Rachel was appointed as Director Designate of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre on 1 August 2024 and will succeed Professor John Geddes (who has led the BRC since 2017) towards the end of 2024.
Rachel was previously Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health at the University of Birmingham, and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Birmingham Early Intervention Services. Her research programme focuses on developing new treatments for psychosis using inflammatory biomarkers and machine learning to identify novel targets. Rachel is also very committed to Patient and Public Involvement Engagement and Participation (PPIEP) and has been involved in set up of youth PPIEP groups in Birmingham.
Rachel has been the chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH TRC) since May 2023 which manages the delivery of phase 1 of the NIHR and Office for Life Science (OLS) Mental Health Mission (MHM) as one of the components of its strategic remit. The OH BRC hosts both the MH TRC and the MHM.