ECHRG Team

Professor Pia Hardelid

Pia’s primary research interest is in how linked, administrative data can be used for research into the epidemiology of respiratory infections in children, and how the physical environment impacts child health. Increasingly, Pia’s work is focused on the impact of the physical environment on children’s health and development. 
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Dr Amal Rammah

Amal is a senior researcher at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, contributing to the PICNIC Study and the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort. Her work explores how environmental and social factors – like air pollution, housing, temperature, and stress – impact maternal and child health, with a focus on health inequalities in vulnerable communities.
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Dr Niloofar Shoari

Niloofar’s research lies at the intersection of environmental sciences and public health, with a particular emphasis on the application of Bayesian methods. Currently, Niloofar’s focus is on utilising administrative data to investigate the impact of the built environment on the mental health of children and young people. 
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Dr Joana Pereira Da Cruz 

Jo is a Research Fellow dedicated to shaping health agendas, with a primary research interest in uncovering the complex interplay between environmental determinants and health outcomes in children and young people. Jo’s expertise lies in the integration of health, demographic, socio-economic, and environmental data from varied sources, succinctly mapped to small administrative units.
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Caroline Hart

Caroline is a PhD student working on the Air Pollution, housing and respiratory tract Infections in Children: National birth Cohort study (PICNIC Study).  Caroline’s interests include in working with birth cohorts to investigate how adverse early life living environments can influence long-term health and development outcomes.
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Dr Melody Turner

Melody is an MRes student exploring the associations between access to green spaces and the psychological well-being of children and young people.   

Steffi (Difei) Shi

Difei is a PhD student and Research Assistant at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, with a background in epidemiology and statistics. Her research focuses on how the physical environments of nurseries and primary schools affect children’s respiratory health, as well as early health and educational outcomes for children born to mothers with social care experience, using linked administrative data from the ECHILD database as part of her CHILI Hub‑funded PhD supervised by Pia Hardelid, Niloofar Shoari, and Gwyneth Davies.
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Dr Helen Blake

Helen is a Senior Research Fellow in the Environmental Child Health Group at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She supports the development of the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort (KEHC), enabling research into how physical and social environments around children’s homes and schools influence health and education outcomes, and is also a member of the NIHR ARC North Thames Research Partnership Team, where she applies statistical expertise to evaluate healthcare and population health interventions within multidisciplinary teams.
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Liliane Broschart

Liliane is a Research Assistant. Her work focuses on better understanding the relationship between children’s environments and their mental and physical health. Her current research is exploring how attendance of either a state or independent school impacts the ways in which children travel to school in England, and the implications this has for their wellbeing.

Borscha Azmi

Borscha is a Programme Manager working across the CHILI Hub and the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort (KEHC), in collaboration with Pia Hardelid. Her role supports the operational delivery and coordination of multidisciplinary research programmes focused on environmental and child health.

Past Members

Dr Selin Akaraci

Selin is a research fellow at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, specialising in environmental epidemiology. Her research focuses on investigating the health impact of urban environments, with a particular emphasis on maternal and child health.
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Faith Miller

Faith is Research Assistant and PhD student. Faith’s research uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to study some of the health and social challenges faced during pregnancy and childhood in the UK and South Asia.
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Matthew Lilliman

Matthew is the Data Resource Manager at the UCL GOS ICH Child Health Informatics Group.  He is UCL’s Programme Manager for the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort study.