Dr Joe Tay receives prestigious Harkness Fellowship
Honorary Research Fellow Dr Joe Tay was named a 2023-2024 Harkness Fellow on 5 April, 2023. This prestigious programme allows people who have shown a commitment to advancing healthcare policy and practice to spend a year in the United States conducting internationally comparative research. The fellowship provides mentorship from US experts, as well as several opportunities for leadership development and cross-national collaboration.
Dr Tay has been a general practitioner working with marginalised groups and populations for over 15 years, specialising in addiction medicine. In his research work at St Andrews, he has co-founded with his PhD supervisor, Professor Alex Baldacchino, the DigitAS project, which explores role of digital health interventions in addiction services. To date, DigitAS has been funded by the Scottish Government to explore the use of telemedicine in delivering treatment for patients with opioid use disorder and by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) to investigate the use of digital health interventions in supporting patients with problematic substance use. Dr Tay is also the clinical services director for Forward Leeds, the second-largest integrated addiction care service in England.
Responding to news of the fellowship, Dr Tay said: ‘I am excited to have received the Harkness Fellowship. I am hoping to spend my 12 months in the US understanding the intersection between homelessness and the use of technology, and the ways in which the digital divide is understood by policymakers and digital health intervention designers when applied to multiply marginalised groups. The opportunity to receive mentorship by international experts in this area is invaluable.’