Director of Research Inclusion, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) 

Dr Esther Mukuka is responsible for developing and implementing the NIHR's inclusion strategy, ensuring that inclusion is integrated throughout its people framework and range of activities (NIHR's national and global research portfolio).

She has a keen interest in promoting sustainable diversity and inclusion initiatives, people-centred research, and transforming organisational culture and processes.

Esther holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Nottingham.

Director of Science, Research and Evidence at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Deputy CEO of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Gail joined DHSC in March 2020 as part of the cross-government COVID-19 surge team as head of the international workforce team. Before joining DHSC, Gail worked for more than 20 years with the Department for International Development (DFID). This included 6 years as one of the team that established DFID’s Research and Evidence Division.

More recently, Gail was Head of DFID Myanmar for 2 years, leading the UK response to the Rohingya crisis and before that Head of DIFD Nepal. She has also worked in Brazil, Mozambique, India and Kenya as well as the United Nations department and Corporate Strategy Group. In her early career Gail was a food security expert working in conflict and post-conflict reconstruction.

Gail holds a PhD from the Institute for Development Policy and Management at Manchester University. She is interested in the inclusion of vulnerable and marginalised people, especially women, in positive, equitable and sustainable development.

Women’s Health Ambassador for England, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Imperial College, St Mary’s Hospital, London

Having graduated from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London in 1980, Professor Regan pursued her career at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, where she first completed an MD on miscarriage, the commonest complication of pregnancy.

Dame Lesley went on to set up the world’s largest recurrent miscarriage clinic at St Mary’s. She was the 30th President (2016-2019) of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), during which time she co-chaired the national Women’s Health Task Force and published the RCOG's Better for Women report which highlighted the need for an NHS led women’s health strategy. Lesley was awarded a DBE for her services to women’s health in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List. She was appointed chair of the Wellbeing of Women charity in October 2020 and became the first Women’s Health Ambassador for England in June 2022, to help implementation of the Women's Health Strategy and improve the health and wellbeing of girls and women nationally.

Caroline Criado Perez, Author of Invisible Women 

Caroline Criado Perez is a best-selling and award-winning writer, broadcaster, and feminist campaigner.

Caroline is the author of the #1 best-seller, INVISIBLE WOMEN: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, highlighting the systematic biases behind the data and assumptions impacting our everyday lives. It has sold over one million copies and is the winner of Financial Times Book of the Year Award 2019 and the 2019 Royal Society Science Book prize.  Caroline is currently working on a new book, as well as an updated version of Invisible Women. She writes a regular newsletter that goes out to 50,000 subscribers.

Her first book, Do it Like a Woman, introduces pioneering women from around the world and what it means to be female in a culture where power and basic freedoms are too often equated with being male.

Caroline’s notable campaign work includes getting a female historical figure on Bank of England banknotes; getting Twitter to introduce a “report abuse” button on tweets; getting the first statue of a woman (Millicent Fawcett) in Parliament Square, London.

Named OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2015, Caroline has received the Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year award, and Finland’s HÄN award for promoting equality. Her podcast Visible Women was chosen by The Guardian newspaper, as one of the 20 best podcasts of 2022.

Subscribe to Caroline's regular newsletter here

You can view Caroline's website at the link here

Dr Kate Womersley, Doctor in Psychiatry, Research Fellow and Co-Principal Investigator of the MESSAGE Project

Dr Kate Womersley is Co-Principal Investigator of the MESSAGE Project (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) at The George Institute for Global Health at Imperial College London, where she is a research fellow. She is also an NHS doctor in psychiatry based in Edinburgh. Her clinical and research interests focus on the intersections between the physical and mental health of women and girls across the lifecourse.

Professor G. J Melendez-Torres, Professor of Clinical and Social Epidemiology, University of Exeter and NIHR Associate Dean for Researcher Inclusion, NIHR Academy

G.J. Melendez-Torres is Professor of Clinical and Social Epidemiology at the University of Exeter and Associate Dean for Researcher Inclusion for the NIHR Academy.  His research spans health technology assessment, child and adolescent health and gender-based violence, both in the UK and internationally.  A registered nurse by background and an NIHR Senior Investigator, he leads Exeter’s membership in the NIHR School for Public Health Research, and is the SPHR’s Associate Director for Public Involvement and Engagement.