Professor Lesley Stewart has been Head of Department and Director of the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York since 2006. She is also Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Evidence Synthesis Programme.
Lesley has spent her career working in evidence synthesis, previously leading the Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Trials Unit meta-analysis programme. She was a founding member of the Cochrane Collaboration and has since inception co-convened the Cochrane IPD Meta-analysis Methods Group.
In addition to her research interests in the conduct and methodological development of systematic reviews, particularly IPD meta-analysis, she also has long-standing interest in research transparency and data sharing. When working for the MRC she was responsible for developing the first clinical trials register made openly available to the public. At CRD she has overseen the development of PROSPERO, an international prospective register of systematic reviews.
Lesley previously served as elected President of the Society for Research Synthesis Methods, as a long-standing member of the NICE Highly Specialised Technology Committee and as Co-Editor in Chief of the BMC journal Systematic Reviews.
