Executive committee
Centre director
Professor Gary Macfarlane
Chair in Epidemiology / Director, MRC/Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work (CMHW)
University of Aberdeen
Honorary Consultant (Public Health)
NHS Grampian
Professor Macfarlane has been Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Aberdeen since 2005, having previously held the same post at the University of Manchester. He trained in Statistics/Computing Science and Medicine at the University of Glasgow, and completed his PhD at the University of Bristol. He has led a programme of musculoskeletal and pain research spanning epidemiology, clinical trials, disease registers, and health services research, and is Deputy Clinical Lead for Pain at NHS Research Scotland. He is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.
Deputy centre director /
Research area lead 4: Preventing ill-health at work
Professor Rosalind Searle
Chair in Human Resource Management and Organisational Psychology, Adam Smith Business School
University of Glasgow
Rosalind Searle is Professor of human resource management and organisational psychology at the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on organisational trust, HRM processes, and the psychology of employee behaviour and wellbeing. She is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Royal Society of Arts, and the CIPD. She directs the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology’s Impact Incubator, and is a member of Project GLOW, a 26-country initiative on living wages and decent work. Her work has appeared in leading journals and she has co-edited major volumes on trust in organisations.
Research area lead 1: The changing nature of work
Professor Gerard McCartney
Chair in Wellbeing Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences
University of Glasgow
Professor McCartney graduated in medicine from the University of Glasgow and holds an honours degree in Economics and Development from the University of London. He undertook public health training across NHS Argyll and Clyde and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and produced the first synthesis of the causes of excess mortality in Scotland and Glasgow. He served as Head of the Scottish Public Health Observatory from 2010, before taking up his current professorial post in September 2021.
Research area lead 2: Healthy working lives throughout the lifecourse
Dr Belinda Steffan
Chancellor’s Fellow
University of Edinburgh
Dr Steffan’s research and teaching focuses on workplace health and well-being. She is specifically interested in how psychological and sociological factors reciprocally affect the labour force participation of women. Her research considers how the interplay of micro (psychology of individual differences), meso (organisational workplace supports) and macro (societal/policy) factors contribute to the ‘messiness’ of the lived experience of individual health and well-being at work, hence her specialism in qualitative research methodologies. She has contributed to macro-level policy on menopause in the workplace and is an advocate for women’s health and well-being at work.
Research area lead 3: Support for workers with long-term conditions
Dr Rosemary Hollick
Senior Lecturer in Rheumatology
University of Aberdeen
Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist
NHS Grampian
Dr Hollick leads an innovative programme of applied mixed-methods health services research focused on improving care for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal conditions, with a particular emphasis on rural communities and geographical inequalities. Her interdisciplinary work combines routine health data, epidemiology, and qualitative methods, with patient and public involvement at its core. She and her patient partners won the Health Services Research UK 2022 Innovation Award for their approach to patient involvement.