Dr Michelle Morris

Profile

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, based in the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) and Leeds Institute of Medical Research (LIMR).  I’m an interdisciplinary researcher with a background spanning: health informatics, geography, nutritional epidemiology and health economics. My primary research interests are in spatial and social variations in diet, lifestyle and health and how new and emerging forms of data and data science methods can be best utilised to understand these. I am a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute at the British Library in London and the Academic Chair for the LIDA Data Science Development Programme.

Graduating with a neuroscience degree in 2002, I began a career in health informatics, working in a graduate position at EMIS health, one of the UK's leading healthcare clinical system providers, where I gained international project management experience. I returned to study for a MSc, equipping me in statistics and epidemiology training (2009) and completed an interdisciplinary PhD investigating 'Spatial analysis of dietary cost patterns and implications for health' (2013), followed by postdoctoral positions in both nutritional epidemiology and consumer data research. 

Currently, I lead the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics team at Leeds, focused on the use of new forms of 'big' and spatial data in health research, working closely with industry partners on food and activity data. I lead a programme of activity funded by the Institute of Grocery Distribution to promote healthy and sustainable diets and is a co-investigator at the ESRC funded Consumer Data Research Centre in Leeds. I am the academic lead on the Priority Places for Food Index used in the Which? Affordable Food For All campaign.

Responsibilities

• Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics (NALA) team lead

Research interests

My primary research interests are in spatial and social variations in diet, lifestyle and health and how new and emerging forms of data can be best utilised to understand these. I lead a team focused on the use of new forms of 'big' and spatial data in health research, working closely with industry partners on food and activity data.

Qualifications

• PhD Spatial analysis of dietary cost patterns and implications for health
• MSc Nutrition Obesity and Health
• BSc Neuroscience

Professional memberships

• Society for Social Medicine
• Association for Study of Obesity

Student education

I deliver one day short courses for the Consumer Data Research Centre at the University of Leeds.

I provide guest lectures:

• The role of new forms of data in obesity research. MSc Physical Activity and Health. Leeds Beckett University
• Nutrition for Endurance Case Studies. MSc Sports Medicine. University of Nottingham

PhD student supervision

Emma Wilkins – Using spatial data to understand obesogenic retail food environments: evaluating measurement methodologies – Completed Jan 2019

Amanda Otley – Generating a Leeds specific open geodemographic classification

Rachel Oldroyd – Spatial analysis of food safety

Victoria Jenneson – Evaluating supermarket loyalty card transactions as a measure of diet

Francesca Pontin – Identifying the activity and habits of individuals in a large geospatial dataset

Charlotte Sturley – Spatial and social variations in colorectal cancer

John Stuart – Novel data and methods to detect driver drowsiness

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's
• Pathology and Data Analytics

Current postgraduate researchers

• Charlotte Sturley