Zena is a committed and passionate clinician who has worked in health and social care for over 25 years. During her career Zena had diverse clinical experience having worked locally and for Norfolk and Waveney Mental Healthcare Partnership, Norfolk County Council, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Trust, Norfolk CCG’s and Age UK Norfolk, as well as Dementia UK.

She qualified as a mental health nurse at UEA in 2003 before going on to complete her master's degree again at UEA in 2013. More recently Zena has undertaken doctoral studies at De Montfort University, where she completed her PhD.

Zena's areas of specialist interest include the care of older people, dementia care, palliative and end of life care, service and quality improvement and is a published author of multiple journal articles and contributor to two books in these fields. 

Zena is also clinical advisor for dementia at NWCCG (Now ICS) and regional clinical advisor (dementia) for NHS England and NHS Improvement as well as being an honorary lecturer at UEA and visiting researcher at Newcastle University.