Our Staff

Professor Roxy Senior

Director of Cardiac Research
Roxy Senior is Professor of Clinical Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and Consultant Cardiologist and Director of Echocardiography at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London and Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow.

He graduated and obtained Masters degree in medicine and cardiology from the University of Calcutta, India. Prof Senior migrated to the UK in 1989 when he joined Northwick Park Hospital as a research fellow. He became a Consultant Cardiologist and Director of Cardiac Research at the Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow in 1995. Prof Senior has been Principle Investigator (PI) on over 100 clinical trials, and supervises the Clinical Fellows in their PhDs and MDs.

Clinical Fellows

Dr Lasha Gvinianidze

Lasha joined us in August 2022 as a research fellow. Lasha is a fully trained cardiologist who wants to contribute to cardiology knowledge by carrying out his MD project. He is fully accredited in echocardiography and one of his projects is studying high frame rate ultrasound with the department od biomedical engineering at Imperial college.

Clinical Fellows

Dr Leigh-Ann Wakefield

Leigh-Ann is passionate about research and has joined our team to undertake her PhD before completing her final years of Cardiology training. Together with Prof Senior, Leigh-Ann has developed and is running the SECURE-Trial looking at whether adding carotid ultrasound scanning to stress echo improves the accuracy of diagnosing coronary artery disease, when compared to CT scanning. 

Emma Howard

​Emma is the Cardiac Research Business Manager and an accredited Senior Clinical Research Practitioner. With over 12 years’ research experience working across many specialities, Emma has spent the last 8 years focussing on Cardiology. Emma has a BSc in Psychology and MSc in Public Health and Health Promotion, and most enjoys working together with patients on healthy lifestyle counselling. Emma is a member of the CRP Leadership Forum and is an AHCS CRP Verifier and is keen to support other CRPs in completing their applications and developing the professional identity and recognition of the CRP profession. 

Jo Evans

​Jo is a Senior Cardiac Research Nurse, who recently returned to the team. Jo has a long career in cardiac nursing, starting out at Harefield Hospital before beginning her research career in 2010. Jo has previously managed a community cardiac rehabilitation service, so brings a huge wealth of cardiac knowledge and experience to support her patients. Jo’s great passion is preventing cardiac disease, and she really enjoys working together with patients on health promotion and supporting research studies with this focus.

Kiruba Rajan

Kiruba is a Senior Cardiac Research Nurse and joined our team in July 2022. Kiruba has considerable cardiology and research experience and is leading on several of our research projects, including our Phase II clinical trials.

Reinette Hampson

Reinette is our research and education physiologist lead. Reinette joined the department over 10 years ago and has a BSc in Clinical Physiology. She also hold a BTEC in sports and exercise technology and an MA (hons) in movement science. Reinette is a fellow of the BSE and fully accredited in echocardiography and stress echocardiography. One of her achievements is developing the physiologist led stress echo service at Northwick Park. Reinette manages the cardiac services we offer to other research teams and leads on the education and training delivered by the department.

Minoo Shah

Cardiac Research Office Manager.

Minoo is a friendly, loyal and clearly dedicated individual who has an ambition to succeed in any given environment. She has been working in the Medical Secretarial field for over 35 years and in fact 30 years in her current post.  Although she has extensive experience working in the NHS, she love to learn and is always up for a challenge, whatever the situation.  She gets on well as a team member whilst also working efficiently on her own and gives her best to her employer. Her motto is to be kind and help out as much as possible in any given situation.