Our speakers 

Adam Briggs

Adam is Deputy Director of Public Health in Oxfordshire, Senior Policy Fellow at the Health Foundation, and Deputy Director of the NIHR Research Support Service Specialist Centre for Public Health, based at the University of Southampton.

Adam will take over as Director of the Public Health Research (PHR) Programme from July 2025, replacing Professor Brian Ferguson who is stepping down after leading the programme since 2020. 

He will be leaving the Health Foundation to take up his new role, alongside becoming a Professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton. His work includes various areas of public health policy, risk factors for ill health and community involvement in research.

Greg Fell

Greg was appointed as President of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) in October 2023, having served as Vice President since December 2021. Greg is also Director of Public Health (DPH) for Sheffield. He graduated from Nottingham University with a degree in biochemistry and physiology in 1993 and worked as a social researcher in a maternity unit; and had a number of roles in health promotion and public health before joining the public health training scheme. Greg worked as a Consultant in Public Health in Bradford before becoming a DPH in February 2016. 

Professor Brian Ferguson

Professor Brian Ferguson is the outgoing Director of the NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Programme and Chair of the PHR Prioritisation Committee. He was on the programme's advisory board between 2009 and 2014.

Brian joined Public Health England in 2013 as Director of Knowledge and Intelligence and was PHE's Chief Economist from 2015 - early 2021. He was on the programme's advisory board between 2009 and 2014. He is a member of the International Editorial Board for the journal Public Health, and has chaired the Research Advisory Committee of the National Diabetic Eye Screening Programme since 2011.  Until recently he was Chair of the OECD Expert Group on the Economics of Public Health.

Brian has previously held posts as Deputy Director of the Centre for Health Economics, University of York, and was the founding Professor of Health Economics in the University of Leeds. He was a member of the National Public Health Career Scientist Award Panel for five years and was a PCT non-executive director for four years. Brian was a member of NICE’s Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2008. 

Louise Wallace

Louise Wallace is Director of Public Health for North Yorkshire Council, she took up the post in December 2020 on an interim basis and substantively in April 2021. Prior to this Louise was already working at North Yorkshire CC leading on health integration. Prior to this, Louise was DPH in Hartlepool from 2012-2017.

Louise is passionate about public health and improving and protecting the health of the population living across the beautiful county of North Yorkshire in moors, coast, dales and urban communities.

Professor Jane West

Professor Jane West is Director of the NIHR RSS Specialist Centre for Public Health Yorkshire and Humber satellite. She works in Bradford as the Director of Public Health Research, ActEarly Consultant in Public Health at Bradford Institute for Health Research/Bradford Council, and is also an honorary Professor of Public Health at ScHARR, University of Sheffield. She is a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and has UKPHR registration. 

Jane is a co-investigator on the UKPRP ActEarly consortium and the Wellcome funded Born in Bradford Age of Wonder Programme. Her research interests include income and ethnic inequalities and their impact on child health and opportunity, wider and commercial determinants of health and wellbeing, and systems approaches to disease prevention and population health. 

From 2014 – 2024 Jane was the NIHR CRN National Specialty Lead for Public Health, and from 2019 - 2024 was a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling.