LSTM welcomes Professor Dame Tina Lavender to the Department of International Public Health, as she heads up LSTM’s new Centre for Childbirth, Women’s and Newborn Health (CWNH).
Dame Tina joins LSTM after a successful 12 years as Director of the Centre for Global Women’s Health at the University of Manchester and will build on the international success of LSTM in the field of maternal and newborn health. The new CWNH will specialise initially in two main areas of research: Prevention and Management of Stillbirth and Neonatal Deaths, and Respectful Maternal and Newborn Care.
Along with Dame Tina, a number of her team from the University of Manchester have made the move to LSTM to be part of the new CWNH – Senior Lecturers Dr Carol Bedwell and Dr Tracey Mills, Research Administrator Jon Wood, Senior Programme Manager Roy Daley and Research Associate Valentina Actis-Danna.
Born in Merseyside, Dame Tina began her career as a midwife in Liverpool supporting many women to give birth, before training others in the role and researching maternal mortality and morbidity in lower- and middle-income settings. She is the founder and Associate Editor of the African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health and was named as one of the most inspirational women in the World, by the BBC. Dame Tina is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives and holds a visiting professorship at the University of Nairobi.
Joining LSTM in the run up to its 125th anniversary in 2023, the team of expert researchers and programme support staff at the new centre will build on LSTM’s many years of training, research and technical assistance in maternal and newborn health across Africa and South Asia. She said: “I am delighted to be working at LSTM. It provides an exciting opportunity to work in an environment with such a strong track record of innovative and impactful global health research. This position enables the team and I to build on our previous work for the benefit of women and babies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.”
Professor Shabbar Jaffar, Head of LSTM’s department of International Public Health, where the new CWNH sits, said: “I am delighted to welcome Tina and her team to Liverpool. Research on preventing mortality and morbidity of mothers and children is a very high global health priority and crucial for LSTM.