Otto Wolff Lecture and Catherine Peckham Symposium

Tuesday 4th November 2025, 1:30pm – 5:00pm
**In person event**

Kennedy Lecture Theatre, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

Please join us for the Population, Policy and Practice (PPP) Research and Teaching Department’s annual Otto Wolff Lecture and Catherine Peckham Symposium dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of childhood disability. This event brings together leading researchers, clinicians, and experts to share insights, foster collaboration, and celebrate progress in the field.

Event Overview

The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (GOS ICH), together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), forms the largest concentration of children's health research in Europe. The Otto Wolff Lecture reflects this status by showcasing world-class clinical and scientific presentations. This event also recognises one of the great GOSH/ GOS ICH Clinical Professors of Paediatrics, Otto Wolff, who maintained an active interest in Paediatrics beyond retirement and attended many of the sessions until his death at the age of 90 in April 2010.

13.30:

Professor Jugnoo Rahi, Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Institute of Ophthalmology; Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Think Vision, Think Child

The OWL will be followed by the Catherine Peckham Symposium, with a series of talks highlighting innovative work, ongoing studies, and emerging challenges in the field of childhood disability:

Professor Melissa Gladstone, Professor of Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics and International Child Health (University of Liverpool)

Identifying children with disabilities where resources are limited – what can we do?

Professor Cally Tann, Professor of Neonatal Medicine and Child Health (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

Disabilities in children born preterm (title TBC)

A showcase of emerging research from PPP researchers including Dr Rachel Knowles (on hearing loss), Julia Shumway (Down Syndrome) and Dr Pippa Rees (perinatal brain injury) .

Panel discussion on future research directions.

Drinks and canapes reception from 5-6pm.

Who Should Attend?

• Researchers and academics in child health, disability, and development
• Clinicians and allied health professionals
• Policy makers and advocates for children’s health
• Students and trainees interested in child health and disability

Event Details

Date: Tuesday 4th November 2025
Time: 1.30-5pm
Location: Kennedy Lecture Theatre, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street WC1N 1EH

Registration

This event is free but requires advance registration. Spaces are limited, so we encourage early booking.

Speakers

Professor Jugnoo Rahi

Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist

University College London

Population, Policy & Practice Research & Teaching Dept

UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Institute of Ophthalmology; Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Professor Jugnoo Rahi is a clinician scientist with a track record for innovative discovery science and research translation to reduce the burden and impacts of the causes of blindness that afflict 81 million children worldwide and confer an enormous burden on affected individuals, their families and the societies in which they live. As the UK’s first Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology she has led the establishment and development of this scientific discipline; partly by founding the Vision and Eyes Group at UCL now an internationally leading multi-disciplinary and multi-professional group with an unusually broad scientific portfolio. The group’s research bridges ophthalmology, paediatrics, public health, and population health sciences. And it looks ‘both ways’: addressing both the causes and the consequences of rare and common eye diseases; alongside investigating the determinants of visual health and well-being and of visual disability. Highly cited, their research has shaped clinical care and policies internationally. Much of this research has been undertaken by establishing enduring collaborative clinical research networks that are unique to the UK and have enabled landmark studies whose findings have been implemented at pace. Jugnoo was the British Medical Association’s inaugural Women in Academic Medicine Role Model awardee, the recipient of the VISIONUK Astbury Award for career-long partnership with voluntary organisations, and the Claud Worth Medal, the UK’s highest recognition of achievement in Paediatric Ophthalmology. She is an NIHR Senior Investigator and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (both as the first paediatric ophthalmologist and ophthalmic epidemiologist).

Professor Melissa Gladstone

Professor in Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics and International Child Health

Department of Women and Children’s Health

Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences

University of Liverpool

Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Professor Gladstone is a professor of neurodevelopmental paediatrics at the University of Liverpool and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital with over 20 years’ experience researching child neurodevelopment in resource poor environments – particularly in Africa. Her recent research aims to understand how best to measure neurodevelopment in resource limited settings as well as to utilise this to identify the early problems that children with disabilities and developmental disorders in order to support them. She has undertaken and is presently undertaking large field studies in a number of African settings looking at the effect of health and social factors on early child development (malaria in pregnancy, nutrition, prematurity, HIV exposure) but is also interested to pursue the linkages between assessment of children’s development and behaviour with interventions which can be provided in low income settings. Professor Gladstone has written over 90 publications and holds several large grants with colleagues in Sub-Saharan Africa. She created a neurodevelopmental assessment tool, the MDAT, which is being utilised in over 25 countries in Africa for research and programmatic work – much of this linking early interventions in nutrition, WASH and early stimulation programmes with later outcomes in children. She has been working with the World Health Organization on the Global Scales of Early Development (GSED) since 2014 and leads the work on the GSED Long Form and Individual Testing. Her future plans include incorporating better ways to conduct developmental surveillance at scale in resource-limited settings.

Professor Cally Tann

Professor of Neonatal Medicine and Child Health

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and International Health

Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Bio to follow - https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/tann.cally