/hawnn), sits on the Health & Work advisory board for Public Health England and chairs the scientific advisory board for the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change Centre (MiSoC). (09/10/2017)
Zaynab Ismail ICLS Administrator	Zaynab joined the group in April 2016 and is responsible for the day to day running of the Centre. She has previously held an administrative post within the evidENT team at the UCL Ear Institute.
Scott Montgomery Professor of Clinical Epidemiology Örebro University Hospital & Örebro University, with an attachment to Karolinska Institute, Sweden.	Professor Montgomery's research includes how early life factors combine with later exposures to influence disease risk. This work is divided into two broad areas: metabolic and cardiovascular disease; and immune mediated disease such as multiple sclerosis and allergic sensitisation. Understanding the influence of cultural and material factors across the life-course on disease risk is central to this work.
Andy Ross ESRC Research Student (2014 -) & ICLS consultant	Andy has a background in sociology, statistics and the analysis of longitudinal studies. He is particularly interested in young people's transitions into adulthood and the related issues of inequalities, education, attitudes and aspirations, and young people's mental health. He is currently undertaking a part-time PhD within the centre, examining time trends in psychological distress among British 16-24 year olds and the link with increasing individualization (Ulrich Beck: 1944 - 2015). Andy is also a freelance researcher carrying out programmes of work for organisations such as UCL, City University, Department for Education, TNS-BMRB, and NatCen Social Research.
Alison Sizer ESRC Research Student (2013 -)	Alison Sizer's research interest is the effect of lifetime unemployment on cognitive decline. She is currently investigating the association between cognitive decline, unemployment and activities carried out during employment gaps, in members of the National Health and Development Study. As part of this research she will be building activity histories for the study's current members from age 16 - 64 years.
Elizabeth Webb Research Associate, UCL	Dr Webb is a social epidemiologist who has led ICLS work investigating well-being at older ages and the effects of transitions within families on health and well-being of child and adult family members. Her current research includes leading an ESRC funded project on the life course causes and consequences of informal caregiving. Elizabeth is interested in addressing questions relating to how good physical and mental health and independence can be maintained in older age, and she is particularly interested in how aspects of older people's lives including social support, the provision of informal care, housing and use of active transport may influence health and well-being. Elizabeth undertook post-doctoral work with ICLS at Imperial College London and University College London before moving to the University of Southampton in 2017.(21 /08/17).
Nan Zhang Research Associate, University of Manchester	Nan's broad research interests are in exploring the social determinants of health inequalities, with a focus on life course approach, neighbourhood effects, child health and wellbeing. Her current project is to examine the effect of working conditions over the life course on biomarkers associated with stress and wellbeing using Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Prior to joining UCL, she completed her PhD at University of Manchester in 2015.
Afshin Zilanawala Research Associate, UCL	Afshin's research interests lie at the intersections of social demography, child development, and population health. Afshin studies how the social and economic context of families and peer groups, as well as the race and gender of individuals, lead to health inequalities across childhood and adolescence. Her research portfolio extends to examining the influence of nonstandard work schedules on children's and parent's health in the UK, work that has been funded by ESRC's New Investigator Grant. Overall, her research on the social determinants of health is strongly interdisciplinary, embedded in using quantitative techniques, and focuses on child health and development in national and international contexts. Before joining UCL, she completed my Masters and PhD at Columbia University in 2013. (12/09/2017)

People

People

Staff / Visiting Fellows /Current Students

Zaynab Ismail

Andy Ross

Alison Sizer