Professor Sandra Eldridge gained a degree in Mathematics from Oxford University in 1979. She then spent two years teaching mathematics in secondary schools, first in Nigeria with Voluntary Service Overseas, then in the UK. In 1982 she completed an MSc in Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she worked for several years before moving to London Metropolitan University (formerly City of London Polytechnic) to teach undergraduate statistics. She joined Queen Mary as a lecturer in medical statistics in 1994, working predominantly in primary care. She developed an interest in cluster randomised trials and completed a doctorate focusing on these trials in 2005.

From 2007 she has been joint lead (with Chris Griffiths) of the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health. She is also director of the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit housed within the Centre and joint lead for the Barts and The London arm of the Research Design Service. She was instrumental in setting up the Royal Statistical Society Primary Health Care Study Group in 2002. Sandra is a member of the Society for Academic Primary Care Executive, sits on various NIHR funding panels and currently leads an international group of researchers developing reporting guidelines for pilot and feasibility studies.

Sandra’s main research interests are cluster randomised trials and complex interventions particularly in primary care. She has published a number of key papers on cluster randomised trials. In addition to her methodological research she has responsibility for the statistical design and analysis aspects of a large number of collaborative research projects mostly concerned with the management of chronic conditions; many of these projects involve cluster randomised trials.