SPEAKERS 2023

Professor Agrawal is a Consultant in Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, National Specialty Advisor for Tobacco to NHS England, and Special Advisor on Tobacco to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) . Sanjay has supported the implementation of new tobacco dependency treatment services across hospitals and maternity services in England since 2021, edited the RCP report 'Smoking and Health 2021' and is preparing a new RCP report on e-cigarettes due in 2024, and has delivered a nationwide quality improvement programme for tobacco dependency treatment services with the British Thoracic Society in 2023.

Deborah Arnott is a recognised international expert on tobacco control and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, with a particular interest in nicotine regulation and harm reduction. She was a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence committee which developed guidance for England on tobacco harm reduction and of an expert advisory group to the UK’s medicines regulator the MHRA on e-cigarettes.  She also has experience of product regulation under the EU General Product Safety Directive having participated in the development of fire safety requirements for cigarettes. Deborah has an MBA from Cranfield, is an honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, and a member of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group.  She was awarded the Alwyn Smith prize in 2007 by the Faculty of Public Health for her outstanding contribution to public health. Competing Interest: None Stated

Clive Bates has had a diverse career in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.  He started out with the IT company, IBM, then switched career to work in the environment movement. From 1997-2003 he was Director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK), campaigning to reduce the harms caused by tobacco. In 2003 he joined Prime Minister Blair’s Strategy Unit as a civil servant and worked in senior roles in the public sector and for the United Nations in Sudan. He is now Director of Counterfactual, a consulting and advocacy practice focussed on a pragmatic approach to sustainability and public health.

Virginia Berridge is Professor of History and Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has recently published E-Cigarettes and the Comparative Politics of Harm Reduction (with Ronald Bayer, Amy Fairchild and Wayne Hall ) (Palgrave  Macmillan 2023). She is currently deputy chair of the London Drugs Commission which is producing a report on cannabis in London for the Mayor. Prof Virginia Berridge is a social historian with a first degree and a PhD in history, both from the University of London. Virginia has worked in historical and non-historical settings, at the Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.  She was scientific secretary to the cross department and research council Drug Addiction Research Initiative and joined the School in 1988 as Co-Director of the AIDS Social History Programme. The current School History Centre  of which Virginia was first Director, has developed from that initial programme. Prof Berridge is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science and honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and of the Royal College of Physicians. Her current research encompasses both epidemic and chronic disease histories of public health and is active in several collaborations relating COVID and history.

Hazel has worked across health and social care policy in the UK and abroad. She currently manages ASH’s policy development work. With a background in health and housing policy Hazel has particular expertise in local government and the delivery of policy at a local level. Hazel also co-ordinates two coalitions dedicated to addressing the health inequalities caused by smoking; The Smoking in Pregnancy Challenge Group and the Mental Health and Smoking Partnership.

Prior to employment at the MHRA, Craig Copland worked in the health food sector and fitness industry before taking up a position with the Portsmouth Trading Standards Service from 2007 to 2017.  In his capacity as a Trading Standards and Financial Intelligence Officer for Portsmouth City Council, Craig has worked across a broad spectrum of regulation, with a focus on business compliance, consumer protection and product safety. This work has also required Craig to lead and support numerous criminal investigations with a particular focus on vulnerable consumers and counterfeit and unsafe goods. Additionally, Craig developed a number of Primary Authority Partnerships, including work with E-cigarette importers and manufacturers under the pre and post TPD regulatory frameworks.  Since joining the agency Craig has overseen the MHRA competent authority responsibilities in operating the UK notification scheme, while continuing to develop links and work closely with regional and international agencies involved in E-cigarette regulation and enforcement, including the CTSI Tobacco Focus Group, Operation Joseph, Joint Action on Tobacco Control Group, TPD Enforcement Group and EU Expert Panel on E-cigarettes

Pascal Diethelm spent most of his professional career working at the World Health, in biomedical computing and as chief of information technology. Since his retirement, he has taken an active role in tobacco control, both at the national level and internationally. WikiLeaks and Wikipedia list him as a tobacco whistleblower. In 2001, he revealed, with Dr. Jean-Charles Rielle, that a renowned professor who led the departments of environmental health at the University of Geneva had been secretly working for Philip Morris for 30 years and conducted fraudulent studies denying the toxicity of secondhand smoke, revelation which was confirmed by the Swiss courts after a long trial in a now famous libel case known as the “Rylander affair”. More recently, Pascal Diethelm exposed the University of Zürich for accepting money from Philip Morris to produce flawed studies denying the effectiveness of the introduction of plain cigarette packaging in Australia. Pascal Diethelm has also studied, together with prof. Martin Mckee, the phenomenon of denialism. Pascal Diethelm is president of OxySuisse, a Swiss NGO dedicated to tobacco control. He is vice-president of the Comité National Contre le Tabagisme (CNCT), a French tobacco control NGO, associate secretary general of ACT-Alliance contre le tabac (France) and board member of CIPRET-Genève, the Geneva Centre for Information on Smoking Prevention. He is a founding member of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA). In 2013 he was a recipient of WHO’s WNTD Award. In January 2016, he was named Reviewer of the year by Tobacco Control, a journal of the BMJ Group. In an article dedicated to him, The Lancet described Pascal Diethelm as a “tireless opponent of the tobacco industry.”

Martin is Tobacco Control Programme Lead for (OHID) The Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (previously Public Health England). He joined PHE in February after 7 years at Action on Smoking and Health. Martin has worked in Public Health since the mid 1980’s when he was involved in HIV prevention work. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

Professor Dr. Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh is a trained Medical Doctor from UKM, Malaysia. She obtained her Master’s in Public Health (Hospital and Health Management) and PhD on Health Economics from the United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH). Her main interests are in areas of health policy, health inequality and health economics. She previously sat as head of Hospital and Health Management Unit, Coordinator for Masters in Community Health Science, Associate Fellow for the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Small Medium Enterprise Development Faculty of Economics and previous head of International Training Centre for Casemix and Clinical Coding in UKM. From 1st December 2010 onwards, she has been appointed as a casemix consultant, coding specialist (with UNU-IIGH and ITCC UKM) in Kuala Lumpur to conduct research & capacity building on Accessibility, Efficiency and Quality of Care in Health System (especially in casemix management) to support casemix implementation in developing countries. Now she is the Deputy Dean (Relation, Alumni & Wealth Creation), Faculty of Medicine. She was a consultant to the Ministry of Human Resource on occupational diseases related burden, Ministry of Health on Cluster Hospital efficiency and Prime Minister’s Department on Prevalence of Autism among children in Malaysia. She was the assistant editor for the Malaysian Journal of Public Health (MJPHM), a Scopus indexed journal and reviewer of other journals locally and abroad. She has published papers locally and abroad, chapters in book and a book on cost effectiveness of vaccination against cervical cancer. She is a masters and PhD examiner, and conducts classes for masters and PhD graduates from UTM, OUM, USM on health economics and health outcomes research. She has presented many papers and proceedings locally and abroad and is a reviewer on HTA on cost effectiveness; member of the Health Economics Association Malaysia, the Malaysian Public Health Physicians Association, MySPOR (Malaysian Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research Group) and ‘One Health’ with MyHoun on zoonotic diseases. She also is an active member in community volunteerism, NGO activities and Corporate Social Responsibilities, with local companies and organisations.

Abigail S. Friedman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the policy determinants of tobacco use and disparities therein, with the overarching goal of informing and facilitating evidence-based policymaking to improve population health and reduce inequality. A health economist by training, she conducts work in three areas. The first uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effects of federal, state, and local policies on conventional and electronic cigarette use, in order to inform more nuanced policymaking that accounts for the differing health impacts of these products. The second line of research considers how new tobacco products and policies are affecting disparities in tobacco use, particularly by socioeconomic status and mental health. Finally, her work on mental health disparities in tobacco use focuses on identifying the drivers behind these differentials as well as potential means to close these gaps, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Dr. Friedman received her undergraduate degree from Columbia University and her Ph.D. in the economics concentration of Harvard University’s Ph.D. Program in Health Policy.

Peter Hajek is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London. His research is concerned primarily with understanding health behaviours, and developing and evaluating both behavioural and pharmacological treatments for dependent smokers and for people with weight problems. Professor Hajek is a member of a number of expert groups, advisory bodies and editorial boards, and has authored or co-authored over 400 publications.

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy, UMass Amherst. She’s recently moved from the University of Oxford in the UK, where she retains an honorary contract. She is an expert in evidence synthesis and an editor for Cochrane. She leads multiple high impact Cochrane reviews in the areas of tobacco control and vaping, which have informed international policy and guidelines. She is passionate about the communication of complex information and data to inform policy and public action.  

Sarah is a Principal Research Fellow in the UCL Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group. Her work focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of smoking cessation aids and interventions on an individual and population level. To do this, she makes use of large, population-based datasets such as the Smoking Toolkit Study. She sits on Action on Smoking and Health’s advisory council, the London Smoking Cessation Transformation Programme board, and is a Senior Editor at the journal Addiction.  

Rachel McIlvenna is the Smokefree NHS Strategic Manager for the North East and North Cumbria ICB. In her role Rachel is leading the system wide implementation of the NHS Long Term Plan smoking ambitions in the regions’ 10 NHS Foundation Trusts and providing strategic leadership across multiple tobacco programmes. Prior to joining the NHS, Rachel worked in local government for over 11 years in multiple public health roles including on tobacco control and smoking cessation programmes and led on a number of long term conditions portfolios. Rachel is a UKPHR registered public health practitioner and in 2019 was the first recipient of the UKPHR Alison Thorpe Award for ‘Translating Evidence into Practice’.

Ann McNeill is a Professor of Addictions in the National Addiction Centre with a focus on tobacco. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a first class joint honours degree in zoology and psychology and then carried out her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry focusing on the development of dependence on smoking. Since that time she has held a variety of academic and public sector posts focusing largely on tobacco control research. Ann has an established international reputation, receiving a World Health Organisation award for contributions to tobacco control in 1998. She has published more than 250 academic papers book chapters, reports and opinion pieces on the subject and her research ranges across prevention, cessation, harm reduction and local, national and international policy. Ann was a co-author of the recent systematic review of tobacco product packaging which underpinned the recent government consultation on plain packaging and has a particular interest in the relationship between smoking, mental health and inequalities. She is Deputy Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. Competing Interest: Professor McNeill leads the Nicotine Research Group in the Addictions Department, IoPPN and receives funding for projects from a variety of funders such as Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and has no links with any tobacco or vaping product manufacturers. Professor McNeill is a NIHR Senior Investigator

John is a public health physician and epidemiologist currently Director of Public Health Analysis at the Department of Health and Social Care and Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Exeter.  He is also Garden Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians in London, and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of Sante publique France. In the past he has been an academic epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, Director of R&D at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, the first Chief Executive Officer of UK Biobank, a Regional Director of Public Health and vice-president of the Faculty of Public Health.  As Director of Health Improvement at Public Health England (2018 -2021) he was responsible for PHE’s work on tobacco control and spoke regularly to the media on electronic cigarettes and vaping. Other notable achievements include setting up the UK Biobank study, leading the national public health intelligence functions in England, leading Public Health England’s work on statistics, cancer registration and health improvement nationally, and leading work in England on the Global Burden of Disease Study.  During the coronavirus pandemic he was appointed by the Secretary of State as the national clinical co-ordinator for coronavirus testing, helped design the ONS coronavirus survey, and oversaw the Government’s national coronavirus dashboard.

Caitlin Notley is a social scientist, with extensive experience running qualitative studies as stand alone projects, to develop interventions, or alongside clinical trials. Her particular areas of research expertise are tobacco smoking cessation, relapse prevention and trajectories of electronic cigarette use. Professor Notley leads the Addiction Research Group at the University of East Anglia, and is Director of the Faculty of Medicine and Health ‘Citizen’s Academy’. She is an experienced Cochrane review author, as a member of the Tobacco Addiction Group, and an Associate Editor for the journals Addiction and Nicotine and Tobacco research. Currently, Professor Notley is leading two large NIHR funded randomised controlled trials evaluating a relapse prevention intervention and smoking cessation support, including the offer of a vape starter kit, for patients attending hospital emergency departments.

Professor Tikki Pang, is an Indonesian citizen and is presently a visiting professor at a leading academic institution in Asia. He was Director, Research Policy & Cooperation, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland (1999-2012). Prior to joining WHO, he was Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Postgraduate Studies & Research, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1989-1999) and Lecturer/Associate Professor, Dept of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1977-1989). He was Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Dengue & Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1982-1995). He holds a PhD in Immunology-Microbiology from the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), Institute of Biology (UK), American Academy of Microbiology (USA), Academy of Medicine of Malaysia, and Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors, Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance (APLMA) and the Southeast Asia Community Observatory (SEACO), and is presently Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition (APIC). He has published >250 scientific articles and 12 books and was lead author on several major WHO reports including the World Health Report 2013: Research for Universal Health Coverage (2013), Knowledge for Better Health (2004) and Genomics and World Health (2002). He has served as an independent consultant and board member of many organizations in the health sector, in both public, NGO and private sectors. Professor Pang has a recognisable profile as a public health expert both nationally and internationally. His research interests are in the epidemiology, pathogenesis, laboratory diagnosis and prevention of infectious diseases, biosecurity and dual-use research, genomics & health, and in health research policy, health research systems, global health governance, development of research capabilities in developing countries, linkages between research and policy, vaccine confidence and harm reduction approaches to mitigate health problems.  

The founder and managing director of ECigIntelligence, Tim is a UK-qualified attorney, having worked at the European Commission, BSkyB and Herbert Smith (an international law firm), AOL Europe, as director of public affairs at Betfair (IPO in 2010 valued at £1.5bn), and as a partner in a New York VC-funded start-up in the diamond sector. Tim holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Law, London and a Masters in Geology from Oxford University.

Louise Ross retired in 2018 as the manager of the Leicester, England, Stop Smoking Service, but continues to be active in tobacco harm reduction. The Leicester stop smoking service was the first in the country to go ‘ecig-friendly’ on No Smoking Day 2014. She now works as Business Development Manager for the Smoke-Free app which includes working with the expert team of advisors who offer live on-demand support to smokers who want to quit, whether this is with traditional products, vaping, novel nicotine products or no products at all. She also works as a freelance consultant for the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training NCSCT where many stop-smoking and tobacco harm reduction resources can be found (see the NCSCT YouTube channel). Louise is the Chair and Mental Health Lead for the New Nicotine Alliance

Ailsa originally trained as a nurse and has worked in tobacco control since 1998. Her early work included heading up the Queensland Quit Campaign in Australia, managing Gateshead and South Tyneside NHS Stop Smoking Service and being Regional Tobacco Policy Manager for the North East. In 2005 Ailsa working with others launched Fresh the UK’s first regional tobacco control programme and has been its Director ever since. In 2014 Ailsa was awarded a World No Tobacco Day Medal by the WHO, an OBE in the New Year’s Honours 2017 for ‘services to tobacco control’. She is passionate about this work, having prematurely lost her father and auntie to COPD. She has also been closely involved in the running of Balance, the North East alcohol programme launched in 2009 in April 2021 became Director of Fresh and Balance, and is proud of the brilliant dedicated small team who work with so many committed partners.

Dr Shahab is Professor of Health Psychology at University College London and past President for the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco – Europe, a fellow of the British Psychological Society and the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and the Royal Society for Public Health. He trained in psychology, epidemiology and neuroscience and has close to 20 years’ experience in addiction research, tobacco control and health psychology. Dr Shahab’s expertise spans work on novel behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation interventions, in particular e-cigarettes, biomarkers, tobacco product regulation and policy, digital health and tobacco and alcohol use epidemiology. Dr Shahab has collaborated with academic as well as non-academic (e.g., governmental, and non-governmental) partners and to date has authored over 200 scientific papers, reports, and reviews in this area.

Dr Sharrock is a Respiratory Consultant at Gateshead Health NHS FT and Clinical Lead for Tobacco Dependency within the NENC ICS. Ruth’s passion to treat tobacco dependency arises from seeing the harm caused by tobacco on the front line within the NHS. Ruth has worked across NENC to support Foundation Trusts to implement the Tobacco Dependency Treatment Services as per the NHS Long Term Plan. She contributes to many other work streams encouraging them to embed identification of and treatment for tobacco dependency as a core component of prevention and for it’s critical role in addressing Health Inequalities. Ruth is passionate about developing barrier-free support for those who smoke has worked alongside colleagues to deliver a region wide NHS staff smoking cessation offer that saw huge success, including the adoption of vapes as part of comprehensive offer of support.

Dr Harry Tattan-Birch is a Research Fellow in the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London (UCL). Harry specialises in research into psychology, behaviour change, and health, with expertise in the design and statistical analysis of randomised trials and causal inference with observational data. Harry has authored 20+ peer-reviewed publications and leads a postgraduate module on advanced research methods for psychologists at UCL.  His PhD thesis focused on the public health impact of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. He is currently leading the Cochrane Review into heated tobacco products.

Eve Taylor joined King’s in 2019 as a Research Assistant after completing her MSc in Addiction Studies. She is currently a PhD student with the Nicotine Research Group investigating smoking and vaping related biomarkers among people with mental health conditions. As well as her PhD, Eve works as a research assistant across many different projects, including the International Tobacco Control Project and the Public Health England e-cigarette evidence reviews.  

Robert West is Professor Emeritus of Health Psychology at University College London, UK.  He is formerly Editor-in-Chief of the journal Addiction. He specialises in addiction and behaviour change and has authored or co-authored more than 900 scientific works including several books: Energise: The Secrets of Motivation, Theory of Addiction, Models of Addiction, The SmokeFree Formula, and The Behaviour Change Wheel. His personal website is www.rjwest.co.uk. Twitter: @robertjwest. He has undertaken research and consultancy for companies that develop and manufacture smoking cessation medications but not e-cigarettes. He is an unpaid advisor to the UK’s National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training. Most of his research is funded by Cancer Research UK.

Ben Youdan started his career running the UK’s No Smoking Day Campaign in the early 2000’s before moving to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2006 to take on the role of ASH Director. He worked on the campaign for the Smokefree 2025 goal, and the policy steps to accompany it. In 2013 he took time out of tobacco control to work as the election campaign director for the New Zealand Green Party, and setting up a community led social change project in highly deprived communities in South Auckland. After working with these communities where vaping was disrupting generations of smoking, he returned to ASH with a particular interest in harm reduction as a tool to reduce inequity, and achieve Aotearoa New Zealand’s smokefree 2025 goal.  He currently splits his time between ASH, and as policy adviser to the New Zealand Heart Foundation.