Management team

The management team is based at University of Liverpool.

Professor Richard Lilford

Principal Investigator & Professor of Public Health at the University of Birmingham

Prof Lilford is Professor of Public Health at the University of Birmingham, and is Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration West Midlands (ARC WM). His interests include complex and service delivery interventions, health economic evaluations, step-wedge cluster trials, improvement of health in slums, and multiple-indication reviews.

Professor Lance Turtle

Steering Group Member & Deputy Head of Department, Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, at the University of Liverpool

Prof Turtle works in the Liverpool Brain Infections Group, Institute of Infection, Veterinary & Ecological Sciences, and is an Honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. He has research experience in India, and his current interests include pathogenesis of arboviral disease, immunity to infection, vaccines and immune cross reactivity between flaviviruses.

Professor Michael Griffiths

Co-Investigator at the University of Liverpool

Prof Griffiths works in the Liverpool Brain Infections Group, Institute of Infection, Veterinary & Ecological Sciences, and is an Honorary Paediatric Neurology Consultant at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. He has previously worked in Oxford, Kenya and Stanford (USA). His research interests include host responses to neurological infectious insults, particularly diagnostic and prognostic markers, using transcriptomics and proteomics.

Dr Fiona McGill

Co-Investigator & Academic Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases at the University of Liverpool

Dr McGill is a clinical lecturer with an expertise in observational, clinical epidemiological studies looking at adult onset meningitis in the UK. Her interests lie in improving diagnostic pathways. She does 50% clinical work (half ID and half microbiology) and 50% academic.

Dr Christopher Parry

Co-Investigator & Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool

Dr Parry is a clinician scientist with training in medical microbiology, infectious disease and tropical medicine and clinical accreditation in microbiology. He is a visiting Professor at the School of Tropical Medicine and Consultant Microbiologist at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool. His main interests are epidemiology and management of severe bacterial infections in adults and children, and postgraduate education, and has clinical and research experience in Asia and Africa.

Professor Benedict Michael

Co-Investigator & Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Liverpool

Prof Michael is an MRC Clinician Scientist and Director of the Infection Neuroscience Lab at the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Emerging and Zoonotic Infections and an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at The Walton Centre. His research interests include Neuro-immunological responses, particularly to infection, and the clinical management of central nervous system infections.

Dr Ava Easton

Chair of Patient/Public Involvement Panel & Chief Executive of the Encephalitis Society

Dr Easton has produced and published several papers, and more recently a book (Life After Encephalitis) on various aspects of encephalitis and its after-effects. She also speaks at conferences and provides lectures and training on acquired brain injury, and encephalitis and its consequences, for health, education and social care professionals, worldwide. Dr Easton is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Liverpool.

Professor Charles Newton

Chair of the External Advisory Panel & Lecturer at the University of Oxford

Prof Newton conducts research on CNS infections in children; epidemiological studies of epilepsy and neurological impairment; tetanus, jaundice and sepsis in neonates. At present he is conducting studies of Neurodevelopmental disorders and Epilepsy in Africa. In 2011, he took up a professorship in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford to concentrate of neurological and mental illness disorders in children living in Africa.