Meet our Scientific Committee Members

Chair: Bill South - Deputy Director, Research Services and Data Access division

Bill South leads the Research Services and Data Access division in the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with responsibility for running the ONS’s Secure Research Service.

The ONS Secure Research Service provides secure access to unpublished, de-identified microdata for accredited researchers to work on accredited projects for the public good. In recent years, the ONS has received funding from ADR UK to grow the service and increase the number of datasets available to researchers. Bill has worked for the ONS since 2003 in a variety of roles. 

Emma Gordon - Director, ADR UK & ADR England

Dr Emma Gordon is Director of the ADR UK Strategic Hub and Director of ADR England. She is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the programme. Emma leads on the coordination of the partnership and engagement with senior stakeholders, to improve access and analysis of administrative data to inform policy decisions. She is also part of the ADR UK Leadership Committee.

Emma joined ADR UK from HM Treasury, where she led the team supporting government economists and social researchers across government. Prior to this, Emma was Head of Health Analysis at the ONS, and at the start of her career was a post-doctoral researcher on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

Dr Michael Fleming

Dr Michael Fleming is a lecturer in public health and a chartered statistician at the University of Glasgow. His background is statistics, data linkage, data science, and epidemiology and he has a BSc (honours) in Applied Mathematics and Astronomy, an MSc in Applied Statistics, and a PhD in Public Health. He has over 15 years’ experience using record linkage techniques and statistical methods to analyse complex linked data for research purposes across public health.

Michael is particularly interested in maternal and child health. His main research focuses on child and adolescent health, neurodevelopmental, and educational outcomes related to childhood chronic conditions, early life factors, neonatal and childhood morbidity and maternal/obstetric factors including exposures in-utero.

Nicolás Libuy

Nicolás is a health economist working at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, UCL Social Research Institute. His research explores different topics around public health affecting the life course of children and adolescents. He has extensive experience in longitudinal methods used to analyse and combine complex longitudinal surveys, administrative records and geographical data.

He holds a PhD in health economics (UCL Social Research Institute), an MRes in economics (UCL, Department of Economics), and an MSc and BSc in economics (University of Chile). Before his postgraduate studies at UCL, he worked as a Research Associate at the University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he managed several cross-sectional and longitudinal national surveys in Chile.

Dr Pia Hardelid

Pia is an epidemiologist focusing on the impact of respiratory infections and environmental impacts on child health. She leads a number of large projects using linked administrative data in these fields, including the ‘Air Pollution, housing and respiratory tract Infections in Children: National Birth Cohort Study’ (PICNIC), funded by UKRI-MRC and the Kids’ Environment and Health Cohort, funded by ADR UK.

Professor Karen Broadhurst

Karen Broadhurst is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University and co-directs the Lancaster Data Science Institute. Karen is currently serving as an ADR UK Ambassador and is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Karen's interests are in child and family justice, and she is recognised nationally and internationally for high quality, high impact research that has catalysed measurable change in policy and practice. 

Karen and her colleagues pioneered the use of administrative data to understand the impact of the family justice system on women and children involved in care proceedings. The team produced the first estimate of women's repeat appearances in the family courts, drawing attention to the impact of "repeat removals" of children on birth mothers, their partners and wider family networks. Karen has collaborated with colleagues in the US, Australia and in Europe to improve justice for families, with a particular interest in the use of administrative data for the public good. 

Professor Iain Brennan

Iain Brennan is a Professor of Criminology and a chartered research psychologist.

He is the University of Hull Institutional Lead for Open Research, Director of Research for the School of Criminology, Sociology & Policing and Chair of the University Research Concordat Steering Group. He is a founding member of the Humberside Police-Academic Partnership and its academic lead.

Iain's research interests are in violence prevention including weapon-carrying and serious violence, domestic abuse and violence in night-time economies. He is particularly interested in evaluating interventions in these areas and has led many evaluation studies incorporating randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs and process evaluations.

He is an adviser on violence prevention to local and national governmental and non-governmental organisations including the Home Office, the Youth Endowment Fund, the College of Policing, National Police Chiefs' Council and many police forces across the UK.

He has been a principal or co-investigator on research projects worth over £5 million from funders including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Home Office, ADR UK, NPCC, Jacobs Foundation and the European Commission. He is currently principal investigator on several research projects including a £1.5 million evaluation of focused deterrence interventions on behalf of Youth Endowment Fund.

He is the author of over 40 journal articles, reports, chapters and books and is a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology.