Dually qualified in 2001, Professor Sumantra (Shumone) Ray completed a degree in Clinical Medicine with Distinctions, along with an intercalated Diploma in Nutrition and Health Education with Merit. He subsequently undertook a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education, a taught Master of Philosophy Degree in Public Health with Epidemiology, and a Research Medical Doctorate in Nutrition and Cardiovascular Prevention. Shumone has also attained relevant professional body memberships/fellowships by competency assessment and received National Health Service training in Medicine and Public Health in the East of Scotland and the East of England.

Throughout his training, Shumone maintained a continued specialist interest in nutrition within hospital medicine and public health medicine whilst receiving training in quantitative and qualitative research methods across several academic domains. These exposures eventually culminated in the Editorship of the Oxford Handbook of Clinical/Healthcare Research (2016) as well as the Editorship of the Elsevier Textbook of Essentials of Nutrition in Medicine (2023). Additionally, Shumone had formal training in management and leadership (British Medical Association and the Institute of Leadership and Management) as well as social entrepreneurship (Innovate UK).

From 2003-8 Shumone worked as a Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Clinical Teacher as well as subsequently as a Senior Clinical Research and Teaching Fellow at the University of Dundee School of Medicine and its Institute of Cardiovascular Research incorporating one of the UK’s flagship Clinical Trials Units. From 2008-10 Shumone was an National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Fellow and Corfield Scholar at Selwyn College Cambridge. Following this from 2010-18, he also held a Senior Clinician Scientist position with the Medical Research Council focussing on nutrition and vascular studies, heading up a dedicated experimental medicine facility for human nutrition studies and also functioning as the Lead Clinician for the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (c/o Public Health England) as well as working clinically at Cambridge University Hospitals. From 2010-2018 Shumone led undergraduate Nutrition teaching in the Cambridge clinical/medical curriculum, and he was a University of Cambridge Senior Clinical Tutor from 2015-18. 

Shumone was cross appointed in Cambridge as a Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College (2015-20) and Co-Lead for the Food, Nutrition and Education Work Package for the TIGR2ESS Programme in India (2017-22) led by the University of Cambridge and supported by the UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) Global Challenges Research Fund and he was appointed as Course Director in Nutrition Science at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (2017-19). In 2021, TIGR2ESS won the University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Impact in 2021. Shumone also received further personal recognition in Cambridge through a Bye-Fellowship of Fitzwilliam College (2021-24) at the University of Cambridge. Additionally, Shumone holds a fractional personal chair appointment as Professor of Global Nutrition, Health and Disease at Ulster University as well as several honorary/visiting professorial appointments more widely including Imperial College London in the UK. He is also an experienced Doctoral Supervisor at several universities including Cambridge, Monash, Porto, Ulster, Utrecht, Waterloo and Wollongong, as well as a Doctoral Training Programme Advisor for BBSRC and ESRC (UKRI), and has served as a PhD examiner including in Brighton, Cambridge, London, Nottingham and Parma.

In 2013, Shumone received the Josephine Lansdell award from the British Medical Association (BMA) in support of work in Nutrition and Cardiovascular Prevention. In 2014, he was elected to the award of Honorary Lifetime Associateship by the council of the British Dietetic Association (BDA). Shumone was also elected as Deputy Chairman of the 2015 BMA Conference of Medical Academic Representatives (COMAR). In 2015 NNEdPro won the Complete Nutrition Outstanding Achievement Award and Shumone was appointed as Adjunct Professor at University of Waterloo in Canada as well as receiving a Griffith University Visiting Fellowship from Australia. In 2016, Shumone was appointed as an Honorary Visiting Professor at Imperial College London as well as Ulster University in Northern Ireland and NNEdPro was a finalist and runner-up in the 2016 British Medical Journal (BMJ) Awards. Also in 2016, Shumone published the Oxford Handbook of Clinical and Healthcare Research aimed at strengthening basic research skills across the global health-related workforce and became Programme Director for the Cambridge Summer School in Applied Human Nutrition. In 2017 Shumone was elected to an Honorary Professorial Fellowship at the University of Wollongong Australia (2017-22) whilst NNEdPro won the Medical Nutrition Industry International Award in conjunction with the European Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. In 2018, Shumone became the Founding Chair, along with the BMJ Group, of BMJ Nutrition, Prevention and Health. He was also invited to lecture at the University of Brunei Darussalam under their 'Eminent Visiting Professorship' scheme in 2018. In 2019, Shumone has also been appointed as a presidential Council Advisor at the University of Parma School of Advanced Studies on Food and Nutrition. Following this, in 2019, he was appointed as Honorary International Dean to the Cordia Colleges in India and recognised through an invitation to speak as an 'International Visiting Professor' to the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. From December 2018 to July 2019 Shumone served part-time as a Consultant on a special assignment to the Nutrition Directorate of the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva leading on the development of a strand of work in nutrition and healthcare capacity building within the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-25.

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NNEdPro and its Mobile Teaching Kitchen (MTK) Initiative, led by Shumone, won the Society for Nutrition Education and Behaviour Program Impact Award 2022. He was also the winner of the outstanding achievement award from the UK Bengali Convention 2022 in recognition of the MTK. In 2023, Shumone was appointed to the NHS Modality Partnership (the largest primary care consortium in the UK) as a Principal Medical Academic Advisor and as the Vice-Chair of a National Research Ethics Committee he also played a key role in the UK’s new health research inclusivity policy. Also in 2023, Universidad Iberoamericana and Tec de Monterrey in Mexico invited Shumone to deliver a series of lectures as an academic guest of honour marking 30 years of the nutrition programme in Puebla and three years of the Mexico City MTK. 

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Furthermore, Shumone serves as an advisor to several national funding bodies over 2023/24 including the NIHR and UKRI. In 2024 Shumone was appointed as Head of Nutritional Medicine by Well Founded and Curia Health in the UK and in India he received the title of Honorary Distinguished Visiting Professor by the Shiv Nadar University (SNU) and Institution of Eminence, and he is an invited keynote speaker at the 2024 Times Higher Education Innovation and Impact Summit hosted by SNU.

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For further details on my background and cross-appointments, please check my personal website and my public profile, or click here for a downloadable PDF of my designations.