Our academic and research staff are from a variety of backgrounds and contribute to the Department’s interdisciplinary educational research activities.
- Professor Ann Griffin MRCGP, MMedEd, EdD, PFHEA
Deputy Director UCL Medical School; Director Research Department of Medical Education; Postgraduate and Scholarship Academic Lead; Honorary Consultant NHS London
Ann is Professor of Medical Education Research, Adjunct Professor in Medical Education and Family Medicine at Chulabhorn Royal Academy in Thailand, and Clinical Professor in Medical Education; responsible for the leadership and strategic direction of UCLMS, leading on under-graduate and postgraduate programmes and scholarship, and the Medical School Education Consultancy (MSEC).
Ann established the Research Department of Medical Education (RDME) and was appointed as the Head of Division for Research, which has evolved into an international centre for excellence, with its outputs shaping health care policy and professional practice, doctor’s education and training, patient care and pedagogy nationally and globally.
With extensive experience in Medical Education Research, Ann led the Research Excellence Framework in 2014 & 2021. In recognition of the contribution RDME has made to educational scholarship and impact on policy and practice the department was awarded the Association for the Study of Medical Education’s inaugural award for Institutional Commitment to Scholarship in 2021.
Her research interests include professional transitions in medical education and training, impact of service reorganisation on training, quality in education and training, assessment, differential attainment and fairness in progression, professionalism, workplace learning, the employment of locums in the NHS, and medical regulation (appraisal and revalidation).
Research Themes
Collaborative Social Science- Professor Kath Woolf
Professor of Medical Education Research, Deputy Lead for Research at UCL Medical School and an Honorary Research Fellow in Psychology at UCL.
Kath’s research aims to understand and improve medical students’ and doctors’ performance, and thus improve patient care, with a strong belief in equality and fairness being vital for effective selection, learning, and assessment. These values underpin her major research areas of improving educational outcomes for minority ethnic medical students and doctors, and improving access to medicine by helping medical applicants from diverse backgrounds make informed choices about which medical schools they apply to.
She uses both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches, including interviews, multivariate statistical analysis of secondary cohort data, and social network analysis and has a keen interest in involving the public in research and teaching.
Most of Kath’s teaching relates to research methods and teacher training; she is increasingly teaching people about equity and fairness in education and has supervised various undergraduate and postgraduate research projects.
Research Themes
- Dr Asta Medisauskaite PhD, AFHEA
Senior Research Fellow in Medical Education
Asta is a quantitative researcher in the Research Department of Medical Education at UCL Medical School with a PhD in understanding and improving the occupational health of medical doctors; and has a background in organisational psychology.
Asta’s particular interests are in conducting research on well-being (including mental health, stigma, psychosocial work/learning conditions, and career progression) of medical students and doctors, including testing the effectiveness of interventions. She is experienced in a wide range of statistical methods which includes multivariate statistics, structural equation modelling, and meta-analyses. Asta works with surveys and experimental design studies, and secondary data analyses.
Research Themes
Mental Health and Human Wellbeing, Psychosocial Work Conditions Organisational Psychology- Dr Antonia Rich PhD, AFHEA
Associate Professor in Medical Education
Antonia is a mixed-methods researcher in the Research Department of Medical Education at UCL Medical School, and a member of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee at UCL Medical School. Antonia is a Health Psychologist, with a Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology, and is an Associate of the Division of Health Psychology, British Psychological Society. She previously worked in NHS Public Health on health promotion priorities including childhood obesity, sexual health, and smoking cessation.
Antonia’s research experience includes conducting interviews and focus groups, qualitative analysis methods including interpretative phenomenological analysis and thematic analysis, designing questionnaires and quantitative analysis methods including multivariate statistics and meta-analysis. Antonia’s interests are in doctors’ and medical students’ mental health and well-being, career progression, learning and work environments, development and evaluation of interventions, differential attainment, treatment adherence and self-management in long-term conditions.
Research Themes
Behaviour Change, Human Wellbeing, Population Health- Dr Rowena Viney PhD, FHEA
Associate Professor in Medical Education
UCL ProfileRowena is a qualitative researcher in the Research Department of Medical Education at UCL Medical School. She leads the RDME Researcher Development Group and is a reviewer for the UCL Research Ethics Committee. She is also a member of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee at UCL Medical School. With a PhD in Social Sciences, conducting conversation analytic research on sexual identity, gaze, and touch in everyday interactions, Rowena has a background in sociolinguistics, and linguistics and language studies.
Her research experience includes conversation analysis, thematic analysis, and realist evaluation; with interests in medical communication, fairness in postgraduate medical training and assessment, medical student and practitioner well-being, and identity.
Research Themes
Communication, Language & Hearing; Cultural Understanding; Language, Linguistics & Literature- Professor Lorraine Noble
Professor of Clinical Communication
Research themes
Doctor-patient communication and clinical communication education- Professor Catherine O’Keeffe
Emeritus Professor in Medical Education
- Professor Faye Gishen
Professor of Medical Education & Palliative Medicine