As executive officer for the six local Healthwatch organisations in South West London, Alyssa facilitates joint working among these independent organisations and with South West London ICS.
Alyssa holds a Master of Public Health degree and has worked in a wide variety of public health roles in the UK, US and Bolivia over the course of her 15 year career. An epidemiologist and researcher by training, Alyssa combines quantitative data with the insights provided by service users and carers to inform an evidence-based approach to health and care decision-making.
Since moving to the UK in 2018, Alyssa has worked in roles that facilitate consensus-building among diverse stakeholders. Most recently, she worked at the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD), a London-based secretariat organisation that brings together twelve health research funding agencies from around the world. Her role at the GACD was to deliver joint funding calls for global health research projects as well as to facilitate collaboration among researchers across funded projects. As part of this work, Alyssa produced new and promoted existing best practice guidance on working with patients and communities to design and deliver public health research projects.
Before working at the GACD, she worked at The George Institute for Global Health, University of Oxford (now based at Imperial University), where she forged interdisciplinary partnerships, conducted academic research, wrote policy briefs, and led research-into-practice workshops as part of their Global Women’s Health Programme.
Until 2022, she was also a member of the Board of Trustees at Healthwatch Oxfordshire.