Professor Catherine White is the Medical Director for IFAS. Previously the Clinical Director of St Mary’s SARC, Manchester, Cath is the Sexual Offence Medicine lead for the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine.

Her research was used as evidence to change the law regarding strangulation. Cath was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in The Queen’s 2014 New Year’s Honours List for services to Vulnerable People.

Bernie is the Chief Executive Officer for IFAS. Bernie has worked in the VAWG sector most of her career in strategic, educational, policy and influencing roles, nationally and internationally, to improve the response to victim/survivors of VAWG.

Bernie was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2017 for Services to Victims of Sexual Violence.

Harriet is the Research Officer for IFAS. She has worked in the sexual violence sector, as a practitioner and a researcher, since completing her undergraduate degree in Applied Psychology.

Her research projects have included examining the funding and provisioning of specialist voluntary sector sexual violence services and investigating sexual violence amongst minoritized groups in universities across the country. Harriet is currently undertaking a PhD exploring sexual violence support and resolution interventions in English universities.

Zoe has previously worked as an Intelligence Analyst in the civil service after completing her master’s degree in Investigative and Forensic Psychology.

Her research projects have included analysing police data to investigate the reasons for rape attrition, from both a victim and police perspective. Zoe has a PhD in exploring the police culture of a single Rape Investigation Unit within England and Wales.

Emily has previously worked in the accessibility sector as an Operations Manager before joining the IFAS team.

Julia is one of the founders of IFAS. Julia is also a patron of Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse. A former Health Service Finance Director, Julia was the MP for South Swindon from 1997 to 2005 when she successfully campaigned with constituents to get domestic homicide reviews established.

Julia co-ordinated the group organised to get the new specific offence of strangulation and suffocation introduced and to set up IFAS.