Peter qualified from Bristol in 1997. He spent his early years in Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Bolton in general practice, hospital dentistry and oral and maxillofacial surgery. In 2000, he started his specialist and academic training in Paediatric Dentistry in Leeds. His PhD was in the field of dental trauma. Following this he spent a six-month sabbatical working at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne before returning to England to take up a joint academic appointment with University of Leeds and Bradford Community Dental Service.

He leads a multi-disciplinary research team which designs and evaluates complex interventions to improve children’s oral health.

Dr Kara Gray-Burrows is a psychologist working as a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the design and evaluation of complex interventions in the School of Dentistry, University of Leeds. Kara graduated from her BSc in Psychology in 2010, her MSc in Psychological Approaches to Health in 2011, and PhD in Psychology in 2015. Kara’s expertise is in behaviour change, and the development and evaluation of complex interventions, with further interests in implementation science and patient and public involvement in research. Currently, Kara is working on several research projects with health professionals, early-years workers, charities and commercial companies to develop and evaluate preventive interventions for parents and children to reduce the level of dental caries in young children.

Lucy Rutter trained and worked as a Dental Nurse at the Leeds Dental institute for 10 year before attending the University of Leeds where she trained as a dually qualified Dental Hygienist and Therapist. Since graduating Lucy has gained experience as a Dental Therapist working in NHS and private dental practice and the community dental service. For the last 6 years Lucy has worked in the maxfax, restorative and orthodontic departments at St Luke’s Hospital where she provides treatment and preventive support to patients with complex oral needs, medical histories and patients undergoing treatment for head and neck cancer. Lucy has a keen interest in public health, health promotion, health communication and behaviour change which she has studied at postgraduate level. Lucy also works within the paediatric dental department at the University of Leeds as a Research Assistant. Currently Lucy is working on projects surrounding effective methods of communication and psychological theory for behaviour change conversations and oral health interventions to reduce inequalities in oral disease in young children.

Erin Giles currently works as a Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Dentistry at the University of Leeds. After graduating from Leeds in 2015, she undertook Longitudinal Dental Foundation Training in West Yorkshire in a mixed post of general dental practice, maxillofacial surgery, orthodontic and paediatric dentistry. Keen to pursue further paediatric experience, Erin started a Dental Core Training post in the specialty within the North Yorkshire Community Dental Service, remaining for a further year as a Community Dental Officer. Subsequently returning to the University of Leeds as a dental researcher, she will be starting her paediatric specialist training in an Academic Clinical Fellowship post in September.

Dr Amrit Bhatti is a psychologist working as a Research Assistant within the School of Dentistry, University of Leeds. Amrit’s research focus is primarily qualitative but currently works on a number of mixed methods research projects. Amrit also has an interest in behaviour change interventions. She has experience working as an Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) tutor for young children with autism within mainstream schools, Special Educational Needs (SEN), and home settings. From this, she is keen to explore interventions which support children with autism within the dental and home setting. Currently, Amrit is working on projects surrounding health behaviour change interventions with health professionals, early-years workers and charities within the school of dentistry and is also supervising some MSc projects.