About us

Meet the multi-disciplinary team delivering the research. Clinical academics, research professionals and experts by lived experience, have come together to make GlobalMinds Dementia a reality.

Akrivia Health

Akrivia Health is a mental health research company responsible for running the GlobalMinds Dementia programme.

Akrivia Health - based in Oxford, UK - was created around the shared vision of an NHS doctor and an Oxford University researcher. They believe that research using routinely-collected clinical care data holds the key to transforming treatment and care for people with mental health conditions and dementia.

Find out more about Akrivia Health, our background, and how we work in partnership with the NHS here.

Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE)

People are at the core of GlobalMinds.

Akrivia Health have a diverse Public and Patient involvement and Engagement (PPIE) group that works within GlobalMinds Dementia to ensure the patient voice is prominent throughout. Patients and people with lived experience of Dementia have been and continue to be actively involved in shaping the GlobalMinds Dementia study. Lived experience perspectives have shaped the study design and recruitment approaches, and are involved in monitoring recruitment, reviewing applications from researchers to use the GlobalMinds Dementia anonymised data, and supporting outreach into communities.

If you are interested in learning more about our PPIE group, or joining it, we would love to hear from you. Please email contact.globalminds@akriviahealth.com

Meet the team making GlobalMinds Dementia a reality.

Professor James Walters

Chief Investigator- Professor James Walters is a clinical consultant for Akrivia and professor and director of Cardiff University’s Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics. Professor Walters’ main area of research interest is psychosis and schizophrenia, in particular, the cognitive impairments related to these conditions, and the role played by genetics. As Chief Investigator, James oversees the safe conduct of the GlobalMinds study.

Byron Tibbitts

Operational Lead- Byron is Head of Programmes at Akrivia Health, and operational lead for GlobalMinds within Akrivia, the organisation driving this ground-breaking programme. Byron’s background in public health research delivery started in 2009 at the Medical Research Council, followed by more than a decade at the University of Bristol developing and evaluating interventions designed to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities.

Judith Harrison

Principal Investigator- Judith is an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry and senior psychiatry trainee in Northumbria, with over 15 years’ experience in dementia care and research. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Cardiff University, where her Wellcome Trust-funded work explored genetic and imaging markers of Alzheimer’s disease. Judith also holds a postgraduate certificate in AI for Healthcare from MIT. She leads the LUMEN project, using large language models to support memory assessment, and is a Clinical Advisor at Akrivia Health, focusing on text analysis in electronic health records. Her work bridges clinical practice, AI innovation, and co-production with people with lived experience.