Alexander Heazell is a professor of obstetrics at the University of Manchester, spending 50 percent of his time in clinical practice and 50 percent research and teaching within the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre in the School of Medical Sciences. He is the director of the Tommy’s Stillbirth Research Centre and leads the stillbirth research theme at the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre. This includes projects to understand the reasons for stillbirth and prevention of perinatal mortality and improving care for parents whose babies die before or shortly after birth. He supervises students on undergraduate projects through to Ph.D. programs.

Heazell runs a specialist clinical service, the Rainbow Clinic, for parents who have experienced a stillbirth in a previous pregnancy. This is supported jointly by the UK baby charity Tommy’s and the Manchester University National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust. He has been involved in the Confidential Enquiry into Perinatal Deaths in Cumbria (2009-2010) and has worked closely with Sands and the Human Tissue Authority to develop a national consent form package for performing postmortems after perinatal death, both of which translated research findings into clinical practice. He has written chapters in recent national Confidential Enquiries into Stillbirths and led the evaluation of NHS England’s Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle.