Kate graduated from Newcastle University with a First Class BA (Hons) in Geography and from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with an MSc (Hons) in Environmental Epidemiology and Policy. Before joining the University of York in 2011, Kate worked for a health and social care research consultancy as a qualitative researcher.  Since then, Kate has worked on a qualitative study, which investigated the effectiveness of the Being Open Framework policy at supporting the open disclosure of medical error.  She has also worked as trial coordinator and subsequently trial manager of the CASPER study (two HTA funded randomised controlled trials), which tested the effectiveness of a collaborative care intervention on older adults with depression. Kate is a member of the University of York Contract Research Forum and an Early Career Researcher (ECR) Subcommittee member of the Society for Social Medicine (SSM) (Member of the Early Career Researcher Subcomittee of the Society for Social Medicine (SSM). 

Sam graduated from York St. John University in 2014 with an MSc (hons) in Psychology. She has previously worked in a variety of clinical mental health settings ranging from forensic, child and adolescent to older people’s services. Sam spent eighteen months as study support officer in the Mental Health and Addiction Research Group, University of York before commencing her full-time doctoral studies in January 2015 when she started on a studentship jointly funded by the Department of Health Sciences and HYMS as part of the NIHR CLAHRC Yorkshire and Humber Mental Health and Comorbidity theme.