Research interests

• Foot and ankle health
• Osteoarthritis
• Ultrasound imaging
• Podiatry workforce

Current research

Catherine’s current research has two main themes:  development of imaging techniques to detect changes not readily seen on clinical observation; and optimisation of care for management of foot health for people with arthritis. Her research is rooted in the need to help NHS decision makers create informed choices about how to best deploy resources related to management of foot health, notably providing the evidence about new ways of delivering treatments and services more efficiently.

Important to this, Catherine has a strong track record in training researchers as well as undergraduate and post graduate students.  She welcomes any interested parties to contact and discuss the foot and ankle research programme at the University of Southampton. Her research includes undergraduate, post graduate taught, post graduate research students as well as post-doctoral investigators and interns.  Appropriately skilled visiting researchers are often hosted within the team through external collaborators that span both National and International groups.

As a Professor in Podiatry, Catherine contributes to the delivery of high quality teaching across the School of Health Sciences undergraduate, post graduate taught, continuing education and PhD programmes. She is currently supervising 3 PhD students and has supervised 10 PhDs to completion.

Catherine’s teaching focus is related to 'Active Living' and  investigation and management of musculoskeletal pathology related to foot and ankle health. She engages in research-led teaching through the links she provides students to her previous clinical experience and research and fully embraces integration of research within education curricula.  

“I advocate a ‘deep’ approach to student learning through case based discussions and continued application of theory to practice whilst demonstrating reflexivity with differing learning abilities”. 

Catherine worked in the NHS as a clinical academic podiatrist and moved to the University of Brighton in 1996 where she was employed as a senior lecturer and programme lead for the MSc Podiatry. She moved to the University of Southampton in 2003 being appointed to programme lead for the BSc Hons Podiatry and subsequently NIHR MRes co-lead.

Catherine completed her PhD, as the first podiatrist to form a multi-professional research programme focussed on developing diagnostic ultrasound imaging techniques for the foot and ankle in 2009.  From her PhD thesis, Catherine’s research has been adopted at scale. The work has been fundamental to the introduction and implementation of diagnostic ultrasound imaging within clinical practice as a diagnostic aid to improve foot health management for individuals who have arthritis. Specifically, the use of ultrasound imaging by allied health professionals at the point of care to examine musculoskeletal status facilitates efficiencies in clinical decision-making and improvement in patient outcomes and care.

Since that time Catherine has made a significant contribution to the development of research in the podiatry and wider allied health professions. In recognition of her work, Catherine received a prestigious meritorious award from the Royal College of Podiatry (2014) and became the first podiatrist to receive a Chartered Scientist Award (2014).  Catherine has held several national and international positions of authority in leading roles. Including two invited international appointments: Adjunct Professor, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Emeritus Editor in Chief (Editor: 2018 - 2023), the Journal of Foot and Ankle Research.  Fellowship of the Faculty of Podiatric Medicine, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasg); Chartered Scientist with the Science Council.

Catherine is currently leading research focused on providing evidence about new ways of delivering treatments for 'active living' and developing service pathways that enable under-represented people to access treatment at the right time. A key aspect for Catherine is that her research has always been deeply rooted in the need to support NHS decision-makers make informed choices about how to best deploy resources. Through the OptiFooT programme of work, Catherine and her team demonstrated that people who have osteoarthritis and foot/ankle pain are often overlooked. To that end, as founding Chair, Catherine established the International Foot and Ankle Osteoarthritis Consortium (IFOAC) to drive foot-ankle osteoarthritis (OA) research forward. IFOAC is hosted by the Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis Research Versus Arthritis and endorsed by OARSI (Osteoarthritis Research Society International).

Catherine is committed to research capacity building and researcher inclusion and has a strong track record in capacity building and training researchers, especially in under-represented professions. With particular emphasis on developing innovative opportunities across the wider allied health, social care and nursing agenda, under Catherine’s leadership the work has been transformational and provided a step change in the uptake of funded PhDs and research. Notably through leadership of the UK-wide Versus Arthritis (Arthritis Research UK) nurse and allied health internship scheme, NIHR ARC Wessex Academic programme and for women’s careers in science through leadership of the Faculty EDI and Athena SWAN committee for three years (20112014) and as a member of the Athena SWAN University steering group.