Senior clinicians, academics, researchers and managers provide the strategic direction of the Cancer Academy.
Kirit undertook his medical training at Cambridge University and University of London. He is the divisional clinical director for cancer at UCLH and is the lead blood diseases clinician at UCLH, specialising in treating patients with haematological malignancies. He has a particular interest in non-Hodgkin’s and Hodgkin’s lymphoma and has published several papers in this area. He also Honarary senior lecturer at UCL.
Lallita took up her post as the joint clinical lead for supportive cancer care and head for the Macmillan Support and Information Service in March 2012 with her job share partner Hilary Plant. Together they are developing a programme of work that will ensure that patients, families and carers and the staff providing clinical care are enabled to deliver the best supportive care.
Lallita completed her nurse training at the Middlesex Hospital in 1986 and has worked in a in a variety of cancer nursing roles including clinical practice, research and management. She has an interest in the impact of cancer care on staff and is involved in a number of initiatives aimed at improving staff support, including being a Schwartz Round facilitator. Her PhD focussed on the effectiveness of multi-disciplinary cancer teams. Lallita’s vision and ambition is to ensure that access to personalised supportive cancer care is an integral part of every patient’s experience at UCLH.
Kylie has a background in both life sciences and nursing and has been working in clinical research since 2003. She joined UCLH in 2014 as the head of the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit which supports the provision of a broad portfolio of clinical trials for our cancer patients.
UCLH hosts a large number of clinical trials in innovative and exciting areas such as early diagnosis and screening, cutting edge radiotherapy techniques and immunotherapy. Kylie has a particular interest in education and sharing of best practice across the research team to ensure safety and maximise patient experience.
Alison Hill has been the lead cancer nurse at UCLH since 2013. She has worked in cancer care for over 20 years. Following clinical posts in London and Oxford, Alison was appointed as a ward sister at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. This led to a number of posts as a Macmillan nurse in both community and hospital services and then a move to work for the charity as a regional development manager. Working at Macmillan Cancer Support developed her interest in strategic planning and subsequent appointment to roles in the cancer networks in Norfolk and London and in cancer commissioning.
Alison’s two main clinical areas of interest remain hospital palliative care and the role of the clinical nurse specialist.
Daniel Hochhauser is Kathleen Ferrier Professor and consultant medical oncologist. Following postgraduate medical training in London and Oxford, he was awarded a DPhil at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. Subsequently he completed specialist training at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. His research interests are early phase clinical studies and clinical trials in gastrointestinal cancer.
Dr Karavasilis was appointed as a Consultant Medical Oncologist at UCLH in 2015 and since then has joint a very active team at the London Sarcoma Service, which in conjunction with the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, constitutes one of the largest sarcoma services in Europe. Vasilios is also Assistant Professor of Oncology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and upon recently he has served as a director of the academic medical oncology department there. He has trained partly in Greece and the UK at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
Jonathan Ledermann joined UCL and UCLH in 1990. He is professor of medical oncology in the UCL Cancer Institute and Director of Cancer Research UK and UCL Cancer Trials Centre. He is an honorary consultant in medical oncology UCLH.
He trained in internal medicine and medical oncology in London and in Toronto, Canada.
He specialises in gynaecological cancer treatment and research and has led many national and international clinical trials. He has held many leadership positions in national and international research organisations and is currently chair of the Rare Tumour Group in the Gynaecological Cancer InterGroup, chair of the non-surgical subgroup of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society and on the Council of the European Society for Gynecologic Oncology. He was formerly a member of the EMA Specialist Advisory Committee for Oncology and chair of the ESMO Gynaecological Cancer Educational Faculty.
He is a member of the NHS England Chemotherapy Reference Group and is on the editorial board of several cancer journals. He has published widely on his research and given lectures at many international meetings.
Holly joined the Cancer Collaborative in June 2017. Before joining, she worked in the Strategy Group at NHS England where, amongst other things, she ran the NHS Healthy New Towns programme and was part of the team that produced the NHS Five Year Forward View. Prior to that, she worked as a Service Improvement Manager at Whittington Health NHS Trust, and in local government. Holly studied English Literature at Durham and Oxford Universities, and has an MSc in Health Policy from Imperial College London.
Hilary took up her post as the joint clinical lead for supportive cancer care and head for the Macmillan Support and Information Service in 2012 with her job share partner Lallita Carballo. Together they are developing a programme of work that will ensure that patients, families and carers and the staff providing the clinical care are enabled to deliver the best supportive care.
Hilary completed her nurse training at University College Hospital in 1981 and subsequently worked in a variety of roles in cancer care in clinical practice, research and project management. Hilary’s longstanding interest is to find ways of providing support for people with cancer and their families to enable them to live as well as possible – she is also an accredited psychotherapist and completed a PhD which looked at understanding the impact of cancer on close family and friends. Hilary is also interested in the impact of working in cancer care on staff and is involved in a number of initiatives aimed at improving support for staff including being a Schwartz Round facilitator. Hilary’s vision and ambition is to ensure that access to personalised supportive cancer care is an integral part of every patient’s experience at UCLH.
Katie joined the Cancer Academy in July 2017. She has previously worked in the charity sector, in fundraising and in programme design and delivery. Katie has an MA in Applied Human rights from the Centre for Applied Human Rights, and a BA in English Literature and History from the University of York.
Andrew has worked in higher education for over 25 years as a lecturer, researcher and external examiner. Since the 1990s, he has also been a consultant in economic development, working with the OECD in Europe, North America and Korea, with the Hungarian government, and in East Africa. He has written several books and numerous academic articles in this field, and spoken on local radio and television on related subjects.
Diagnosed with cancer about 10 years ago, he was not confident in his local hospital and asked his GP for a referral to UCLH, where he was treated. He joined the Cancer Patients Policy and Advisory Group to give something back to UCLH and to improve the experience of patients.
Abu qualified as a physiotherapist in 2001 and has worked in London in hospital and community settings. Abu has been working as a children’s physiotherapist for 13 years, spending eight of those at UCLH, primarily within children’s cancer services. Abu is currently clinical lead physiotherapist for cancer services across UCLH and works alongside physiotherapists and occupational therapists to ensure that cancer services across adult, adolescent and paediatric settings are continuously evolving. A key part of this role involves optimising training to therapy staff working in cancer settings to maximise their knowledge and skills to improve patient care and experience.
Tracy joined the NHS in 1994 as a supernumerary clinical scientist trainee in the south east Thames region and completed an MSc in Medical Engineering in Physics alongside IPEM Training Scheme for Clinical Scientists.
Tracy joined UCLH (Middlesex Hospital) in 1996 and completed the IPEM Higher Training Scheme for Clinical Scientists in 1999. She has served as a local examiner for IPEM Training Scheme for Clinical Scientists in Radiotherapy and now serves as a local coordinator and assessor in Radiotherapy for the Scientists Training Programme (STP) at UCLH.
Tracy works as a principal physicist within the Radiotherapy Physics Department which provides scientific and technical support to the Radiotherapy Department and has specific responsibility in the areas of brachytherapy and molecular radiotherapy.
Emma trained as a doctor in London and undertook specialist orthopaedic and then hand surgery training in the south east of England prior to becoming a consultant at UCLH in 2007.
Since joining UCLH, Emma has become more involved in education, training and staff development, and was appointed Director of Education in 2014, leading the UCLH Institute, the home of learning and quality improvement at UCLH.
