Katie Wilde

Biography

I am the Head of Digital Research within the Digital and Information Services at the University of Aberdeen, where I support researchers with their digital needs. I lead three dynamic teams: the High Performance Computing Centre, the Digital Research Specialists, and the Grampian Data Safe Haven (DaSH) Team.

As a key senior member at the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science, I oversee technical operations and drive innovation. I played a pivotal role in establishing the Grampian Safe Haven (DaSH) within Aberdeen NHS Grampian, achieving ISO27001 certification for this essential service. In my capacity as DaSH Director for the Safe Haven, I hold an Honorary Contract with NHS Grampian, underscoring my commitment to advancing health data science.

My journey with the University of Aberdeen began in 2007 when I joined as a Graduate Trainee Analyst. Over the years, I have progressed through various roles, consistently demonstrating excellence in data management for data linkage research. Today, I proudly lead the Digital Research Team, renowned for its expertise and innovative solutions.

In April 2023, I was appointed Co-Director of HDRUK Scotland, where I collaborate with colleagues across Scotland to advance health data research and drive impactful initiatives.

Feel free to connect with me to discuss digital research, health data science, or collaborative opportunities.

Prizes and Awards

Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards: Multiparty Collaboration, 2023

The iCAIRD project, of which the University is a partner institution, won the Multiparty Collaboration award in recognition of its work establishing the infrastructure and environment required to support development, validation & deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for use in healthcare.

University of Aberdeen Excellence Awards 2022 Outstanding Research Team

The aim of this award is to recognise the achievements of a team of researchers who have worked together on a number of projects.

• Awarded date: 21 Apr 2022
• Degree of recognition: Local
• Granting Organisations: University of Aberdeen

Innovative Collaboration Award, 2021

Awarded to iCAIRD of which the University of Aberdeen is a partner and Prof Anderson is the Academic Lead in Grampian. Held annually, the event presents awards in recognition of achievements in the life sciences industries across a range of areas, including innovation, business leadership, skills development, innovative collaboration & skills development.

• Awarded date: 24 Mar 2021
• Degree of recognition: National
• Granting Organisations: Scotland’s Life Sciences Awards 2021

Aberdeen Curtin Alliance - Staff Mobility Awards 2019

In 2019 I won a Staff Mobility Award that enabled me to travel to Curtin University Australia to undertake a visit to their Health Research and Data Analytics Hub .  The visit took part during 7th October to 18th October 2019 and I blogged about my time out there.

Research Overview

Keen interest in supporting Researchers in Public Health, Open Science, Data Provenance and Meta-data.

A Senior member of the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science , a partnership between the University of Aberdeen, NHS Grampian and NHS Research & Development North Node, with a vision to create innovative, interdisciplinary, data science solutions to the big challenges for health and health care, to improve health for individuals, local communities and internationally.

Instrumental in the creation of the Grampian Data Safe Haven (DaSH) was opened in May 2012 by NHS Grampian and the University of Aberdeen’s School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition. The joint facility is our response to National guidance to improve the safe handling of linked data sets for research.  DaSH builds on the long established excellence in data management for data linkage research at the University of Aberdeen offered by the Digital Research Team.

Current Research

A key member of the iCAIRD Management Team , a project which aims which aims to optimise current clinical workflows through the following key areas of focus: Clinician, Patient, SME, Data and AI.

Open, reproducible analysis and reporting of data provenance for high-security health and administrative data

Funded by the Wellcome Trust this year long project looks in which we will  co-design, pilot, and evaluate methods for recording and reporting provenance for research using high-security data. The result will be a method to report data provenance that maintains privacy and makes the research more findable, accessible, interoperable, and reproducible. (Read more)

Past Research

Data Terms Study

Participant in the Data Terms Study about the concept of ownership in relation to personal data.  Output from the study as follows

Annie Sorbie, Wifak Gueddana, Graeme Laurie, David Townend, Examining the power of the social imaginary through competing narratives of data ownership in health research, Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2021;, lsaa068, https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa068

MS Prevalence Study

The proportion of people with MS in a population is called the prevalence and the figure usually given is the number of people with MS in every 100,000 people. The distribution of MS around the world is uneven. Generally, the prevalence increases as you travel further north or south from the equator.

30 years ago, a high prevalence of MS was recorded in northern Scotland. This study looked at whether there had been any change. Medical records were used to identify 590 people with MS living in Aberdeen, Shetland and Orkney in 2009. The average age was 53 and, on average, they'd had MS for just under 20 years.

The researchers calculated that the prevalence rates were 229 people per 100,000 in Aberdeen, 295 in Shetland and 402 in Orkney. The rate for the UK as a whole is thought to be about 160.

As in other areas, women were more likely (two and a half times more likely) to have MS than men. The highest prevalence overall was for women in Orkney where one in 170 were affected by MS. Orkney has the highest prevalence of MS in the world.

The researchers concluded that the prevalence of MS has increased over 30 years in all the study areas but most markedly in Orkney followed by Shetland. The reasons for this are unclear but probably include the rising ratio of women with MS but also interactions between genetic factors in the population and environmental factors. Research by other groups has suggested that vitamin D levels may explain the geographic differences in the prevalence of MS so this may be a factor in the high levels of MS seen in the north of Scotland.

Knowledge Exchange

June 2021 - Twitter take over for One HealthTech, a global, volunteer-led, grassroots community that supports and promotes under-represented groups to be future leaders in health innovation. They inspire, celebrate, enable and champion inclusivity and diversity in healthtech.  You can find a round up of my tweets on their blog

February 2021 - Trialed the Knowledge, Information and Data (KIND) roles in digital innovation:pilot course: A pilot learning programme to help collaboration across KIND disciplines within NHS Scotland to implement and scale up digital innovations.

October 2020 - Presenter at UCISA WiT20 - Women In Tech Supportive, Disruptive, Resilient 

September 2020 - Presented at the first UCISA CPD event - Trusted Research Environments.

February 2020 - Presented at Scotland Data Science and Technology meet up co-hosted by ScotlandIS talking about the opportunities for working with the their Safe Haven datasets and how the Aberdeen University High Performance Computing Centre can be used, including a discussion on a case study where the Safe Haven data and HPCC were put to use in helping fracture detection.

January 2020 - Presented at the Inagural One HealthTech Aberdeen event, a global, volunteer-led, grassroots community that supports and promotes under-represented groups to be future leaders in health innovation. They inspire, celebrate, enable and champion inclusivity and diversity in healthtech.

Collaborations

I'm a member of the Scottish Safe Havens Federated Network Management group ensuring all 5 safe Havens work to agreed principles and standards these Safe Havens provide access to health data and services to enable research while protecting the confidentiality of the data.

I'm a Senior member of the Management team for the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science Networked Data Lab with the Health Foundation. This five-site collaboration is improving NHS & government analytics and sharing the resulting software & data. 

Working with Research Data Scotland Task and Finisher Groups

Public Health Scotland, NHS Education for Scotland and the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre are piloting this course to maximise the role of Knowledge, Information and Data (KIND) staff across health and social care in implementing and spreading digital innovation. This learning opportunity builds on the findings from the 2018-2020 project by these organisations to identify learning and development priorities to support KIND roles in digital transformation.

The pilot course aims to help you to collaborate across KIND disciplines to implement and scale up digital innovations. This is especially important just now to ensure that data and knowledge underpin digital services for COVID resilience and service remobilisation as well as wider digital transformation. You will also work closely with PHS, NES and DHI to reflect on the pilot and to help us co-design the full course for substantive delivery - so this is an opportunity to engage in developing a national learning opportunity for your colleagues.

Funding and Grants

• NHS Grampian Endowment grant: Integrating real time surveillance and dynamic modelling of COVID-19 in Grampian to inform an adaptive healthcare response, 2020-2021
• Our Networked Data Lab is funded with a £400,000 grant from the Health Foundation.