Rachel Cassidy is a Research Associate at the Chair of Regulatory Affairs at KPM Center for Public Management, University of Bern and the Promoting Services team at the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine (sitem-insel AG). She is currently working on Project Screen4Care, a five-year grant funded by Innovative Medicines Initiative with goal to shorten the path to rare disease diagnosis by using newborn genetic screening and digital technologies.
Prior to her position at University of Bern, Rachel held research positions at Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London. Rachel is co-lead for the SYSTAC (Systems Thinking Accelerator) European Hub, a regional hub that hosts events (seminars, networking events) and promotes resources for those practising systems thinking related to research and policy, supported by the WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Research (https://systac-europe.org).
Rachel has a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The thesis describes a body of work where Rachel used causal loop diagrams and system dynamics modelling to investigate health system strengthening in low-income settings, with aim to optimise the effect of interventions that target maternal and child health service delivery. Rachel holds a MSc in Epidemiology and a MSc in Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology from Imperial College, London.
