EMWA Professional Development Committee (EPDC) Members 

 

Jules Kovacevic

Ergomed

Jules has been working in the CRO environment since 2006, focussing in medical affairs and medical writing and a member of EMWA since 2014. She has been actively involved in writing, budgeting, resourcing and training in medical writing for the last 12 years, particularly focusing on online training and webinars for the last few years. Successfully setting up teams in a variety of organisations and being actively involved in the development of individual writers has become a major part of her working life. In her current role as Head of Medical Writing at Ergomed, she has managed, trained and developed a global team of medical writers of varying experiences, both employees and contractors, all through online platforms and mediums. Jules runs an EMWA workshop on building medical writing teams where she shares the team model that is focussed on personal development in order to promote a positive work environment, staff satisfaction, staff retention, skill development, and a clear career path within the medical writing function. She is a member of the EPDC, taking a lead - with Laura Collada Ali - on the EMWA webinar programme.

Laura Collada Ali

Teks Sema

Laura is a freelance Medical Writing and Translation Consultant with extensive experience in delivering multilingual authoring and translation services for leading research organisations, pharmaceutical companies and government groups. She served as Public Relations Officer from 2013 to 2015 for EMWA and as member of the EMWA’s Expert Seminar Series from 2018 to 2020.

Lisa Chamberlain-James

Trilogy Writing & Consulting GmbH

Lisa is a Senior Partner and CEO of Trilogy Writing & Consulting Ltd. Aside from management activities, she leads client projects, with extensive experience in a variety of documents. Lisa has a special interest in writing for the general public and in patient information. Following a PhD and post doc. in Pathology at Cambridge, Lisa began her medical writing career in 2000. Since then she has also been involved in the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) as a member of the Educational Committee, mentor, leader, and assessor of workshops, and teaches and reviews workshops for the American Medical Writers Association. Lisa holds an EMWA professional development certificate, is a member of TOPRA, DIA, and PIPA, initiated the EMWA PV Special Interest Group, is chair of the Geoff Hall Scholarship Committee, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Raquel Billiones

Medical Writing Consultant

Raquel Billiones has a PhD in Biology and more than 25 years combined experience in scientific and clinical research. She has been a medical writer for >14 years, with core competencies in writing clinical trial and regulatory documents for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Her experience also includes transparency, disclosure and patient data protection in clinical trial data reporting. Over the years, she took on a wide range of industry positions, as freelancer, employed regulatory writer, and as head of medical writing departments in the CRO and big pharma settings. Raquel is an active member of EMWA, serving in various roles, including as Executive Committee member (2015-2017), associate editor of MEW (2010-present), workshop leader, and member of the SIGs on Medical Devices (MD SIG) and Sustainability (SUS SIG).

Sarah Tilly

Azur Health Services

Sarah values the people with whom she writes in the same way she values the patients about whom she writes, and the customers for whom she writes. She believes that everyone has their own, unique contribution to give to our industry. For this reason, Sarah has been involved in mentoring new medical writers since an early stage of her career. In parallel with her largely regulatory writing experience, she has managed and mentored several teams of writers and has been involved in setting up and coordinating training systems. At Azur Health Science, she is still actively involved in advising and mentoring other writers. Sarah has been medical writing since 2006 in clinical research organisations and medical writing consultancies. She set up Azur Health Science in 2017 as Medical Writer and Director. She holds a first degree in Biology and a PGCert in International HTA, Pricing and Reimbursement.

John Dixon

Libra Scientific Communications Ltd

John qualified in medicine having studied at Oxford University and Guy's Hospital, London. Initially he trained as a surgeon. After gaining further experience in paediatrics, neonatology, obstetrics and gynaecology, he then became a GP. Since 2003, John has completed an MBA at Warwick University Business School. He then spent five years as Director of Medical Communications at InterComm International Ltd., becoming a healthcare communications consultant and trainer in scientific writing in 2013. His consulting and training interests include supporting researchers, medical communications agencies and medical equipment companies to ensure their scientific communications are accurate, understandable and use appropriate language. John provides training for universities and research institutes across Europe in academic writing, presentation delivery, and conference abstract and poster preparation. He is co-author of How to Publish in Biomedicine. 500 Tips for Success. 3rd Edition (2016). CRC Press.

Kari Skinningsrud

Limwric as

Kari is a Norwegian/Canadian freelance trainer and scientific/medical writer who specialises in publications. She now mostly teaches writing of publications to academic writers, some of whom she mentors on an individual basis. In previous years, she was employed by pharmaceutical industry as a manager of clinical trials, which also involved writing a range of documents for regulatory authorities. For EMWA, she regularly gives workshops on manuscript writing, grant-writing and cross-cultural communication, has been on the executive committee (2004-2009) and currently serves on the educational committee.

Helen Chambers

Costello Medical

Helen has been working in the Med Comms industry for over ten years, following a PhD in Biochemistry and period of post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge. She is currently the Global Head of Publications at Costello Medical, responsible for the overall delivery of publications projects across the company and the professional development of teams of Medical Writers based in the UK, the US, Singapore and China. She has extensive experience in a range of document types, including enhanced digital content and patient-friendly materials, and enjoys working with clients to advise on overall publication strategy.
Helen holds an ISMPP CMPP certification, teaches Healthcare Communications on the University of Cambridge Therapeutic Sciences MPhil course, has been a workshop leader for EMWA since 2016 and joined the EPDC and the EMWA Med Comms Special Interest Group in 2022.

Diane Ribeiro

Diana is a pharmacist by training and has been working as a freelance medical writer since 2019. She provides regulatory writing assistance for medical devices and drug development, but also enjoys writing blog posts and internet articles for specialist audiences. An active member of EMWA since joining in 2018, Diana was previously involved in the Freelance Business Group and served as a Sponsorship Officer.