Ivonne Solis-Trapala

Biography

I am a Reader in Biostatistics and the Director of Keele Clinical Trials Unit (CTU), a fully registered UKCRC Clinical Trials Unit. I am passionate about improving health outcomes through rigorous research. In my role, I provide strategic leadership for the CTU, overseeing a diverse portfolio of clinical trials and large cohort studies, supported by a multidisciplinary team. My expertise includes advanced statistical methods such as graphical models and multistate modelling, which I apply across various fields including health services research, oncology, and global mental health.

I also serve as Co-Director of the NIHR Research Support Service Hub, delivered by the University of Birmingham and Partners. In this role, I offer leadership and expert guidance for health and care research across England. Since 2023, I have contributed as a subject matter expert to the World Health Organization's GSED project, helping develop global measures for early childhood development evaluation.

Additionally, I am an expert member of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Commissioning Funding Committee. I chair or sit on several external Trial Steering Committees and Data Monitoring Committees for national randomised clinical trials.

I obtained a PhD in Statistics from the University of Cambridge and held a four-year MRC Fellowship in Biostatistics at Lancaster. Before joining Keele, I led the biostatistics team at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge.

Research and scholarship

My research focuses on applying state-of-the-art statistical methodology, including graphical modelling, which utilises causal graphs to represent causal associations, multistate modelling for the analysis of time-to-event data, and clinical trials methodology. Collaboratively, I work across various fields, such as health services research, psycho-oncology, and global mental health.

Drawing upon my expertise on graphical models, acquired during an MRC Fellowship in Biostatistics held at Lancaster University, I have pioneered the application of the “sequences of regressions” graphical model for the analysis of complex data such as real-world evidence, clinical trials, and registry data. For example, in Lawson et al (2018, PLOS Medicine, DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002540), I led the development of a causal graph depicting the relative impact of a patient's cardiovascular (CV) and non-CV comorbidities on quality of life in patients with heart failure, using data from the Swedish Heart Failure Register. We demonstrated that non-CV comorbidities can significantly outweigh CV conditions in their impact on patients' quality of life. This insight has contributed to enhancing care for patients with heart failure (Heart Failure Policy Network, 2022).

In the field of renal research, I have overseen the conduct of a randomised controlled trials for complex interventions and introduced a novel approach utilising both graphical and multistate modelling for the analysis and interpretation of real-world mixed-methods studies. These contributions have attracted significant external grant income (including the £1.1 million NIHR-funded Inter-CEPt study, award ID: NIHR128364) and resulted in publications featured in world-leading journals (e.g., Kidney International (2023, DOI:10.1016/j.kint.2023.05.016 and Kidney International Reports (2023, DOI:10.1016/j.ekir.2023.09.015)) which will positively impact clinical practice and improve patient outcomes.

In collaboration with Professors Fallowfield and Jenkins (University of Sussex), I have established a strong track record in generating clinical trial evidence on the efficacy of educational programmes focused on communication skills for healthcare professionals. Our work has informed policy and been adopted worldwide.

Since 2023, I have been a subject matter expert for the World Health Organization working group that developed the Global Scale for Early Development (GSED) tool for use in population monitoring and programmatic evaluation of early childhood development. We are currently evaluating the psychometric properties of the tool in new populations and establishing global norms and standards.

I have been the principal investigator or co-investigator of external grants totalling over £29 million from NIHR, MRC, ESRC, Horizon 2020 EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Teaching

I lead and co-supervise PhD students in Biostatistics and Medical Sciences as well as MPhil and Medical Doctoral students.

Further information

I am a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a member of the International Biometric Society, British and Irish region, and a member of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics.

I review for leading peer-reviewed journals (including New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, Nature Communications, Biostatistics and Statistics in Medicine) and multiple grant funding bodies including the Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.