Writtle University College and ARU have merged. Writtle’s full range of college, degree, postgraduate and short courses will still be delivered on the Writtle campus. See our guide to finding Writtle information on this site.

The Working Group

We are pleased to introduce the members of the Working Group behind the Sustainable Health Symposium 2017.

Sonia Roschnik

Head shot of Sonya Roschnik, member of the Global Health Symposium 2017 working group

Sonia Roschnik works as a sustainable health advisor building on 30 years experience in the health and social care sector, as a clinician, in senior hospital management and in sustainability.

Recent work has included supporting the Chinese health sector to establish a green sustainable health and care strategy and authorship of the World Bank report on Climate Smart Healthcare (2017).

Sonia chairs the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition, is a Non Executive Director for Health Care Without Harm Europe and has regularly been an advisor to WHO and UNDP on sustainability and health programmes. Sonia recently worked as Head of the Sustainable Development Unit for the NHS and health sector in England which pioneered system wide approaches.

She is enjoying studying for a masters in Systems thinking with the Open University and is currently based in Abu Dhabi and Europe.

Aled Jones

Prof Aled Jones

Professor Aled Jones is the inaugural Director of the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) at Anglia Ruskin University. The GSI is an internationally recognised research institute, with a team of 40 individuals. Aled’s work in climate finance has been recognised by the State of California and he has received a key to the city of North Little Rock, USA. He is a Co-Investigator on the ESRC Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), the AHRC Debating Nature’s Value network and the EU H2020 MEDEAS project. In 2013 Anglia Ruskin University won the International Sustainable Campus Network Award for integrating sustainability and was shortlisted as Sustainable Business of the Year for the edie 2017 awards.

Aled is an External Panel member of the HRH Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) group and sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for the Global Food Security initiative which feeds into the UK research councils and across government. Aled has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge.

Ian Willis

Head shot of Ian Willis, member of the Global Health Symposium 2017 working group

Ian Willis is one of the Coordinators of the Wellcome Trust-Cambridge University Centre for Global Health Research, a consortium of academics conducting collaborative global health research. The group has a broad spectrum of expertise encompassing flu virus research, infectious diseases, vaccines and antimicrobial resistance, maternal and neonatal health as well as cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the low and middle income context.

Ian spent twelve years implementing public health projects in Africa and the Middle East notably in Rwanda, Sudan, Ghana, Togo, Benin and The West Bank and Gaza. With shorter assignments in Morocco, Kenya, and Afghanistan.

Lara Allen

Head shot of Lara Allen

Dr Lara Allen is Director of the Centre for Global Equality (formerly The Humanitarian Centre), a position she has held since October 2014. The Centre contributes to greater global equality by enhancing access for people in the developing world to resources that would not normally be available to them. The Centre works with communities to identify and resolve problems in collaboration with a broad network of civil society organisations, businesses and academics.

Lara has extensive experience working in academia and in international development. Previously, she was Head of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Irish NGO Misean Cara, and Executive Director of Tshulu Trust, a non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable development in an underdeveloped rural part of South Africa's Limpopo Province. She has a particular interest in evolving effective models of interaction between universities and poor communities that make university capacities and resources available to poor communities in a mutually beneficial manner.

Lara holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Cambridge. She spent several years in South Africa, where she was a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in the Wits School of Arts and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER).

Jamie Harvie

Jamie Harvie

Jamie Harvie is the Executive Director of the Institute for a Sustainable and founder of the Commons Health Network, established to connect and advance place-based models of health creation and a new health operating system.

Jamie led the successful US healthcare mercury elimination efforts and initiated and directed the national Healthy Food in Healthcare Campaign. Working at the nexus of health, healthcare, food systems and community he has received recognition as a national thought leader and for lifelong public health leadership and advocacy.

He speaks and consults internationally.

Sarah Massie

Sarah Massie

Sarah is part of the leadership and organisational development team at The King's Fund and works with individual leaders, teams and organisations to identify and support their leadership development needs. Sarah leads on a number of the Fund's open programmes including our Board offer, compassionate leadership, personal impact and influence, and the medical consultant programme.

Sarah has a particular interest in quality improvement and innovation; Sarah set up and leads a Quality Improvement Fellowship development programme within the NHS working with over 40 clinicians across a range of professional backgrounds.

She is an executive coach, coach supervisor, and is qualified as an Action Learning set facilitator and in a number of psychometric tools.

Sarah joined the Fund four years ago after spending 20 years working in the NHS. After starting out as a clinician, she held roles at an operational, managerial and strategic level, most recently as head of leadership and talent management in a strategic health authority

Tennie Videler

Tennie Videler

Tennie Videler is the Coordinator for the PublicHealth@Cambridge Strategic Research Network, working to connect people interested in Public Health research from across the six Schools of the University of Cambridge. Research and implementation of global and sustainable public health is my current focus.

Originally a research chemist, with a PhD in structural biology and 12 years of postdoctoral research experience, Tennie has since supported research by working for a careers organisation specialising in researchers, coordinating another strategic research network (Immunology) and short stints in the NHS and the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

Evelyn Brealey

Head shot of Evelyn Brealey

Evelyn Brealey is Programme Director for Addenbrooke’s Abroad (Cambridge University Hospitals) with responsibility for the strategic development and management of the programme. For part of her time (2011–2015) with Addenbrooke’s Abroad, Evelyn has been based in the Botswana Ministry of Health and Wellness managing the Botswana Cambridge health partnership.

Prior to joining Addenbrooke’s Abroad, Evelyn worked at Country Director level for six years in Central Asia managing social service development and welfare projects for vulnerable groups (children, families and elderly). Other experience includes a desk officer role in an international children’s charity, project manager of a street children rehabilitation centre in Kenya, and welfare officer in a Rwandan refugee camp in Tanzania. Now a UK national Evelyn lived in Kenya until aged 27. Evelyn holds a Bachelor degree in Psychology and Politics and a Masters degree in International Child Welfare