Dame Judith Hackitt was appointed as Chair of ONR in January 2024 for an interim period during which a recruitment campaign will be conducted to select ONR’s next permanent Chair. An engineer by profession, she holds a degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College, London.

Formerly Chair of the Health and Safety Executive, Make (UK) Limited and Enginuity (an engineering and manufacturing skills body), Dame Judith is currently a Director of Ingeniators Limited, an advisor on Building Safety matters for the UK Government and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Royal Academy of Engineering. She also served as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of HS2 until the end of January 2024, becoming the Independent Chair of HS2’s Health, Safety and Security Committee on 1 February 2024.

Dame Judith spent more than 20 years in the private sector working in an industrial environment with extensive international experience. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010, and is also a Fellow and former President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a Fellow of the City and Guilds Institute.

She was awarded a CBE in 2006 for services to Health and Safety, followed by a DBE in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to health and safety and engineering.

George joined the Health Service in 1993 as a Hospital Engineer in Down Lisburn Trust.  Prior to this appointment he worked in Industry in cable manufacturing and foundry works.   In 2002 he moved to the Royal Group of Hospitals, Belfast, to take up post as a Senior Engineer, then in 2007 George took up post as Head of Estates Risk and Environment in the new Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, which is one of the largest Trusts in the UK. He holds a 1st Class Honours Degree in Construction Engineering & Management, is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Building and an associate member of IHEEM.

Currently George leads a Risk Team that has and continues to provide an innovative approach to the management of risk with an Estates Healthcare Environment.

George has been actively involved as a British Standards Institution Committee member, latterly on BS 8680:2020 Water Quality. Water Safety Plans. Code of practice and was involved also in the update of HTM 04-01 and in the creation of various technical guidance for the management of water hygiene within healthcare premises. Recently he has been leading the creation of design guides to help support contractors and improve the performance of new build healthcare estate.

He also leads the Estates Environmental Team, which has been at the fore front of developing new and innovative technologies which promote sustainability in healthcare and also contribute to reducing healthcare inequalities to the population of Northern Ireland.

Dr Manjula Meda is a consultant in Clinical Microbiology and the Infection Control doctor for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust a 18800 bed hospital in Surrey.

She completed her Microbiology Specialist registrar training from St. George's Hospital London rotation in 2009, following a number of years in training in Paediatrics in both the UK and in India. Since 2009 Manjula has worked in a Consultant role in microbiology and Infection prevention.

Manjula has been involved with HIS activities since 2015 serving initially as a member in its council and as its Secretary since 2021. She has represented HIS in various committees and national programmes. She is also involved actively in research in IPC and works as a research collaborator in projects with regional University and the UKHSA and as well in supporting clinical research within Frimley Health.

She has managed many large IPC incidents and outbreaks and published widely in this field. She has a special interest in infection prevention and control in the built environment and has experience in managing major incidents especially around water safety in healthcare.

Alpa has a broad professional background encompassing manufacturing, financial services, media and quality improvement.

She is passionate about using her skills in healthcare to help shape and change people’s lives at their most vulnerable moments. She is motivated by creating change through process re-design.

In her role in the New Hospitals Programme, Alpa works across directorates ensuring alignment through integration, challenging and translating transformational standards and policies into design briefs, engaging schemes and advising on design choices to build better hospitals

Nigel Keery is Head of Estates Operations at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, bringing over 30 years of experience in Healthcare Estates Management.

He began his career as an apprentice at Harland and Wolff Ship Builders and Engineers before moving into the Health Service at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. A Chartered and European Engineer, Nigel holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Building Services from Ulster University and multiple HNCs in Engineering disciplines.

He has co-authored Healthcare guidance documents, founded the Northern Ireland Estates Graduate Scheme, and played a key role in re-establishing the IHEEM Ireland branch.

Nigel is a Fellow of IHEEM and its current President. In 2022, he was awarded an OBE for Services to Public Health.

Passionate about engineering. Nigel finds fulfilment in his work and lives by the engineering principles of innovation, excellence.

Dr Surman-Lee is a Consultant Clinical Scientist Registered with the UK Health Professions Council with over 40y experience in clinical and public health microbiology and practical experience of auditing and investigating over 60 healthcare and non-healthcare premises following incidents, cases and/or outbreaks of water systems and associated equipment nationally and internationally, including from Legionella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, NTM. 

She has also worked as a temporary advisor on water hygiene in healthcare for WHO in the Middle East and was a Member of the WHO working and editorial groups which published Legionella and the prevention of legionellosis (2007) and Water Safety in Buildings (2011).

Susanne has also for over 20 years had input into national and international standards and guidance on water hygiene including for the Health and Safety Executive and Department of Health as well as chairing committees developing key British Standards Institute Water Hygiene Standards which are supporting the UK to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6), Clean water and sanitation. Susanne was also the lead technical author of the new NHS Estates NETB 2024/3 Designing safe spaces for patients at high risk of infection from nontuberculous mycobacteria and other waterborne pathogens

Trupti Patel has been a Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology for nine years and has been based at University College London Hospital for the past five years. She is also a Consultant Microbiologist at UKHSA, mainly supporting the Infection Control team.

In her NHS role, she is infection control doctor for UCLH as well for numerous community sites for the North London Foundation Trust and Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

Her main interest is the role of the built environment, in particular water, in healthcare associated infections and methods of prevention.  

Jessica Martin is a Clinical Microbiologist and Medial Lead for IPC and AMR at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. Her research background includes whole-genome sequencing, C difficile infection and CPE epidemiology.

Her clinical interests include infection in immuno-suppressed patients, bone & joint infection and environmental infection prevention and control. She is currently working on a project with colleagues to further the understanding of the impact of conflict on the spread of anti-microbial resistance.

Kevin served an indentured apprenticeship and attained an Advanced Craft certificate in plumbing and heating. He joined the Institute of Plumbing in 1985 in the same year that he completed his Higher National Certificate in Building Studies. In 1993 he successfully completed a Diploma in Management and in 2016 was awarded Fellowship of the City & Guilds London Institute.

In 2011 he became Chief Executive Officer of the CIPHE and was also elected to the Executive Board of the World Plumbing Council.  At the World Plumbing Conference in Shanghai he was elected as Deputy Chairman of WPC and successfully negotiated that the next World Plumbing Conference will be held in the UK in June 2026 alongside the InstallerSHOW.

Government has recently announced that CIPHE can develop a new Domestic Plumber Level 2 and 3 Apprenticeship. Kevin is Deputy Chairman of the Plumbers Education Committee and a founder Director of WaterSafe. 

Dr Jimmy Walker is a water microbiology expert with over 30 years experience and currently works for Walker on Water. He previously worked for Public Health England where he worked on biofilms, Legionella spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacteria spp.  He also worked with the Department of Health (DH England) and the Health and Safety Executive in writing guidance on water microbiology in healthcare.

More recently Jimmy contributed to the new NHS Guidance on non-nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and other waterborne pathogens for high-risk patients. Jimmy is the former Chair of the Central Sterilising Club and has recently published a practical guide “Safe Water in Healthcare” to enable healthcare workers to understand waterborne hazards and to manage them effectively.

Sara Mumford is Director of Infection Prevention and Control, Chief Medical Officer and Consultant Microbiologist at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW).

She has over 30 years experience in Infection Prevention and Control and is the SRO for IPC for Kent and Medway ICB. 

Sara is a Senior Fellow of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management.

Vicky initially graduated from Cardiff University with a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology, with subsequent laboratory experience in the NHS and private sector, before completing her nurse training at the University of Surrey.

Since qualifying as a RGN, she has acquired a wide range of nursing experience in both community and acute healthcare settings. Her interest in Infection Prevention developed whilst working as a Trauma and Orthopaedics nurse, providing care for patients who had acquired multi-drug-resistant surgical site infections.

Vicky has been working as an Infection Prevention Nurse since 2004, and since 2019, has led the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust IPC Team, as Infection Prevention Nurse Consultant. Her areas of interest lie in epidemiology and prevention of healthcare-associated infection, and innovations in the healthcare built environment to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance.

Tim is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance. He is associated with the Department of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London and a core team member within the Fleming Initiative. He is also an Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Between March 2020 and September 2025 Tim was the Research Lead for the Precision Prescribing Theme at the HPRU in HCAI and AMR.

Tim completed his PhD in 2018 working between the departments of Medicine, Bio-engineering, and Chemistry. His research interests surround precision use of antimicrobial agents. His research focuses on biosensor technology, antimicrobial dose optimisation, and machine learning. In 2017, Tim was awarded the British Infection Association (BIA) Barnet Christie Award for Excellence in Original Research. In 2022, he received the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Young Investigator Award recognising his research achievements.

Melissa Rochon is the Trust Lead for SSI Surveillance, Research and Innovation within the Surveillance and Innovation Unit at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She has served on several national committees focused on the prevention of surgical site infections (SSI), surgical wound healing, and the use of digital imaging in wound care.

Her current research projects include leading a central digital wound hub to support surgical site surveillance for the UK’s largest ever surgical trial, Rossini-Platform — a 'Basket Factorial MAMS' platform trial in surgical site infection, funded by the NIHR. She is also a chief investigator for WISDOM, a study aimed at developing and clinically evaluating artificial intelligence to assist clinicians in reviewing and prioritising surgical wound images About WISDOM | WISDOM.

David Eyre is a Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Oxford and a Consultant in Infection at Oxford University Hospitals.

His research uses routinely collected data to understand who gets different infections and why, and how best to prevent, treat and monitor these infections. He also focuses on developing artificial intelligence tools to help diagnose and treat hospital patients, and to help operational delivery of healthcare.

David's other research interests include the use of whole-genome sequencing as a tool for understanding the epidemiology and transmission of pathogens and how it can best be used in infection prevention and control.

Dr. Alexander Sundermann is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, specializing in applying whole genome sequencing (WGS) surveillance to detect and investigate healthcare-associated infections and outbreaks. As a leader in genomic epidemiology, his research demonstrates that current, traditional infection prevention methods frequently undercount and miss outbreaks, and his work with the EDS-HAT project has significantly advanced real-time outbreak detection in healthcare settings.

Dr. Sundermann is board-certified in infection control and a Fellow of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (FAPIC). His research integrates genomic epidemiology and machine learning to enhance healthcare outbreak detection, with a focus on improving patient safety and public health response.

He is heavily involved with multiple professional organizations, including the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), and the Council for Outbreak Response: Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens (CORHA).

Dr. Peter Kinnevey is an Assistant Professor in Microbiology and Infection Prevention and Control with the Dublin Dental University Hospital, Division of Oral Biosciences. Peter has published extensively on population biology, evolution, genomics and antibiotic resistance mechanisms of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VREs) by whole genome sequencing.

Peter's research expertise focuses on the use of whole-genome sequencing to investigate pathogens associated with healthcare-associated infections. These include the molecular epidemiology and population structure of hospital-acquired and community-acquired MRSA, methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) and VRE.

Other interests include the molecular analysis of mobile genetic elements encoding antibiotic resistance and virulence including SCCmec elements in pandemic, epidemic and sporadic MRSA and MSSA and the practical management of Legionella risks in water distribution networks.

Dr Nathaniel Storey is the Senior Bioinformatician for Molecular Microbiology and is involved in the design and deployment of NGS solutions for Microbiology, Virology and Infection Prevention and Control within Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. 

His current research involves the use of new and emerging sequencing technologies to support rapid diagnostics alongside bioinformatic tools for clinical data analysis with a focus on metagenomics, human mastadenoviruses and antimicrobial resistance.