We connect you with the best of Cochrane's expertise in evidence synthesis.
Our global team will work with you to make sure we meet the needs of your project. We can also tap into the wider Cochrane network of experts when needed for your project, ensuring that you have access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive evidence available.
Head of Cochrane Response: Nicholas Henschke
Nicholas Henschke is the Head of Cochrane Response. He is an experienced health care researcher and systematic reviewer with a teaching background in evidence-based medicine, biostatistics, and epidemiology. He originally studied as a physiotherapist in Sydney, Australia, and following some time in clinical practice completed his PhD at the University of Sydney in 2007.
Nicholas has over 20 years professional experience in scientific research and has held academic positions in the Netherlands, Australia, and Germany. Throughout his research career he has been responsible for the planning, initiation, conduct, analysis, and publication of numerous systematic reviews. He has over 160 peer reviewed publications.
Over the past 10 years, his work with Cochrane Response has included managing the production of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines with meta-analyses, and ensuring they are delivered on time and within budget. Nicholas has experience with a wide range of evidence synthesis projects related to infectious disease, vector control, and vaccines where his role includes managing a team of systematic reviewers, setting up software and digital tools to ensure efficient production, writing reports for publication, and presenting results to World Health Organization (WHO) working groups and the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE).
Evidence Synthesis Manager: Gemma Villanueva
Gemma Villanueva is an Evidence Synthesis Manager at Cochrane Response. She holds a BSc in Psychology from the Pontificia University of Salamanca, Spain, an MSc in Health Psychology from University College London, UK, and is currently completing a publication-based PhD in Methodology of Biomedical Research and Public Health at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain.
She has over 15 years of professional experience in evidence synthesis, guideline development, and health technology assessment. This includes more than 7 years at Cochrane Response, over 2 years at NICE’s National Guideline Alliance, and 4 years at the Basque Office for Health Technology Assessment (OSTEBA). Gemma has extensive experience conducting and leading systematic reviews and has contributed to national and international clinical guidelines for the WHO, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the American Heart Association, the European Academy of Neurology, and the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Her work spans a wide range of clinical and public health areas, including infectious diseases, chronic conditions, reproductive health, and digital health. She is highly skilled in the use of GRADE methodology, development of evidence-to-decision frameworks, and both quantitative and qualitative synthesis. She regularly presents review findings to expert guideline panels, facilitates recommendation meetings, and provides methodological input on evidence interpretation and translation. She has managed research teams, overseen multi-country collaborations, and is actively involved in capacity building and training activities. She has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, including Cochrane Reviews, and has presented abstracts and led workshops at international conferences.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Hanna Bergman
Hanna Bergman is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist with Cochrane Response. She holds a MSc in Biomedicine from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. Hanna has over 10 years of professional experience in the field of evidence synthesis. She has extensive expertise in conducting and coordinating all tasks and stages of evidence syntheses, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, living reviews, and evidence maps, as well as in the development of clinical practice guidelines.
In her role as systematic reviewer she has contributed to numerous systematic reviews used to inform clinical guideline recommendations and has provided methodological support to guideline panels throughout the evidence-to-decision process.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Elise Cogo
Elise Cogo is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist, Epidemiologist, and Information Specialist at Cochrane Response. She holds and MSc in Epidemiology, Master of Library & Information Science, Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine, and a BSc.
Elise has over 20 years of professional experience in matters related to health research covering 17 years of experience in systematic reviews, including on communicable diseases, and 10 years of experience in designing and running searches for evidence-base syntheses.
She possesses specialized knowledge of all aspects of systematic literature reviews, including project scoping, protocol design, study eligibility screening, data extraction and cleaning, risk of bias and quality appraisal, data analysis and visualization, GRADE assessment, and report writing. She represented Health Canada at international meetings in Geneva twice as a member of a Working Group at the WHO/CIOMS on meta-analysis of safety data. Moreover, she worked as a Unit Head in clinical trials assessment at Canada’s Ministry of Health.
As an accomplished author on over 60 publications and research reports, including several as the lead/first author, Elise has acquired advanced written and verbal communication and knowledge translation skills. Her roles have also involved contributing as an Information Specialist with several systematic review organizations for years conducting databases searching and search methods research, including as a co-author on the ‘PRESS’ (Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies) guideline for systematic review searching.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Jennifer Petkovic
Jennifer Petkovic is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist with Cochrane Response (since 2017), an Affiliate Investigator at the Bruyere Health Research Institute (since 2020), and a Research Associate at the University of Ottawa (since 2011). Jennifer holds a PhD in Public Health and Health Protection from the University of Split, and an MSc in Public and Population Health.
Jennifer has over 17 years of evidence synthesis experience and 14 years specific to health-equity methods for systematic reviews. She has over 90 peer-reviewed publications. Jennifer has co-authored several systematic reviews on a range of topics including assessing strategies to increase ownership and use of insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, HPV vaccine schedules for boys and girls and women, and social media interventions for public health outcomes.
She has extensive experience with critical appraisal of studies, data synthesis, and using GRADE to assess the certainty of evidence. She has also co-authored methods papers related to equity and systematic reviews, including the PRISMA-Equity extension, the Cochrane Handbook chapter on equity, and a paper describing the PROGRESS acronym, used to identify populations experiencing social disadvantage. Jennifer led the development of guidance for involving multiple interest-holders in guideline development (the GIN-McMaster Guideline Development Extension for engagement), and guidance for engagement in evidence synthesis.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Nicola Mayaan
Nicola Maayan is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist with Cochrane Response. She holds a BA in Human Sciences and an MSc in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
Nicola has over a 10 years of experience as an Evidence Synthesis Specialist, with extensive experience in conducting systematic reviews. Her expertise spans various types of reviews, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, living reviews, and evidence maps, as well as systematic reviews supporting the development of clinical practice guidelines. She has authored numerous systematic reviews and has worked across diverse health topics such as mental health, infectious and non-infectious diseases, and vaccines.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Katrin Probyn
Katrin Probyn is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist with Cochrane Response as well as a Research Associate at the Chair of Public Health and Health Services Research at the LMU Munich, Germany.
She holds a BSc in Physiotherapy and a Master of Public Health from LMU Munich. Katrin is an Evidence Synthesis Specialist with over 10 years of professional experience in the field. She has extensive expertise in conducting and supporting all tasks and stages of evidence syntheses, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, living reviews, and evidence maps, as well as in the development of clinical practice guidelines.
In her role as systematic reviewer she has contributed to numerous systematic reviews used to inform clinical guideline recommendations and has provided methodological support to guideline panels throughout the evidence-to-decision process. In addition, she is an active member of Cochrane’s Trainers Network and has methodologically supported Cochrane Review author teams in the planning, conduct, and publication of high-quality evidence syntheses. She has also peer-reviewed systematic reviews for a variety of academic journals and conducted workshops on systematic review methodology.
Evidence Synthesis Specialist: Meghan Sebastianski
Meghan Sebastianski is an epidemiologist and health researcher with extensive expertise in evidence synthesis. She holds a Master of Public Health in Global Health and a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology. Since joining Cochrane Response in 2021 as an evidence synthesis specialist, she has assisted in the production of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines on infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria and tuberculosis adherence as well as healthy aging topics such as chronic lower back pain and muscle strength over the life course. She took a lead role in the development of the Canadian Guidelines for Post COVID-19 Condition, overseeing and contributing to the production of 17 reviews of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment interventions for post COVID-19 condition. Most recently, she has been leading the evidence synthesis work for development of surgical guidelines in the use of intraoperative electrocorticography to prevent postoperative seizure outcomes with the American Epilepsy Society.
Meghan has over 20 years of professional experience in matters related to systematic and scoping reviews across multiple disciplines. She has held positions in both academia and government producing evidence syntheses on a diverse range of topics for a variety of stakeholders.
Evidence Synthesis Consultant: Brian Buckley
Brian Buckley has worked in systematic reviewing and evidence synthesis with Cochrane Response since its inception in 2016. Prior to that he been involved with the Cochrane Collaboration as an author and review group editor since 2008. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Department of Surgery, University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines and a Visiting Fellow at the School of Health Sciences within the Faculty of Environmental & Life Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK.
He holds a MSc in Health Sciences and a PhD in medicine and has extensive experience in many aspects of clinical and health systems research. Previously, Brian has been investigator and grant holder on clinical and health system research projects ranging from RCTs to methodology development at the Universities of Galway, Aberdeen, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford and University College London, funded by the Health Research Board (Ireland), MRC and NIHR (UK). He has sat on the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence’s Technology appraisal committees and worked with the James Lind Alliance and patient organizations on research needs assessment, research prioritization and patient and public involvement. Internationally, he has worked with the World Health Organization in the Western Pacific Region on infectious disease vector control and health systems evaluation and development in the Philippines, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia.
