Professor Julia Sanders

Professor Julia Sanders has spent most of her career in a combination of clinical, teaching and research posts. She trained as a nurse and midwife in Cardiff in the 1980s. A Medical Research Council Training Fellowship in Health Services Research supported her to undertake a MPH and PhD at Bristol University (1998-2004).

Following completion of her PhD in 2005, she returned to full-time clinical practice as a Consultant Midwife as the Lead Clinician to the newly opened Midwifery Led Units in Cardiff. She held this position until 2017, but from 2008 also worked as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for Trials Research, Cardiff University.

Julia has experience in the successful design and delivery of large and complex studies, including randomised trials, in the fields of maternal health and early years’ interventions. She has been Lead, or Co-investigator on current and completed grants with a value of over £15 million, and she is an independent member of the Trial Steering Committee of several National Institute for Health Research funded randomised trials. Her main methodological expertise is within randomised trials and the use of routinely collected NHS and other data to answer research questions.

Julia’s current position is Professor of Clinical Midwifery, a joint post between Cardiff University and Cardiff & Vale University Health Board, with a specific remit to support, develop and lead on nursing and midwifery led studies.

In the news: 

Reducing major bleeding after childbirth in Wales thanks to life-saving research (May 2022)

Health and Care Research Wales invests in leaders across Wales to shape the research of the future (April 2022)

Cardiff mum hopes twins research can stop others feeling isolated (April 2022)

“There are still so many unanswered questions” - how research midwives are paving the way to best practice (May 2021)

The research behind the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy (November 2021)