Professor Andrew Shennan OBE, Professor of Maternal and Foetal Health at King’s College London and a leading figure across CRIBS Global’s research programmes, has today received the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences, one of the UK’s four national academies and the most prestigious recognition available to biomedical and health researchers in the country.
The Academy of Medical Sciences is the independent, expert voice of biomedical and health research in the UK, bringing together the most influential scientists from across the country and around the world. Fellowship is awarded to researchers whose work has made a demonstrable, transformative difference to health policy, practice, and patient outcomes.
Professor Shennan was elected to the Fellowship in 2025 and formally received the honour on Tuesday, 30 June 2026.
A career defined by impact
Professor Shennan is an international leader in preterm birth and hypertension in pregnancy, with a research career spanning antenatal and intrapartum trials, novel medical devices, and global health implementation. His transdisciplinary work has followed the full translational pathway, from early-stage research through to national and international implementation, and many of his inventions are now used worldwide.
Among his many contributions, Professor Shennan invented the CRADLE Vital Signs Alert device, a novel tool for detecting shock and hypertension in pregnancy. Developed with funding from the Gates Foundation and trialled across 15 countries with MRC and NIHR support, the device has been central to CRIBS Global’s work, including its national scale-up in Sierra Leone, where it has contributed to a remarkable reduction in the Maternal Mortality Ratio over five years.
He also created the Quipp App, an award-winning tool for predicting preterm birth that is recommended by NHS England and used in 170 countries. He established the evidence base for abdominal cerclage, demonstrating a significant reduction in mortality and leading its implementation.
Professor Shennan has led the NIHR National Reproductive Health and Childbirth Speciality Group, taking it to become the leading speciality for recruitment and subsequently led the South London Research Network across all specialities. He is the author of the NHS England preterm birth guidance and served as chief advisor to the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee.
His honours include the 2017 Newton Prize for excellence in research and innovation supporting economic development and social welfare in low- and middle-income countries, the NHS Innovation Challenge Prize, and an OBE for services to maternity, awarded in 2018.
What this means for CRIBS Global
Professor Shennan’s Fellowship is a recognition not only of his individual achievement but of the wider impact of the maternal health research community he has helped build, including the CRADLE SMART, CRADLE-B, and PAPAGAIO programmes. His leadership continues to shape how vital signs monitoring, pre-eclampsia diagnosis, and preterm birth prevention are implemented in some of the world’s most resource-limited settings.
CRIBS Global congratulates Professor Shennan on this exceptional and well-deserved honour.