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Last updated 17th April 2024

Nicola is Reader in Medicines and Health at the University of Huddersfield. Registered as a pharmacist in 1991, she has worked in hospital, community and academic pharmacy. She received a Pharmaceutical Care Award for 1999 in the team who created the first no-charge pharmacy-based emergency contraception service in England, and a prestigious Harkness Fellowship in International Health Care Policy in the USA in 2001/2 studying adolescents’ use of the Internet for health and medicines information. In 2003 she started her academic career at the University of Nottingham, where she gained her PGCHE and FHEA, and continued at the University of Central Lancashire before starting her own consultancy company doing research and evaluation for clients including Health Education England (reviews about pre-registration pharmacist placements in general practice, and mental health pharmacy practice training) and the charity Young Minds (designing the ‘Headmeds’ website where young people can find information about commonly-used mental health medicines). She returned to academic practice at the University of Huddersfield in 2021.

She was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2018 for distinction in the profession of pharmacy, and Fellowship of the US Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine in 2010 for national leadership and research. She is a Trustee of the UK Association for Young People’s Health (AYPH) and Vice-President for Europe of the International Association for Adolescent Health (IAAH). Nicola is also a former Governing Council Member of the global coalition NCD Child, and chaired their Task Force on Essential Medicines and Equipment from 2018-2022. She provides a specific child and youth perspective for a lifecourse approach to the prevention and management of long-term conditions.

She is the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair ‘Global Health and Education, and an affiliated researcher in the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health and Education, both based at the Université Clermont Auvergne in France, and has published a number of papers and opinion pieces regarding the safe reopening of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the challenges for children and young people living with a long-term condition. Her ongoing work explores the use of medicines in schools, and the ingredients for a healthy school environment.

She is also a Governing Board member of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) and a contributor to various UN agency reports about the interface between health and education.