South West Satellite

Becca is Co-Director of the NIHR Research Support Service Specialist Centre for Public Health - South West Satellite with Professor GJ Melendez Torres. 

Becca joined the University of Exeter in 2012.  She is currently Senior Research Fellow within the Evidence Synthesis Team (EST) for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC), leading the development and delivery of evidence synthesis — a core methodological service that underpins research across the Medical School. She is also part of ISCA Evidence, one of the nine national research groups of the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programme. 

She has a particular interest in:

• Evidence syntheses, particularly mixed-methods systematic reviews of health services related research

• Novel approaches to dissemination and implementation of evidence syntheses findings to encourage greater usability of review findings

• Teaching evidence syntheses methods

G.J. is Co-Director of the NIHR Research Support Service Specialist Centre for Public Health South West Satellite with Dr Rebecca Abbott.

G.J. arrived at the University of Exeter in March 2019 to take up a personal chair in clinical and social epidemiology.  He currently leads the School for Public Health Environments Research at Exeter (SPHERE) and the Exeter-Cardiff-Birmingham NIHR Public Health Review Team. He is Deputy Director of the Exeter NIHR Policy Research Programme Evidence Reviews Facility and is a chief investigator for the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG).  He is co-lead of the NIHR-funded evidence synthesis group Isca Evidence and the Exeter-McPin Foundation Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Team, or PHIRST EMPower.  At national level, he is the Associate Director for Involvement and Engagement for the NIHR School for Public Health Research, and Associate Dean for Researcher Inclusion for the NIHR Academy.  Most of his research focuses on child and adolescent mental health and on intimate partner violence.

Julie  joined the Specialist Centre for Public Health South West Satellite in October 2025 as Public Health Consultant. Julia is also a Consultant in Public Health at Torbay Council and an Honorary Associate Professor with the University of Exeter.  She moved into public health in 2012 after working in the NHS in a range of policy and operational roles specialising predominantly in cancer, end of life and urgent care.  

Julia is the Specialty Tutor for public health training in Torbay, a member of the SPHERE board, an advisor to the Torbay Medical Research Fund, and a Faculty Advisor.  Her public health areas of interest include health protection, public mental health, healthy ageing, training and research.  

Sian is a Methodologist at the South West Satellite, providing funding advice and supporting research development. She also works as a Research Fellow in the Exeter HSDR Evidence Synthesis Centre, conducting systematic reviews and other syntheses of evidence about the organisation and delivery of health and social care in the UK, with recent projects including a scoping review of extra-care housing for older people in the UK and a qualitative evidence synthesis of healthcare workforce reconfiguration during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her background is as an environmental social scientist, and she still explores the links between natural environments and human health and wellbeing using participatory methods and approaches such as citizen science.