Our Team
Dr Jack Kreindler
Dr Jack Kreindler is a physician, physiologist, researcher and serial technology entrepreneur.
Alongside his career as a doctor in emergency and high altitude medicine, for 25 years Jack has founded and advised pioneering physiological and mental health ventures focusing on transforming what patients are capable of and scaling health system capacity using connected devices, remote monitoring and machine intelligence.
In 2007, he founded The Centre for Health and Human Performance in London, applying elite sport science to help not just the greatest athletes, but also those facing their toughest health challenges. Jack advises and lectures globally on the future of medicine, human performance and longevity and serves as an Honorary Research Fellow in Public Health at Imperial College London.
Professor Chris Imray
Chris is a vascular/renal transplant surgeon who has a sustained interest in austere environments. He started climbing at school and has continued to travel the world to fulfil this passion. Chris is a member of both the Alpine and Climbers Club and sits on the Mount Everest Screening Committee. Recently, he completed a 30-year odyssey by climbing the Seven Summits. He is a world expert in cold injuries and has run the UK telemedicine frostbite service for the British Mountaineering Council for over a decade.
In 2017, he co-founded the Global Polar and Altitude Metabolic Research Registry with Claire Grogan to help better understand the challenges of extreme environmental travel. He is Director of the Coventry NIHR Clinical Research Facility. Chris is a co-author of The Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine, and although he has published extensively on altitude medicine, cold injury, vascular and renal transplantation surgery (with over 185 peer review publications), he remains an active mountaineer, polar traveller and altitude/cold researcher.
Major Natalie Taylor
Major Natalie Taylor is the lecturer of Military General Practice based at the Academic Department of Military General Practice (ADMGP) . As a GP in the British Army she has deployed to Afghanistan, Oman, Uzbekistan, Estonia and other remote locations around the globe providing medical support to NATO forces and host nations. Being passionate about delivering quality patient care in any environment, Natalie pursues a research interest in maximising performance and understanding physiology in extreme environments. While working as a full-time military GP Natalie, co-organised and was assistant leader on Ice Maiden, the first all-female team to cross Antarctica coast to coast using muscle power alone.
Dr Roger Alcock
Roger’s career combines UK Emergency Medicine practice, humanitarian Global Emergency Care and medical care in austere environments with expedition, TV, film and ultramarathon medical support experience in all 7 continents.
He currently works as an Emergency Medicine Specialist for an International NGO. He maintains a part-time clinical role as a consultant in Adult and Paediatric Emergency Medicine in Scotland. He is a Research Steering Group member for PERUKI - Paediatric Emergency Research UK and Ireland.
He has completed two seasons as a doctor in Antarctica supporting activities and expeditions across the continent. INSPIRE 22 is an opportunity to challenge himself, while researching the effects of extreme physiological stress on metabolism and human performance which can ultimately inform the clinical management of critically unwell patients.
Surgeon Lieutenant Stefano Capella
Surgeon Lieutenant Stefano Capella is a Trauma & Orthopaedic trainee in the Royal Navy currently working at Frimley Park Hospital. Stefano initially commissioned as a Royal Air Force Officer before completing the All Arms Commando Course, deploying to the Falklands and then transferring to the Royal Navy. A keen sportsman and budding adventurer, Stef is hoping to combine these passions with his research interest in bone metabolism and the physiological adaptations that may occur in extreme environments.
Captain Pat Harper
Captain Pat Harper is currently on a General Practice training programme that includes an academic fellowship. As a British Army Medical Officer he has deployed to Canada, Oman, the United States and Kenya providing remote health care, teaching and training to British and host nation service personnel.
Pat’s research interests are broad and include nutrition in extreme environments. He is studying for his Masters in Health Research Methods at the University of Birmingham.
Flight Lieutenant Mike Eager
Flight Lieutenant Mike Eager is an anaesthetic trainee in the Royal Air Force, currently working at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. He spent some time training with Lowland Search and Rescue before posting to North Wales where he fell in love with the mountains of Snowdonia. Outside of medical training he has spent time running simulation and research within the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care environment, recently winning the Colt national research award for a project on pre-hospital pain relief. A keen outdoorsman, he aims to combine his interest in robust practical research with his love for adventure.
Devon McDiarmid
Expedition Guide
After living in Yukon, Canada, Devon recently moved to the Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. When not away working in the film industry or guiding, he is either mountain biking, back country skiing or sledding.
He has spent about 17 seasons out of the last 21 in Antarctica working as a ski expedition leader or as a camp builder and camp manager at the South Pole. He has guided over 40 people to the South Pole, all on skis, either from the coast or mini expeditions closer to the Pole. He led ALE's first and only non-resupplied, unsupported ski expedition from Hercules Inlet to the Pole.
On his most recent ski expedition, he and one other kite-skied back from the Pole to the Antarctic coast after skiing from coast to Pole. He also spent a season on sea ice at the North Pole, working as an assistant guide for Last degrees expeditions. A highlight of Devon’s career was when he kite-skied from the South to the North of Greenland, covering over 3000km with no re-supply, setting a then World Record.
Devon also teaches expedition skills in Norway, and has worked as a polar advisor for Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, helping to vet potential expeditions to Antarctica.
LCpl Stephanie
Innes-Smith
Stephanie has recently resumed her Reservist service with the Intelligence Corps (5MI Battalion) after returning from five years teaching in international schools in Qatar and Oman. She qualified as a family lawyer in 2016 and subsequently worked for a domestic violence charity, supporting women through the court process.
Stephanie started running in 2016 and is committed to increasing female participation in arduous exercise, particularly in culturally permissive locations, through her work in schools and as an ambassador for the charity ‘Free To Run’, which endeavours to support women and girls to run in conflict zones. She is excited to be part of the mixed-gender scientific research conducted during the INSPIRE 22 expedition.
Stephanie will embark on an MA in Psychotherapy next year and is currently preparing to row across the Pacific in June 2024.
Major Henry Crosby
Henry is a commissioned Royal Engineer Officer and Chartered Mechanical Engineer. Currently working in a staff role, he has deployed to Afghanistan, the Falkland Islands and Mali. A rock climber, he has also mountaineered around the world including several first ascents in Greenland and first ski descents on Baffin Island..
Nadja Albertsen
Nadja is a medical doctor and health anthropologist based in Aalborg, Denmark.
Having finished her medical degree in 2011, Nadja travelled to Greenland in 2013 for a two month-vacancy in a health care clinic, but ended up staying three years working in remote areas, teaching, kayaking and traversing the ice cap on skis in 2016.
Always a fan of the cold, Nadja spent 13 months at the Concordia Station in Antarctica as a Research Medic for the European Space Agency from 2018 to 2019 (DC15) and she is now doing a PhD focusing on cardiac arrhythmias in Greenland in a collaboration between Aalborg University and Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland).
Morten Tobias Rostille
Expedition Guide
Morten is Norwegian, but currently living in the Czech Republic with his fiancée and their dog. He has been working as a guide since 2016, mainly on Svalbard, but also on Greenland, mainland Norway and Nepal. He specialises in skiing expeditions, but has also guided on glaciers as well as skidoo, dogsled, kayak, and sailing expeditions. In his free time he enjoys trout fishing in the Norwegian mountains.
Off ice team members
Private Fiona Koivula
Fiona will be supporting the research proposals and delivery off the ice for INSPIRE 22.
Private Fiona Koivula is a Combat Medical Technician in the Royal Army Medical Corps Reserves, serving with 202 Field Hospital (D Detachment). In her civilian role, Dr Koivula holds a PhD in cellular and molecular physiology and is a Research Physiologist for the Ministry of Defence, leading on studies investigating human health and performance within environmental extremes as part of the Army Health and Performance Research team.
Dr Claire Grogan
Claire will be supporting the research proposals and delivery off the ice for INSPIRE 22.
Claire is a doctor in emergency medicine with a special interest in expedition and remote medicine, particularly in cold-weather and polar environments. Having completed her medical training in London in 2011, and a BSc in Sports Medicine, she has continued to support expeditions in desert, jungle, high altitude, mountainous and polar environments alongside her NHS work. Claire was the expedition doctor for the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019 in Antarctica, and has completed a 585km Greenland traverse, as well as ski crossings of the Hardanger and Finnmark Plateaus.
She regularly teaches on expedition medicine courses throughout the UK and abroad, and enjoys developing high-fidelity simulation scenarios as part of the educational content. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and sits on the RGS Expedition Medicine Advisory Group. She recently contributed to the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Updated Guidance for medical provision for wilderness medicine document that was released in March 2020.