Chris is the Director of the Dental Research Unit at the Newcastle NIHR CRF and is also Director of Research and Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Dentistry at the School of Dental Sciences, Newcastle University. His main research interest is the application of health economics in oral health, an area in which he has published extensively and secured approximately £2million in funding. In addition to economics, Chris has interests across health services research especially in relation to paediatric dentistry.

Chris is also the Oral and Dental Specialty Lead for the North East and North Cumbria NIHR Clinical Research Network, ensuring high quality delivery of oral and dental research across the region and also has national roles in enabling primary care research in dentistry. Chris is passionate about developing new talent in research and works closely with Health Education England in the region as Integrated Academic Training lead as well developing his own research group in health economics.    

Chris currently practises as a consultant in paediatric dentistry at Newcastle Dental Hospital and has teaching responsibilities across oral health undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at Newcastle University. He is associate editor for the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry and holds three editorial board posts across international dental journals. Chris is the honorary editor and an executive committee member and trustee of the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry. Chris is a trustee of the Alliance for a Cavity Free Future and works with this group in their policy network and health economics consortium, as well as being a trustee of the Oral and Dental Research Trust.