GROUP MEMBERS

Dr Lysia Demetriou (Post-doctoral Researcher)

Dr Lydia Coxon (Post-doctoral Researcher)

Dr Rachel Reid-McCann (Post-doctoral Researcher)

Dr Kirralise Hansford (Post-doctoral Researcher)

Dr Emma Evans (Honorary Researcher)

Dr Miriam Szabo (DPhil Student)

Miss Chloe Curtis (DPhil Student)

Dr Malvika Gulati (DPhil student)

Dr Sharon Dixon (DPhil student)

Mrs Carrie White (Research Nurse)

EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS

Within Oxford:

Prof Irene Tracey, Prof Charlotte Stagg & Dr Katie Warnaby, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

Dr Francine Toye, The Physiotherapy Research Unit

Outside Oxford:

Prof Philippa Saunders, Prof Andrew Horne & Dr Lucy Whitaker, Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh

Prof Stacey Missmer,  University of Michigan, USA

Dr Fiona Watt, Imperial College, London

Prof Esther Pogatzki-Zahn, University of Muenster

I graduated from King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London in 2000, having also obtained an intercalated BSc in Biomedical Sciences & Anatomy (1997). I completed the majority of my postgraduate training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Oxford Deanery, obtaining my CCT in 2015. During this time I undertook a DPhil in Prof Irene Tracey's Pain Imaging Neuroscience group investigating the influence of hormones on pain processing in humans and continued my post-doctoral work as an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer and then as the Senior Pain Fellow in the department. I was appointed as the Senior Fellow in Pain in Women in 2019.

Additional current roles include: President of the RCOG Blair Bell Research Committee; Immediate Past Chair of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) SIG on Abdominal and Pelvic Pain; and Medical Advisory Panel member for Endometriosis UK.

RESEARCH

Chronic pain is common. In the UK  alone approximately 7.8 million people live with chronic pain and, at any time, over a third of households contain someone in pain. Women suffer with almost all chronic pain conditions to a much greater extent than men. Additionally, they also suffer from female-specific pains; particularly in their pelvis, including period pain (dysmenorrhoea) and the pains associated with diseases such as endometriosis. I lead the Pain in Women group, where we use a variety of methodologies to explore mechanisms generating and maintaining pain in women. A key focus of the group, in collaboration with the EndoCaRe Centre in Oxford, is mechanisms of endometriosis-associated pain. I was the academic lead of the IMI-2 funded TRiPP project investigating pain pathways in endometriosis and bladder pain syndrome (https://www.imi-paincare.eu/) and currently lead the APDP RoADPain project understanding the role of adolescent period pain in the development of chronic pain (https://www.wrh.ox.ac.uk/research/roadpain). I also co-lead the "Gynaecology and other pelvic problems" theme of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Reproductive Health: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/health/health-policy-ucl/policy-research-unit-reproductive-health 

Current research funding

UKRI; NIHR; NIH; 

Clinical Work

My predominant clinical interest is chronic pelvic pain particularly in association with endometriosis and in teenagers/younger women. I am privileged to work with an excellent multi-disciplinary team delivering NHS   pelvic pain clinics in The Women's Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital. I also feel passionate about the importance of optimising quality of life and reproductive health during adolescence and support the NHS adolescent gynaecology clinic.

For enquiries relating to my clinical work please contact my NHS secretary on: Gynae.Secretaries@ouh.nhs.uk