Professor Cally Tann

I am a professor of neonatal medicine and international child health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), an honorary consultant neonatologist at UCLH and academic training programme director for paediatrics at NHS England.

I am a South Africa-born, UK-trained paediatrician specialising in newborn intensive care and early childhood development and disability. In my clinical work I specialise in newborn intensive care, newborn brain injury and neonatal targeted echocardiography. My research focuses on the risks and impacts of common newborn conditions on the developing brain, and how best to support children with developmental disabilities and their families, particularly in Africa and hold an honorary principal scientist position at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda research unit in Entebbe.

I provide technical expertise to the World Health Organization on early interventions for children with developmental disabilities and to the Gates Foundation on the development of early intervention strategies for newborn brain injury. I lecture on topics related to international newborn and child health in the UK and East Africa. I am co-founder and director of Baby Ubuntu, a participatory group programme of early care and support for children with developmental disabilities and their families, currently being implemented in 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to the UK and India.

I completed my medical training at the University of Birmingham and my paediatric training in London, Australia and Uganda. I gained a MSc in International Health at LSHTM in 2003 and went on to complete a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship where my PhD research focuses on risk factors for newborn brain injury. My postdoctoral research focused on the development, implementation and evaluation of early intervention strategies to improve outcomes for newborns and young children with developmental disabilities, including early kangaroo mother care to improve outcomes after preterm birth, and global landscaping of neonatal Group B Streptococcal infection.