Meet the Team

Professor of Paramedic Science at the University of Hertfordshire, Julia has extensive experience of undertaking research in a variety of healthcare settings as well as being involved in the development and delivery of Higher Education courses both for already qualified paramedics and, also, for students on pre-registration Paramedic Science programmes. She holds a PhD from King's College, London which was based on her research with people who were street homeless, looking at their experiences of health and healthcare while living on the streets. Julia also works with South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust where she undertakes clinical research as well as clinical practice as a paramedic, which she considers essential to enhance the currency of her clinical research as well as her teaching. As Head of Research for the College of Paramedics (UK), she is committed to increasing the capacity and capability of paramedics within clinical research, and she takes every opportunity to inform other organisations about the rich talent that exists within the paramedic profession in relation to clinical research, highlighting the positive contribution paramedics can make to the health care research agenda. These are exciting times for the paramedic profession and research as a career option is becoming well established; the future is bright for paramedic research!

Dr. Gregory Whitley joined the West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust in 2010 as a student paramedic. He qualified in 2012 and joined the East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS) in 2014. Within EMAS he worked on the AIRWAYS-2 clinical trial for 3 years as a research paramedic. He completed his MSc in Health and Social Care from the University of Nottingham in 2016 and then completed his PhD, titled "Pre-hospital pain management in children: A mixed methods study" at the University of Lincoln in 2020. This was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration – East Midlands (ARC-EM). He then completed a post-doctoral bridging fellowship funded by Health Education England (HEE)/NIHR ARC-EM in 2021.

Greg is currently a paramedic research fellow with EMAS, a lecturer in paramedic science at the University of Lincoln and an associate editor for the British Paramedic Journal. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, co-edited a textbook titled “prehospital research methods and practice” and has worked on prehospital research projects worth over £4m. Greg has recently been awarded a HEE/NIHR ICA Advanced Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship, the first paramedic in England to receive this award.

Caitlin Wilson (X @999_Caitlin) is a paramedic senior research fellow with Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust and the University of Hertfordshire. She is a clinical academic with an interest in mixed-methods research within the ambulance service setting and beyond. Caitlin recently completed her PhD on prehospital feedback to enhance patient safety and staff wellbeing and is also an associate editor for the British Paramedic Journal.

Georgette is the Consultant Paramedic in Urgent Care at London Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Georgette completed her DPhil (PhD) in Evidence Based Healthcare at the University of Oxford, which explored the impact of paramedics in NHS primary care, using realist approaches to improve understanding, support intelligent policy and make recommendations for future workforce planning. Georgette is also facilitator and co-chair within the Oxfordshire Council for Allied Health Professions Research, as well as a Senior Fellow International Collaborator in the McNally Project.

A Senior Research Fellow in Emergency Care at the University of the West of England, Bristol, Dr Kim Kirby is a paramedic with over 20 years frontline experience of prehospital care and the Lead Research Paramedic for Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. She has been working as a clinical researcher since 2014 with her main research interests being improving outcomes from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, improving call triage and dispatch, enhancing the paramedic role in end-of-life care and investigating point of care testing in the out-of-hospital setting.

She has completed an NIHR Doctoral Fellowship focused on improving the recognition and response to patients who are at imminent risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Continuing from this work Kim is now investigating how ambulance services can better triage patients presenting with chest pain to improve patient outcomes using machine learning.

Dr Jamie Miles is a post-doctoral Clinical Innovation Fellow at the University of Sheffield and an Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) at Barnsley Hospital NHS Trust. His clinical specialism lies in both Prehospital and Emergency care, having started his career as a paramedic and advancing to treat patients in the Emergency Department (ED). This dual expertise allows him to view the healthcare system holistically.

Jamie's career objective is to enhance patient care in the urgent and emergency care system by promptly identifying care needs and utilising the right technology at the point of access. He's deeply interested in leveraging digital technologies, particularly in healthcare 4.0, to integrate digital ecosystems with physical technology for maximum clinical utility.

Julia joined NIAS in 2011 and became an HCPC registered paramedic in 2013. She worked as an operational paramedic for a number of years before taking up post as a Community Resuscitation Officer in 2018. She was then appointed as an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Practitioner in April 2021. Having developed a keen interest in research during her undergraduate degree, she took up post as the first R&D Manager in NIAS in February 2022. She has had the privilege of securing funding for and employing the first two research paramedics in NIAS.

Julia has a background in Biomedical Science, having gained her BSc (Hons) from Queen’s University Belfast in 2009 and completed her Masters in Research (MRes) with the University of Stirling in November 2023. She has also undertaken a PG Certificate in HSC Leadership and has started working towards her PhD with Ulster University.

Jack is a Paramedic Senior Research Fellow at South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) and Air Ambulance Charity Kent, Surrey and Sussex. His primary research interest is in traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the prehospital setting and how emergency medical services can improve the care we provide to these patients, whether they are mild head injuries in older adults or time-critical, severe TBI patients. He has been a paramedic at SECAmb since 2014 and joined the research team in 2017 as a research paramedic. Through the support of the College of Paramedics and the National Institute of Health Research, Jack has developed his research portfolio in TBI and prehospital research. In 2023, he completed an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship, which saw him attain his PhD in Health Sciences from the University of Surrey. His thesis aimed to identify older adults presenting to the ambulance service with a head injury that would benefit from being conveyed to the emergency department.