Alison Cook is Director of External Affairs at the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Partnership. Throughout her role at the Partnership, she helped establish the Taskforce for Lung Heath, which is a coalition of patients, clinicians, charities and health organisations that work closely together to seek and support better ways of improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all lung diseases.

Alison earned her PhD researching nervous system signals processing with a focus on pain modulation. She then completed post-doctoral research in colour vision at University College London.

In her early career she worked as a specialist journalist for the BBC as a bi-media correspondent in regional and national news before becoming Programme Editor. She then became Head of Media at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and following that was asked to join the Department of Health as Head of Policy Communications and Special Advisor to Ministers in both the Department of Health and Number 10.

Alison became Director of External Affairs at the Royal College of Surgeons, setting up their communications and policy teams and steering the College through the Health and Social Care Act. She had previously headed the media and public affairs team at Cancer Research UK. Her first role for a charity was as Director of External Affairs for the Alzheimer’s Society.