Medicine Dean announces staff promotions

Dear All,

I am delighted to announce that many of our staff were successful in their applications for promotion in the 23/24 cycle. I am sure you will join me in congratulating them on their success. Promotion often, and rightly, focuses on individual achievements in research or scholarship, but as these staff members will tell you, their success could not be achieved without the support of their colleagues across the school in academia and professional services, and their families.

So, my thanks to all these people, and my congratulations to our successful academic colleagues.

Prof Rory McCrimmon, 

Dean School of Medicine

Dr. Sourav Banerjee promoted to Senior Lecturer

Dr. Banerjee is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow with a research focus on basic and translational neuro-oncology. Sourav has established CNS Live, Tayside's patient-consented brain tumour collection programme in collaboration with NHS Tayside Neurosurgery. He is also a core member of the Scottish Brain Tumour Network. Besides research, he is part of the Wellcome Research Culture £1M fund steering group and a core member of the Medicine/Life-Sciences Commercialisation Committee. Sourav also contributes to teaching in BBSE and BMSC modules and was awarded the Most Innovative and Inspirational Teaching award by DUSA in 2024.

Dr. Samira Bell promoted to Reader

Dr. Bell’s research focuses on using routinely collected healthcare data to improve care and outcomes for people with kidney disease. She is chair of the Scottish Renal Registry at Public Health Scotland, co-chair of the UK Renal Health Data Network, and NHS Scotland Renal Research Network lead. Samira is a strong advocate for improving clinical academic career pathways and has recently been appointed as associate postgraduate dean for academic training at NHS Education for Scotland.

Dr. Jonathan Berg promoted to Reader

Jonathan represents the United Kingdom on the European Union of Medical Specialists section of Medical Genetics and chairs the exam committee for the European exam in clinical genetics. He is currently the lead clinician for the Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine and advises the Scottish Government. Jonathan says his next challenge will be helping to develop an understanding of the new ultra-precise therapies for rare and inherited diseases, both for teaching in medicine and policy development.

Dr. Christian Cole promoted to Reader

Dr. Cole is now a Reader in health informatics and is also the Academic Co-Director of the Health Informatics Centre (HIC), a regional safe-haven for access to NHS Scotland research data. Chris is the MSc module co-lead on Fundamentals of Applied Health Data Science. Over the last 18 months, he has been Director of the Alleviate Pain Data Hub, a consortium member of the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP), a national Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) hub for UK pain data. Chris has led DARE UK driver projects (TREEHOOSE and SATRE) on making Trusted Research Environments (TREs, also referred to as Secure Data Environments) more transparent and standardised across the UK. These projects are being implemented across Scotland, the UK, and Europe. He has research interests in the safe application of AI/ML methods to patient data through the EU-funded HT-Advance and DARE-funded SACRO projects.

Dr. Laureano de la Vega promoted to Reader

In addition to his high-profile research work in the stress responses and cancer field, and his significant involvement in teaching, Dr. de la Vega has been key in developing the new Science and Health Communication MSc programme, which he also leads. Dr. de la Vega is also the open research lead and the public engagement co-lead for the School of Medicine.

Dr. Evie Fioratou promoted to Senior Lecturer

Dr. Fioratou leads human factors MBChB teaching and co-leads the BMSc Healthcare Improvement. She supervises undergraduate and postgraduate human factors projects in collaboration with clinicians, which have an impact locally at NHS Tayside, have been published, and/or have been presented at national and international conferences. Evie is the school lead for Athena Swan, school academic staff representative, reviewer in the Professionalism & Ethics committees, and mediator with the university's EDR team. She is also an external examiner for the SSC programme at Birmingham Medical School and for Public Health/Health Informatics TPG & BSc modules at Teesside University. Evie is grateful for this promotion and for everyone who supported her, and she would like to offer her support for others' progression within our school.

Dr. Shalini Gupta promoted to Senior Lecturer

Dr. Gupta holds several academic roles within the School of Medicine: pharmacology theme lead for the MBChB programme, academic lead for transfer students, medical education lecturer for the intercalated BMSc programme, and the distance learning PG Certificate Course run by the CME. Her NES-funded educational research in work-based learning informs policy and practice locally and in the wider medical education community. She actively advances the school and university EDI strategy, as co-chair of the SoM Race Working Group and co-lead of the communications subgroup for the University BME Network. She is an external examiner for Birmingham Medical School (Year 5 MBChB) and the University of Kurdistan Hawler, Iraq (Year 2 MBBS).

Dr. Chris Henstridge promoted to Senior lecturer

Dr. Henstridge is a neuroscientist focused on understanding the common brain changes across different dementias. He is an Alzheimer's Society Dementia Research Leaders Fellow and a recent Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard awardee. His team uses state-of-the-art imaging and proteomics techniques to uncover changes in the connection points between brain cells, called synapses. Chris hopes this work will help develop new drugs to slow or even stop the development of brain diseases

Dr. Ellie Hothersall promoted to Professor

Ellie is Head of Undergraduate Medicine and an Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine. She has played a leading role in developing the new medical curriculum for MBChB students, as well as a national role in assessment, and is co-chair of the Public Health Educators in Medical Schools Network. Ellie also leads the medical school’s twinning with Dnipro State Medical University in Ukraine. She made significant local contributions to public health during the pandemic, including a nine-month full-time public health secondment. Ellie vowed that if she ever became a professor, she would double-barrel her name, so she would be changing her signature to Professor Ellie Hothersall-Davies!

Dr. Li Kang promoted to Reader

In addition to her roles as the Deputy Head of Cellular and Systems Medicine and School Lead for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, the Kang research group studies glucose and lipid metabolism in obesity and diabetes, primarily focusing on fibrosis and extracellular matrix remodelling in insulin resistance. Dr. L Kang's research is actively funded by Diabetes UK, the British Heart Foundation, Tenovus, and the Medical Research Council.

Dr. Kevin McConville promoted to Reader

Dr. McConville graduated from the University of Dundee in 1998 and returned as an academic staff member in 2011. He has made significant contributions to medical education through various teaching and leadership roles, most recently as head of undergraduate general practice. As our current associate dean for learning & teaching, he is dedicated to upholding the university’s core values and advancing the school’s strategic vision, particularly in teaching, learning, scholarly activities, and enhancing student experience.

Ms. Angela Millar promoted to Senior Lecturer

Angela joined the university in August 2020 as a Lecturer in undergraduate healthcare improvement. Angela is part of the ScotGEM programme and Agents of Change team and works in collaboration with the Dundee Healthcare Improvement team. Angela is passionate about student learning and, in partnership with ScotGEM members, supports students and clinical teams as they undertake Agent of Change activities in Years 3 and 4, aiming for graduates to have the competence and confidence to influence change and shape future healthcare. Angela is also analysing her research data about the impact of student-led improvement projects on patients and staff during the Year 3 LIC and supports students to present and publish the results of their quality improvement projects. Going forward, her interests lie in exploring how students become leaders of change.

Dr. Adrian Saurin promoted to Professor

Dr. Saurin joined the university in 2013. His lab is funded by Cancer Research UK and The Wellcome Trust to study how signalling networks control cell division and how these can be targeted by anti-cancer drugs. In response to his recent promotion, he said, “I’m delighted at this wonderful news, and I would particularly like to thank all the members of my lab, past and present, who deserve huge credit for all their hard work and success that has ultimately led to this recognition.”

Dr. Lloyd Thompson promoted to Senior Lecturer

Dr. Thompson has been involved with the GP Undergraduate Education Team since 2018 and since 2020 with the ScotGEM Graduate Entry Medicine programme, where he is currently lead for Years 3 & 4, and deputy programme director. He is also the lead for knowledge assessment in the MBChB course and is a module lead for Gateway to Medicine.