Dr Sanford is a Lecturer in Interprofessional Science and the Faculty Lead for Interprofessional Education at King’s College London. Her research focuses on understanding factors that contribute to adaptive capacity in healthcare teams, how healthcare teamworking is impacted by team structure and context, and how teams contribute to healthcare safety. She is particularly interested in how healthcare systems operate under pressure, and to this end, has contributed to qualitative studies on healthcare system pressures and quantitative studies on nurse staffing and patient outcomes.

Natalie has worked clinically in the U.S. with internal medicine and cardiology patients and has also taught medical-surgical and high-acuity nursing at the University of Maine. She was an original participant in the development and trial of the Interprofessional Partnership to Advance Care and Education model in collaboration with Maine Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the ACGME. She completed her Master's degree at the University of Edinburgh in 2016.

Natalie completed her PhD at King's College London. Her PhD thesis was entitled: “Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in Hospital Teams in England.” Her research has earned her recognition as an 'Emerging Researcher in Human Factors in Healthcare' by the International Ergonomics Association and an ‘Emerging Talent in Resilience Engineering’ by the Resilience Engineering Association.

Biography - Teaching:

• Co-Lead, Promoting Patient Safety (IPE Year 1)
• Deputy Module Lead, History of Health and Social Care (7KANP128, MSc in Health and Social Care)
• Supervisor, MSc Dissertation Module and QI Dissertation Module
• PhD Supervisor
• Personal Tutor (Adult Nursing BSc)

Enquiring about potential PhD supervision

If you’re thinking of applying for one of our PhD programmes and are looking for potential supervisors, please email nmpc_pgr_enquiries@kcl.ac.uk listing the names of the supervisors you’ve identified as having expertise in your chosen area, along with your CV and a short research proposal. 

Our Postgraduate Research Team will contact supervisors on your behalf and get back to you. If you have any queries in the meantime, please use the email address above, rather than contacting potential PhD supervisors directly, because they are unable to respond to initial enquiries.

Research interests:

• Teamwork, Healthcare Safety
• Human Factors
• Safety Science
• Healthcare Staffing and Workforce Research
• Interprofessional Education,
• Simulation

Research profile