ETHNOS - The UK's leading specialist in ethnic minority research

OUR TEAM

Hamid Rehman

Hamid Rehman is Director of ETHNOS. He has overall responsibility for all aspects of the business and is the main link with clients. His areas of interests centre on ethnic minority health, and the development of strategies to reach out to and work with people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Before setting up ETHNOS, Hamid was Head of Ethnic Minority Health at the Health Education Authority (now part of NIHCE). He was responsible for advising the Government on public health issues relevant to ethnic minority communities, for developing national health promotion programmes and research strategies, and for managing a team of research and health promotion specialists. Hamid was involved in conducting three national health and lifestyles surveys of ethnic minority populations, the first time such research has ever been done in the UK, as well as producing guidance documents on a range of issues affecting ethnic minority communities. Hamid has published extensively on issues affecting the lives of ethnic minority populations in the UK. He also specialised in evaluation research while working at the London School of Economics. Hamid originates from Pakistan and is fluent in Urdu.

Marie-Claude Gervais, PhD

Marie-Claude Gervais is Director of Research and a founding member of ETHNOS. She has overall responsibility for all aspects of research projects - from design, recruitment and data collection, to data analysis, report writing and policy recommendations – and is the key contact for the media. Prior to establishing ETHNOS, Marie-Claude worked at the Montreal Stock Exchange for four years, during which she designed and managed an award-winning training programme for brokers, traders and financial analysts, later exported to the New York Stock Exchange and Bourse de Paris. Marie-Claude then moved to London to read for her PhD. For seven years, she lectured in Social and Organisational Psychology at the London School of Economics. She specialises in qualitative research and has considerable expertise in research on the knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and social identities of minority groups. She has published widely on identity, ethnic health, housing and homelessness, perceptions and uses of the countryside, and “Britishness” in relation to ethnic minority communities, and has presented her work at national and international conferences. Marie-Claude was born in Canada and is fluent in French.

Carl Mclean

Carl Mclean is Associate Director of ETHNOS and is responsible for day-to-day management of ETHNOS work and related client interface. Carl brings strong facilitation and analytic skills, as well as much experience of market research, to his work at ETHNOS. These are reflected in the range of corporate sector work in which ETHNOS has been involved. In addition, Carl is helping organisations develop corporate diversity strategies, to ensure that all internal and external aspects of business are attractive to people from diverse backgrounds. Carl is an experienced social researcher having worked over the last ten years as a public sector consultant in the stakeholder engagement team at Office for Public Management, on a freelance basis for (amongst others) Demos, the National Centre for Social Research, the Policy Studies Institute, and as a Research Fellow at the LSE. Throughout his career Carl had a deep-seated interest in identity issues, which is pursued through his ongoing doctoral studies at LSE on ethnic identity and local community participation. His writing and editorial skills can be seen in his extensive publications in this area.

Natalia Concha

Natalia Concha is involved in all aspects of the research process, from research design to data collection, management and analysis. Natalia is responsible for our web-based surveys, as well as for qualitative research. Her research interests centre on the processes of acculturation, the social psychology of participation, outreach programmes and capacity building in marginalised communities. She has developed her expertise through her work with internally displaced persons in Colombia, which formed the basis of her MSc dissertation (First Class) at the London School of Economics, as well as through many ETHNOS projects. Prior to joining ETHNOS, Natalia worked as a Research Assistant at George Mason University (Virginia, USA). She also worked for the “Zones of Peace Project” at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in the USA. Natalia has presented her work on ethnic issues at national and international conferences. She has also contributed to many major ETHNOS publications. Natalia was born in Colombia and is fluent in Spanish.

Nasreen Ali, PhD

Nasreen Ali is an experienced social researcher, handling all aspects of data collection, management and analysis. She specialises in issues of ethnicity, racial discrimination and health. Originally trained as a social geographer, Nasreen went on to complete a doctoral dissertation on the social and personal identities of the Kashmiri community in the UK. She has worked as a Lecturer, a consultant and a freelance researcher. She has lectured graduate and post-graduate students in many universities in England on a range of ethnic minority issues, including Race and Ethnic Relations, Post-Colonial Theory and Practice, Ethnicity and Identity Politics, and Race and Immigration. Her most recent work has focused on improving primary health care for people from minority ethnic backgrounds. She has published extensively on all the above issues. Nasreen originates from Pakistan and is fluent in Urdu and Punjabi.

Salma Choudry

Trained as a sociologist, Salma Choudry has lectured in universities in both Pakistan and the UK. Her particular research interests revolve around the sociology of race and identity, with particular reference to issues faced by Muslim women from the ethnic minority communities in Britain. She specialises in qualitative research and has published extensively on issues affecting Asian women in the UK. Salma originates from Pakistan and is fluent in Urdu and Punjabi.

Leena Sevak

A nutritionist by training, Leena Sevak has a particular interest in the health of the ethnic minority population. She has worked as a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she published an influential book on how to reduce heart disease among the South Asian population. Leena has also done important work in minority ethnic communities to improve the life conditions of diabetes sufferers. Leena originates from India and is fluent in Hindi and Gujarati. She has led many projects with the South Asian communities in Britain.

Shamoly Ahmed

Shamoly Ahmed is experienced in both qualitative and quantitative research. She has worked as a researcher with City University and the Public Policy Research Unit. She has conducted research on Government initiatives such as the New Deal for Communities. Shamoly originates from Bangladesh and is fluent in Bengali and Sylheti. She has a particular interest in the lives of the Bangladeshi community in Britain.

In addition, ETHNOS has a solid team of professional recruiters, interviewers, moderators, methodologists, research analysists and specialists in substantive research areas who have extensive experience of working with minority ethnic communities and are themselves from a range of minority ethnic backgrounds. They are brought in to provide specialist input on a need basis. If we can't do it ourselves, we know someone who can!