Dr Alice Sitch PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), PCAP, CStat, FHEA

• PhD in Medical Statistics, University of Birmingham, 2019
• Post-graduate certificate in Academic Practice, University of Birmingham, 2017
• MSc in Statistics, University of Sheffield, 2009
• BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, University of Sheffield, 2008
• Royal Statistical Society Chartered Statistician
• Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Alice began working with the Biostatistics and Test Evaluation Research Group (TERG) within the Institute of Applied Health Research at the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow in October 2009 and later became a Lecturer and then a Senior Lecturer.  

Alice is involved with many exciting research projects. Her work is diverse, covering methodological problems, test research and a variety of public health issues.  The focus of her research is test evaluation, specifically the use of tests to monitor progressive and recurrent disease and studies of biological variability. 

Alice is the biostatistics team teaching lead. She is involved with teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate students and leads the statistics module on the Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) Traditional and Graduate Entry Course (GEC).

• Public Health MPH —Epidemiology, Statistics and Research Methods (ESRM), Practical Epidemiology and Statistics (PEaS), and  Advanced Statistical Methods.
• Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) Graduate Entry Course (GEC) and Medicine and Surgery (MBChB)—Medical Statistics module.
• Undergraduate Mathematics: Medical Statistics

The focus of Alice’s research is the use of repeated testing to monitor disease progression or recurrence and the use of biological variability studies to provide evidence to guide the use of monitoring tests.

Her work in the area of monitoring stems from her involvement in the methodology work stream of the NIHR programme grant Evaluating the benefits for patients and the NHS of new and existing biological fluid biomarkers in liver and renal disease. Alice is also involved in a primary study (eGFR-C) looking at estimation using creatinine and cystatin C for monitoring disease progression in patients with stage 3 chronic kidney disease; and a study funded by the Scar Free Foundation evaluating the variability of tests measuring scarring. Alice supervises PhD Students conducting research in related areas, particularly through her work with the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

In other test evaluation work, Alice was the study statistician for the NIHR HTA study Prognostic Value of Interferon Gamma Release Assays in predicting active tuberculosis among individuals with, or at risk of, latent tuberculosis infection (PREDICT); the EURINE-ACT study which was a large prospective test evaluation study in adrenal carcinoma; the Wellcome Trust Innovation Challenge Fund supported study Real-time Adaptive Predictive Indicator of Deterioration (RAPID) which used Formula One technology to monitor children in intensive care in real time; and, two NIHR Research for Patient Benefit funded pilot studies that investigated home monitoring of cystic fibrosis and an alert system for the early detection of acute kidney injury. 

Through collaboration with other academics and clinicians, Alice has been part of many research projects.  These include the NIHR global project in COPD Breathe Well, the NIHR Programme Grant Birmingham Lung Improvement StudieS, and NIHR PHR funded projects ABA and FUEL.

Alice is a West Midlands NIHR Research for Patient Benefit funding panel member. Alice is an associate editor for the Journals Trials and the European Journal of Endocrinology.