Consortium
The University of Stirling (United Kingdom)
Sean Sample
Sean Semple is a Professor of Exposure Science at the University of Stirling in Scotland with over 25 years experience in quantifying human exposure to hazards. He has published widely on the measurement of second-hand tobacco smoke and on the benefits of smoke-free environments. His research examines the use of exposure information to challenge beliefs about smoking in the home and to encourage smokers and wider society to shift towards making all homes smoke-free spaces.
Kate Hunt
Kate Hunt joined the University of Stirling in 2018 as Professor in Behavioural Sciences and Health, in the Institute for Social Marketing and Health. Before moving to Stirling, she worked for many years in the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. She has a longstanding interest in inequalities in health and in Gender and Health. In recent years, her research has focused on the development and evaluation of public health interventions and policy. Kate has served on several UK funding boards, including MRC Population and Systems Medicine Board, NIHR Public Health Research funding board, and MRC Population Health Intervention Development Scheme. She is Chair of CSO’s Health Improvement, Protection and Services Committee (2022-), and was a Trustee for the Foundation for Medical Sociology. She was President of the UK Society for Social Medicine and Population Health from 2020-1. Kate is an Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow, and Curtin University, Australia.
Rachel O’Donnell
Dr Rachel O’Donnell is a Senior Research Fellow and Patient and Public Involvement Lead at the Institute for Social Marketing and Health (University of Stirling, Scotland). She has over 15 years’ expertise in smoke-free homes intervention development and health behaviour change. She has led/worked on several national/international mixed methods smoke-free homes studies and has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers in this area of work. Rachel currently leads a Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (CSO) funded pilot randomised controlled trial of use of nicotine replacement therapy to reduce children’s exposure to second-hand smoke (2023-2025). She also co-leads SHINE, the smoke-free homes international research network.
Lisa Macaulay
A Podiatrist by background, Lisa completed a PhD (lower limb abnormalities in children with Juvenile Arthritis) at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). Since then Lisa has worked in various research roles, spending 8 years at the MRC Regulatory Support Centre and managing trials within the academic sector, including at GCU (ELECTRIC trial) and Glasgow University (EuroFIT trial). She joined Stirling in 2020 as a trial manager in the Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Professions Research Unit (NMAHP-RU) (now CHeCR) working on the Game of Stones trial, and joined the Institute for Social Marketing and Health (ISMH) in 2024 as Research Fellow on the EU-funded cancer prevention project ‘PIECES’. As of April 2025, she has also joined the team at The Salvation Army Centre for Addition Services and Research (SACASR) as a trial manager on the SHARPS project. Lisa is a member of the University’s NHS, Invasive or Clinical Research (NICR) ethics committee and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee.
