Sally Theobald is a social scientist with a disciplinary background in geography and development studies and a PhD in Gender, Health and Development. She has been at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) since 1999 and became chair of Social Science and International Health in 2016. Sally has over 25 years’ experience of collaborative research focusing on strengthening health systems and equity in different contexts (including in fragility and in informal urban settlements) and on different health challenges (including HIV, TB, sexual and reproductive health and rights, neglected tropical diseases and human resources for health).

She is currently working as UK Research and Innovation/Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Senior Research Fellow in Gender for 60% of her time. This role involves strategic advice and guidance on gender, equity and inclusion across a range of sectors including health, agriculture, education, technology and within different contexts such as humanitarian and conflict contexts.

Sally has undertaken consultancies in gender, equity and health systems strengthening and has experience with a range of donors, organisations and networks. She has held senior leadership positions within LSTM including chairing the research and ethics committees. She has successfully managed complex multi-million, multi-partner, multi-disciplinary consortia fostering research networks based on trust, innovation, high-level quality outputs and multi-directional capacity strengthening. Sally has chaired or participated in meetings on gender and health at the World Health Organisation, World Health Summit and World Health Assembly.

She is a trustee of Habibti Liverpool, a solidarity and fundraising partnership between Liverpool and different hospitals that treat children in Sana’a, Yemen, where LSTM alumni are based.

Sally has over 25 years’ experience of applied global health research, training and partnership on gender, equity and health systems strengthening in Africa and Asia. She has wide ranging experience of designing and implementing research projects in health, equity, gender and intersectionality with recent large grants on urban health, neglected tropical diseases and gender equity and antimicrobial resistance.

Sally works on gender equity and antimicrobial resistance through the GEAR up consortium which seeks to catalyse action on gender and equity within antimicrobial resistance through supporting Fleming Fund country grantees to mainstream gender and equity within routine antimicrobial resistance systems and structures. She worked on the GCRF ARISE hub which focused on promoting health and wellbeing in informal urban settlements in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Sierra Leone.

She works on health systems strengthening, equity, inclusion and severe stigmatising skin diseases and neglected tropical diseases through the National Institute for Health and Care Research-funded REDRESS programme in Liberia – which won the best international collaboration at the Times Higher Education Awards – and the previous Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office-funded Calling Time on Neglected Tropical Diseases consortium. She also works on SHINE, a National Institute for Health and Care Research grant led by LVCT Health in Kenya which focuses on Community Health Workers and mental health in Kenya and Bangladesh. Other research interests include fragility and Sally works on gender, equity and justice in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office funded ReBUILD for Resilience consortium in partnership with colleagues in Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal and Sierra Leone.

Sally is part of a team teaching qualitative and participatory research at LSTM that blends theory and practice to enhance the student experience and develop skilled qualitative research practitioners. Their teaching materials have been showcased on the Global Health Network (Social Science). Sally has successfully supervised 18 PhD students from a variety of contexts, who have conducted research on a range of global health topics (HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases, maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and human resources for health) to advance an equity and health systems analysis. They are all now in leading roles in health systems - research or practice – and making positive impacts on equity. Sally continues to supervise PhD students who are focusing on health systems, equity and intersectional analysis in a variety of areas and contexts.