Who we are
Dr Lynne Adair (Forrest)
Lynne works as Head of the Research Support Service on the Scottish Longitudinal Study. She has a background in working with linked administrative data for research. She previously worked at Research Data Scotland as Data Curation Manager, where she developed...
Joseph Barbour
Technical Data Officer and Database Developer for the SLS, University of Edinburgh.
With a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (BFA) and a background of technical support roles, Joseph has a knack for problem-solving; building creative solutions to a variety of technical problems. He’s a self-taught programmer, focusing User-centred and iterative design. Prior to...
Greg Blackadder
NRS/SLS Project Manager
Greg joined the team as SLS Project Manager in September 2018 and represents the data custodian, The National Records of Scotland in the project team.
Prof Peter Christen
Digitising Scotland, Researcher in Computer Science
Peter Christen is an Associate Professor at the Research School of Computer Science at the Australian National University. Before moving to Australia, he received his Diploma in Computer Science Engineering from ETH Zurich in 1995 and his PhD in Computer Science from the University...
Dr Tom Clemens
SLS Director of Impact & Engagement
Tom is based in Edinburgh and has been part of the Demographic, Socio-Economic and Environmental Data Linkage arm of the Scottish Health Informatics Programme (SHIP) since March 2011. He graduated with a first class BA degree in Human Geography from...
Dr Helen Corby
Research Methodology Support Officer, The University of Edinburgh
Helen works on the Scottish Longitudinal Study as a Methodology Research Support Officer. Their background is in psychology, public health and quantitative analysis, but their main research interests are in the application of administrative data for psychology and health research. ...
Prof Alan Dearle
Digitising Scotland, Researcher in Computer Science
Alan Dearle, BSc, PhD is Dean of the Faculty of Science. He is an experimental Computer Scientist whose primary research interests are in the confluence of programming languages, databases, middleware, distributed systems and operating systems. He is a double graduate...
Prof Chris Dibben
LSCS Director
SLS Co-Director
CALLS Hub, Principal Investigator
Digitising Scotland, Principal Investigator
Chris is Director of the Longitudinal Studies Centre Scotland. He is also Principal-Investigator on the CALLS Hub and Director of the Administrative Data Liaison Service. Chris has worked on, amongst other subjects, epidemiological studies into recovery after heart attacks, the...
Angela Fallon
LSCS Administrative Assistant, Univ of Edinburgh
Angela Fallon joined the LSCS Team in April 2016 as Administrative Assistant. Angela was previously employed by the University of Edinburgh working on Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage. She has over 13 years experience working for the University of Edinburgh...
Elaine Farrow
Senior Research Programmer, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Elaine is based in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her recent work for Digitising Scotland has involved automated text classification of administrative data. This process uses machine learning methods to map occupation and cause-of-death records to...
Dr Zhiqiang Feng
Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Human Geography & Geographical Information Science
Dr Zhiqiang Feng’s research interests cover population geography, health geography, health inequalities, GIS, spatial analysis, longitudinal models, multilevel models, migration, commuting, and fuzzy classification. Publications Flowerdew, R, Feng, Z and Manley, D (2006) Constructing data zones for Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics. Computers,...
Sandrine Flower
SLS Administrative Assistant, University of Edinburgh
Sandrine Flower is an Administrative Assistant on the Scottish Longitudinal Study. She has been working in the university sector for over 8 years. She has a background in research support and project coordination. She previously worked in Research Excellence Framework...
Dr Eilidh Garrett
Digitising Scotland, Researcher in Historical Demography
Eilidh graduated from St Andrews University before obtaining her doctorate at the University of Sheffield. She has had a long association with the Cambridge Group for the History of Social Structure, working on the historical demography of the British Isles...
Dr Graham Kirby
Digitising Scotland, Computer Science Lead
Graham Kirby is a computer scientist based in St Andrews, with research interests in distributed systems, programming languages, autonomic management, distributed storage and peer-to-peer systems. He is now involved in the Digitising Scotland project, with particular interests in record linkage and automatic classification...
Darren Lightfoot
ADLS Manager
Darren joined the University of St Andrews in 2006 as the Project Officer for a national social housing project. In 2009 he set up and now manages the ESRC Administrative Data Liaison Service, which supports the research use of administrative...
Joan Nolan
SLS Database Manager & Systems Developer
Joan is a database manager and systems developer for the SLS team at GROS and her responsibilities include the initial setting up and ongoing maintenance requirements for the SLS database. She also provides support to users. Joan’s background is in...
Blessious Phiri
SLS Technical Data Officer/ Database Developer, University of Edinburgh
As a programmer and developer, Blessious’ role focuses on developing and maintaining the infrastructure and datasets held within the LSCS. In addition, Blessious provides data support to SLS researchers. Prior to Joining the Longitudinal Studies Centre Scotland (LSCS), Blessious was...
Prof Gillian Raab
SLS Statistician
SYLLS Researcher
Gillian Raab is an applied statistician whose fields of application are chiefly in medical and social statistics. Her methodological interests include survey research, methods for dealing with missing data and various aspects of the design and analysis of clinical trials....
Dr Alice Reid
Digitising Scotland, Researcher in Historical Demography
Alice is a Lecturer at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Geography Department, University of Cambridge. She is a historical demographer and has specialised in investigating the influences on infant and maternal health in the...
Cassia Smith
Technical Data Officer and Database Developer for the SLS, University of Edinburgh.
Cassia Smith comes to the SLS after working with data in academic settings for over 10 years. In addition to her previous work as data engineer for the biomarker wing of a longitudinal study in the US, Cassia has experience...
Richard Tobin
Research Fellow, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Richard is a research fellow in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. His work on the Digitising Scotland project concerns using natural language processing and machine learning techniques for the automatic coding of occupations and causes of...
Dr Lee Williamson
LSCS/SLS Co-Director
Digitising Scotland, Project Manager
Lee works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Longitudinal Studies Centre – Scotland, part of the Research Institute of Geography and The Lived Environment in School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. Lee obtained a PhD on “Population...
