With expertise in research, fundraising, policy and more, our staff and key spokespeople are dedicated to making breakthroughs possible.
Hilary Evans
Hilary Evans is the Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Hilary joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2013 and has overseen significant growth in income in recent years, which has significantly enhanced the organisation’s ability to fund groundbreaking innovative projects. Before joining Alzheimer’s Research UK, Hilary led the campaigning work at Age UK, improving the lives of people in later life both in the UK and internationally.
She holds an honorary doctorate in medicine from The University of Exeter, is a Trustee of AMRC and a Member of the World Dementia Council.
Hilary was appointed in March 2023 to co-chair the UK government’s national dementia initiative, The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, which aims to draw lessons from the Covid vaccine taskforce to accelerate dementia research.
Samantha Benham-Hermetz
Sam leads the Policy and Communications directorate at Alzheimer’s Research UK.
She joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2019, and leads on political strategy, communications and engagement. Her teams cover policy, public affairs, communications, information services and public engagement.
Sam sits on the Government’s Dementia Programme Board, and the Join Dementia Research Partnership Board. Her role involves advocating for greater focus and resource for people affected by dementia.
Carolyne Coupel
Carolyne leads the charity's Data and CRM, Direct Marketing, Insight and Development and Legacy and In Memory fundraising functions.
The Marketing, Data and Insight team inspire long term support and maximise opportunity, engagement and income by putting the supporter at the heart of everything they do. The team are responsible for generating over 50% of the charity's income as well as driving significant strategic projects like the implementation of a new CRM system and overseeing a cross charity supporter engagement programme.
With over 15 years sector experience, Carolyne has been Head of Individual Giving at both The Children’s Society and The National Autistic Society. Prior to her time in the charity sector, Carolyne held a number of roles in the telecoms and media sector – most recently as Head of Telephony Marketing at Telewest Broadband (now Virgin Media).
Philip Dunn
Philip joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2017 and is responsible for the delivery of effective corporate support and governance.
He oversees the Corporate Services Directorate, which covers Finance, HR, Governance, Facilities, and IT. It is vital that we deliver effective and efficient support functions as well as driving good governance and compliance across the Charity, to underpin core activities taking place in other Directorates.
Philip has a strong background in financial and commercial roles across a variety of Industry sectors and he also is a Director of the Railway Housing Association in which he is the Chair of the Audit & Risk committee.
Peter Halewood
Peter joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2014 and has overseen the significant growth of our work with individual philanthropists, trusts and foundations.
He leads on our fundraising for our EDoN Initiative and other strategic priorities such as our Drug Discovery Alliance and the UK Dementia Research Institute, as well as spearheading our international fundraising.
Peter has 19 years’ experience in philanthropy and joined Alzheimer’s Research UK having established a new Major Donor function at The Salvation Army. Prior to this, he worked for both Cancer Research UK and World Vision UK.
Alison Kelly
Alison joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2017 and is responsible for the HR Team.
She leads on all people-based activities from an organisational development, employee engagement and cultural change perspective.
Alison ensures effective solutions are developed and implemented which add value and contribute to the strategic and operational needs across all areas including resourcing, learning and development, reward and benefits, and employee relations.
Prior to joining Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alison has worked in a variety of sectors where she developed her career within the HR profession.
Susan Kohlhaas
Susan Kohlhaas is the Executive Director of Research and Partnerships at Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Susan oversees the charity’s research strategy and programme, including strategic initiatives like our Drug Discovery Institutes, our work with the UK Dementia Research Institute and our Dementia Consortium.
She has a PhD in cancer biology from the University of Leicester and completed postdoctoral work in the field of immunology at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge.
Susan’s previous roles in the charitable sector include senior roles at the MS Society and the National Cancer Research Institute.
Mike Oldham
Mike joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in September 2021 to lead our Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases (EDoN) initiative.
The EDoN programme is harnessing the potential of digital technologies, like smart phone apps and wearables, to collect a wide range of digital data to develop a toolkit for detecting neurodegenerative diseases at their very earliest stage. The EDoN toolkit is still in its research phase with main hubs in Oxford, UCL, Cambridge and the Alan Turing Institute.
Mike is an engineer who has spent his recent career working in innovation, helping new technologies make the difficult journey from research to industry.
During the recent pandemic Mike was a part of the leadership team that set-up the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) at Harwell and worked with the Oxford University team to help rapidly scale-up development and manufacturing of their new Covid-19 vaccine.
Mike was first involved with the EDoN Steering Group while he was Head of the new Data Science Department at The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington. Before that, Mike was at Innovate UK (now part of UKRI), where he set-up and ran the Catapult network of technology and innovation centres.
Lucy Squance
Lucy is the Director of Supporter-led Fundraising at Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Lucy joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in January 2016 and is responsible for mass fundraising through inspiring and enabling individuals, groups and companies to support Alzheimer’s Research UK through their own talents and passions.
Her team includes Sporting Events, Corporate Partnerships, Community Fundraising, Marketing & Engagement, Online Fundraising and Supporter Engagement who all recruit, steward and support our incredible fundraisers.
With previous commercial marketing, sales and PR roles in the technology industry, Lucy started her fundraising career at Cancer Research UK in 2004. She then worked as an interim manager and freelance consultant in the sector establishing high performing fundraising teams.
Nina Ziaullah
Nina Ziaullah is the Director of Strategy and Governance at Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Nina leads the Chief Executive’s Office, with responsibility for Strategy, Governance, Internal Communications and Executive Support. She also leads the charity’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion programme.
The Chief Executive’s Office work across all teams to help Alzheimer’s Research UK to deliver its mission to accelerate progress towards a cure. They also support our senior volunteers, including Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Board of Trustees, our President, the Rt Hon David Cameron, and Vice-President, David Mayhew.
Nina joined the charity in 2017, with a background working in the public and voluntary sector, including leadership roles at the Electoral Commission and the Dementia Revolution, a partnership project between Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Nina supported her grandfather following his dementia diagnosis and is hugely motivated in the power of research to change lives.