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John Powell

MA MB BChir MSc PhD PGCertMedEd MRCPsych FFPH FFCI

Professor of Digital Health

  • Professor of Digital Health Care
  • NIHR Senior Investigator
  • Senior Research Fellow, Jesus College
  • Consultant Public Health Physician
  • Digital Health Theme Lead, NIHR ARC
  • Digital Health Theme Lead, NIHR HRC
  • Co-Academic Director, MSc in Applied Digital Health

For prospective DPhil and MSc students

Please direct all enquiries about the MSc in Applied Digital Health to the Course Coordinator, Vivian Ansell vivian.ansell@phc.ox.ac.uk.

Please direct all enquiries about DPhil applications to the Graduate Studies Officer, Daniel Long daniel.long@phc.ox.ac.uk

I am not currently taking on any new DPhil students and I do not have any positions for visiting researchers or interns. 

Background and current work

John Powell is an academic public health physician studying healthcare in the digital age and how and why people use information and communication technologies in relation to health, and how services can harness digital and AI tools to deliver benefit. He has combined an academic career as Professor and NIHR Senior Investigator at the University of Oxford with national policy roles, most recently as a senior clinician at NICE, where he advised the NHS on the safe adoption of innovations in surgery, and on the appraisal of digital health technologies. He is an expert adviser to national agencies including PHE and MHRA. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol, and the former Editor-in-Chief of NIHR Health Technology Assessment and NIHR Efficacy & Mechanism Evaluation. He has worked as a comedy writer and as a television drama advisor where his credits include Downton Abbey and the movie Ammonite. He was formerly Professor of Public Health at the University of Warwick where he helped establish the Institute for Digital Healthcare. He was the Clinical Director of NHS Choices, the NHS website. He has degrees in Social and Political Sciences and in Clinical Medicine from the University of Cambridge. He has an H-index of 62.

Summary CV and publications list

Summary CV and publications list

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications