Project Leadership

Professor Richard Feltbower

Richard has been the co-Principal Investigator for PICANet since January 2018, taking over from Roger Parslow. He is also a Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology at the University of Leeds.

Richard trained in Mathematics and Medical Statistics at the University of Nottingham and University of Leicester between 1993-1997. He joined the University of Leeds in 1998 working as a Research Statistician on the Yorkshire Specialist Register of Cancer in Children and Young People (YSRCCYP) and he is now the Director of the Yorkshire Register.

Richard has a successful track record leading child health outcomes research among children and young people with chronic disease. He is also Deputy Director of the Child Health Outcomes Research at Leeds programme (CHORAL) and has a particular research interest in using data linkage methods to improve child health outcomes.

Associate Professor Sarah Seaton

Sarah has been the co-Principal Investigator for PICANet since December 2023, taking over from Elizabeth Draper. She is also a Lecturer in Perinatal and Paediatric Research at the University of Leicester.

Her first degree was in mathematics from the University of Wales before she studied Medical Statistics. She subsequently also trained a little in qualitative methods as well. She has worked on various research projects before coming to PICANet and much (although not all) of her work has focussed on babies and children who were born prematurely.

Sarah continues to maintain her own research projects exploring how the healthcare service can best support this group of children and their families. These children often have lifelong needs and for some this may mean an admission to paediatric critical care. Sarah also supports research in other areas including: transport; brain injury and loss in pregnancy. Outside of PICANet she supervises several PhD students and Masters students and teach on master’s degrees at Leicester.

For more information about the PICANet team and how to get in touch please visit the Contacts Us page