Dr Shobhana Nagraj

Dr Shobhana (Shobi) Nagraj is an Assistant Professor in Primary & Community Care and works in partnership with the East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). She leads the Global Primary & Community Care group (GPACC) within the Department of Public Health & Primary Care. Her research focuses on implementation science and the use of theory in the design, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions (including digital health). Locally, Shobi leads the ELFT-UCAM Implementation Research Hub, established in 2024, to improve healthcare delivery for under-represented populations across Luton & Bedfordshire, working closely with the local Integrated Care Board and Health Innovation East.  She uses global health thinking to address local health challenges and involves communities in research that impacts their lives.

Shobi completed an intercalated BSc (Hons) in Medical Anthropology at UCL.  She went on to complete her basic surgical training in Oxford, and then worked as a neonatal registrar at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.  She started her clinical specialty training in paediatric surgery and during her training became increasingly interested in the social determinants of health and health systems. Shobi retrained as an academic clinical fellow in primary care in Cambridge, completing an MPhil in health systems research, and has since been working as a clinical academic in global health systems research.  She has worked closely with rural communities and Community Health Care Workers (CHWs) in low-resource settings globally. She is passionate about delivering high-quality, person-centred and universal health services to women and children. Her DPhil in Women’s & Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford, involved the design and evaluation of a complex intervention with mobile clinical decision support, for CHWs to screen high-risk pregnant women in rural India. Shobi went on to work within the Centre for Global Health Research, University of Oxford. She now co-Leads the Global Health theme of the MPhil in Population Health Sciences and is module lead for the 'Health Systems for All' module.  Shobi is co-Theme lead for Global Health as part of Cambridge Public Health, and an Associate researcher for Cambridge Reproduction. Shobi has a Visiting Senior Researcher at the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, and is an Editorial Board member for BMJ Digital Health & AI.