Dr Ailsa Butler

Postdoctoral Researcher & Systematic Reviewer

Oxford University

Biography

Dr Ailsa Butler is a researcher at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, with research interests in smoking cessation and the evaluation of effective approaches to help people quit smoking and vaping. She is an author of the Cochrane living systematic review ‘Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation’ and joint first author of the Cochrane living review of ‘Interventions for quitting vaping’. The latest update of ‘Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation’, published in August 2026, received substantial international media attention, and findings have informed guidance and policy documents from numerous national and international organisations. This work is undertaken with the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group and funded by Cancer Research UK.

Ailsa’s research focuses on the synthesis and translation of evidence to inform public health policy and practice.With an academic training in epidemiology and infectious disease modelling, University of Oxford and Imperial College, her research has broadened to encompass major non-communicable disease risk factors, particularly smoking and obesity. Ailsa has a background in health policy, including spending more than seven years working in Parliament for an All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS, bringing medical and epidemiological evidence and voluntary-sector perspectives to Parliamentarians and drafting legislative amendments, speeches and policy briefings. Ailsa contributes to research governance at the University of Oxford, including as a member of the Oxford Primary Care Hosted Research Datasets Independent Scientific Committee (PrimDISC) which provides independent scientific oversight of research using primary care data. She was a contributor to the Royal College of Physicians’ report E-cigarettes and harm reduction: An evidence review. Ailsa received her DPhil from the University of Oxford.