With a background spanning social enterprise, charity work, public involvement in policy around suicide prevention, and as a long-time carer for adults with physical and mental illness, Mary brings a breadth of real-world insight to her role as a public contributor at ARC OxTV. Most recently she qualified as a Breathworks practitioner and previously ran an upcycling social enterprise, for five years, collaborating with a range of charities on creative, community-focused initiatives.

Through these experiences she has had the opportunity to engage with professionals across health and social care, the NHS, and the voluntary sector. These collaborations highlighted the challenges of translating complex human experiences into structured research models and led to her interest in developing more inclusive, impactful research approaches.

Her journey into public involvement began after attending a patient experience day in 2016 led by the late Rosamund Snow. Rosamund’s work underscored the importance of patient perspectives in medical education and research. Inspired, Mary became committed to public involvement that values diverse lived experience—not only to shape research design, but to enrich how we define evidence, inclusion and care.

At ARC OxTV, she serves as Chair of the Public Contributor Group and as one of two Public Contributor Champions for the Improving Health and Social Care theme and Mental Health Across the Life Course themes. She supports the PPI Administrator, reviews project materials and mentors others stepping into public contributor roles. She was also the first public contributor at ARC OxTV to co-lead a small-scale research project. This looked at the impact of a community based activity on health and wellbeing using innovative cards that track mood as a benchmark.

Research Interests:

Co-production and inclusive research methods
Innovative and accessible data collection
Research into sustainable clinical practice that empowers individuals to self-manage and self-understand
Building stronger connections between researchers and the public

Goals:

Support and mentor both public contributors and researchers
Broaden the diversity of public voices within research
Break down siloes between research, academia, and frontline care
Champion co-produced research focused on prevention, understanding and self-management
Help bridge the gap between great research and real-world implementation

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)

PPI team