Personal Statement
Dr Emily Rempel is a Research Fellow in Public Participation and Data Practices on the Liverpool City Region Civic Data Cooperative project, hosted at the University of Liverpool. Her research and practice is at the intersections of critical data studies, public engagement, public health, and knowledge exchange. Her current projects include building models of public stewardship of local data and designing public participation systems for health data.

Her educational background includes a BSc and MSc in health sciences with a focus on biostatistics. Her doctoral research looked at understanding potential models of public engagement in government use of big data systems. Her research in public health has explored public engagement models in health data, the measurement of social prescribing, using data in policy for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, and engaging publics in antibiotic resistance.

In addition to this research work, she has held practice-focused roles in Canadian public health and government as a Knowledge Exchange Lead focusing on antimicrobial resistance, the drug toxicity crisis, and most extensively COVID-19. She worked for and eventually led a team of interdisciplinary professionals during the first two years of the COVID-19 crisis in engaging on and translating public health data into public health advice. Her research now primarily focuses on critically exploring and developing public engagement models for the governance and design of data systems. A few examples of the impact of her work include contribuing to the global misinformation research strategy led by the World Health Organisation, providing evidence for the 2018 UK Data Ethics Framework, and leading on the design and delivery of the public-facing COVID-19 response at the BC Centre for Disease Control.

Research Overview
Dr Rempel is an academic practitioner. Her research interests are in applied methodologies that span critical data studies, public engagement and participation, and public health inequalities. She draws on mixed methodologies to answer innovative questions in public health around the inclusion of non-experts in the imagination, design, and governance of health data systems with the goal of improving health services. Her work is driven by the idea that putting patients and public at the heart of data analytics is a rights-improving process that will make better data systems, better evidence, and ultimately better health service provision.