Chair
Dr Peter Bannister
Peter has helped build multiple high-growth biomedical businesses, from start-up to global organizations. His contributions include strategy development, fundraising, R&D, product development, operations and regulatory, leading to the commercialization of innovative products for surgery, diagnostic imaging and phenotyping in multiple international markets. As Chief Customer Success Officer at Mirada Medical Ltd, he is the global lead for revenue delivery and customer retention for Mirada’s clinical solutions in radiation therapy, interventional medicine and diagnostic imaging.
As Chairman of the IET Healthcare Sector, his remit is to inform both the public and policy-makers on the part that engineering can play in addressing society’s healthcare challenges, while ensuring that engineers have the training and networks to other stakeholders across the healthcare delivery landscape needed to develop effective and timely solutions.
He holds a DPhil in Medical Imaging from the University of Oxford where he also carried out post-doctoral research in machine learning with Rolls-Royce. Peter is Deputy Chair of the NIHR AI Award Panel, co-opted (non-voting) member of AMS Council, IET Fellow, chartered engineer, business mentor/ advisor and a committed supporter of STEM initiatives.
Committee members
Dr Daniel Abasolo
Dr Daniel Abasolo is Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Surrey, where he is also the programme leader for BEng/MEng Biomedical Engineering. His research interests lie mainly in non-linear biomedical signal processing, in particular the development of algorithms that can be applied to Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, the characterisation of healthy and pathological ageing using brain signals, EEG analysis in sleep studies, and electrocardiogram analysis in atrial fibrillation, as well as the translation of these algorithms to hardware platforms.
His work has led to the publication of several highly cited papers in indexed journals (h-index of 24 based on Thomson Reuters, May 2018, or 26 based on Google Scholar, May 2018) and he has also been instrumental in securing research grants throughout his academic career.
Mike Anderson
Andstrom Consulting
Chris Geary
Chris is Innovation Lead, Digital Health at Innovate UK. He has extensive experience in strategy, investment, venturing, programme/project management and business development with a track record spanning the FMCG, energy, telecoms, financial services and healthcare sectors in both corporate and management consultancy roles. He is recognised as a leading specialist in innovation with a successful track record of building significant commercial value through the innovative application of technology to business.
Chris co-leads the implementation of the Digital Health Technology Catalyst, a £35m funding programme from DHSC and BEIS to support SMEs in collaboration with partners to develop collaborative R&D projects in digital health. He also leads on interoperability on the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programme for Data to Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine.
Dr Guy Gross
Dr Guy Gross (MBA2006) is a doctor and serial entrepreneur in healthcare who has spent almost 20 years as an innovation consultant working with large corporations to identify opportunities in the healthcare space and launch products into newly created markets.
He served for a time as Innovation Delivery Lead for NW London NHS, during which time he worked with over 20 companies to win their first NHS contract. His own ventures have also won multiple NHS contracts, and his latest delve into the wellness space is bringing together some of the UK's biggest hitters to develop a retail health offering that improves self-management in the community.
Benita Mehra
Benita Mehra past President and Trustee of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), a charity with a long-standing commitment to increasing and developing female engineers and applied scientists to reach 30% by 2030. She is a strong advocate and champion of female and BAME applied science and engineers. Her aim is for STEM-based occupations, especially engineering, to be considered among the top three professions in the UK.
A fellow of the IET whose background started in electrical and electronic engineering who has operated in the built environment and construction sector for airports, housing and health, to executive level. She is currently working with Voxta Voce an intelligent voice assistant to assist customer services with the ability to integrate across multiple languages.
Helen Oliver
Eastern Academic Health Science Network (AHSN)
Dr Leo Poll
Prior to joining Akendi UK as Founder and President, Leo worked for Philips Research in various global roles including Business Development Officer on the Connectivity Research board. He was also a board member for Health Enterprise East, a non-profit organisation focused on identifying new innovations from within the NHS and supporting the commercial realisation of these.
Furthermore, Leo also founded v.o.f. Galileo, a software consultancy that specialised in relational database applications for clients such as Esso and Honeywell Bull. Leo graduated from Eindhoven University of Technology in Information Technology and holds a PhD on 'Visualising Graphical User Interfaces for Blind Users'.
Prof Rami Qahwaji
Rami Qahwaji CEng FIET is Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, Academic Director for the Digital Catapult Centre Yorkshire and the Academic Lead for the Healthcare Technology Unit at the Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ).
Rami is originally trained as an Electrical Engineer and had MSc in Control and Computer Engineering and PhD in Imaging and Machine Learning. His research was funded by H2020, EPSRC, Innovate UK, EU FP7, NHS, ERDF, European Space Agency (ESA), TSB, Yorkshire Forward and more. He has over 140 refereed publications and has supervised 23 completed PhD projects.
Hak Salih
Hak has over 20 years’ experience as an investor and supporter of entrepreneurs and innovation and is an award-winning mentor. As Digital Health Lead at MedCity, he supports, connects and grows the digital health ecosystem, both in the private and public sectors. He also works with stakeholders looking to commercialise their ideas in digital health.
Hak mentors a wide range of start-ups and social enterprises and has been recognised for this contribution with a Fellowship of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs. Amongst his other interests, he researches the potential for emerging technologies (e.g. VR, AI, robotics, drones, self-driving cars, synthetic biology etc.) across industries, including healthcare.
Sophie Taysom
Sophie Taysom is an independent policy consultant at Keyah Consulting. She provides expertise on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health and care, AI ethics, and the built environment. Sophie specialises in policy analysis to support project development and delivery in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to this, she worked in the Department of Health and Social Care as a senior policy lead. Her portfolio includes policy leadership on addressing antimicrobial resistance in low and middle-income countries, health innovation, building the NHS workforce, bioethics, and mental health. Each of these roles required extensive stakeholder engagement which included working closing with the public, national and international experts, senior colleagues, across government, and with Ministers. Her work on a number of key government deliverables has ranged from policy development through to implementation, strategy development, and programme management.
Melissa Wills
Melissa is the founder of Women Like Me, a collective curated as a result of the lack of representation, support and progression for underrepresented groups within tech. Her passion, energy and drive for building communities has enabled safe spaces to exist where a progressive conversation about race and gender equality can take place. She has produced broadcast interviews and online content for the Cyber Security Research Institute and Future Intelligence podcasts reporting on the ramifications of technology for Resonance FM.
Melissa is currently Innovation Project Manager at L&Q Group, one of the UK’s largest housing providers leading on L&Qs Smart Home strategy to deliver an enhanced service to residents using innovation and technology. She is shaping how to best prepare social housing to enable the ageing population to live independently. On the IET Healthcare committee, she advises on issues regarding socio-spatial design, inclusivity and diversity in engineering.