Meet the team

At Fight Bladder Cancer we are committed to doing all we can to support bladder cancer patients and their loved ones.

Melanie Costin

Interim Chief Executive
Melanie brings a deep personal connection to our mission, having discovered the charity early in her own bladder cancer journey. Her role encompasses strategic leadership and oversight of the charity, ensuring it delivers vital information, support, and advocacy to those affected by bladder cancer. She works to raise public awareness, champion policy changes to improve care pathways, and advocate for increased investment in bladder cancer research. This includes speaking at support groups, overseeing the Bladder Buddy service, managing the online forum, and ensuring the charity’s work influences healthcare decision-makers. By participating in medical meetings, Melanie amplifies the patients’ voice and ensures their perspectives drive advancements in awareness, support, policy, and research.

Away from work, Melanie runs an art class for dementia patients. She also loves cats, music, travel, and cemetery photography.

Sue Williams

Office Manager (part-time)
With over 30 years experience in bookkeeping, Sue joined Fight Bladder Cancer in 2016. Sue answers telephones, deals with orders, replies to enquiries, covers the admin tasks, and pulls together the financial paperwork. Together with colleagues, she occasionally loads her car with all things Fight Bladder Cancer and drives to a urology conference or health awareness day to set up our stand. Her late son-in-law was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

Away from the office, she enjoys needlecrafts, drawing, beadwork, crosswords, Sudoku and reading. She loves hunting for vintage fabrics and beads at car boot sales and markets.

Sana Gilfillan

Director of Policy and External Affairs
Sana drives Fight Bladder Cancer’s policy work to advocate for improvements in bladder cancer care in the UK. She builds and helps manage relationships with key stakeholders in government, the NHS, healthcare institutions and other charities to achieve the charity’s policy goals. She is also responsible for overseeing Fight Bladder Cancer’s communications strategy. Sana previously managed the global privacy and cybersecurity portfolios at a trade association in Washington DC and Brussels. Before relocating to Scotland, Sana lived in Canada, the USA, UAE and Pakistan. She has a degree in International Relations and Political Sciences from the University of Toronto and a Masters in Media and Communications Governance from the London School of Economics.

Sana likes to travel, try new foods, and go hillwalking in her free time. 

Amy Jacob

Fundraising Coordinator
After years of volunteering with various charities, Amy joined Fight Bladder Cancer to help with our fundraising efforts. Her responsibilities involve working very closely with our fundraisers, offering them support and guidance. Amy also processes our donations and sends out patient support materials.

Outside of work, Amy has a degree in Anthropology and is a keen traveller. She enjoys true crime podcasts and watching the latest Netflix documentary.

Michael Sloane

Bookkeeping Assistant (part-time) and bladder cancer patient
For over 29 years, Michael worked as an accountant for a fire and security alarm company. He assists with the accounting system, data entry and reporting. Michael was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2013, and whilst he has had a couple of recurrences since, he has now been clear for the past three years.

Michael likes to cycle, and has cycled from west London to Brighton a couple times. He has also enjoyed scuba diving in Australia and Malta.

Martin Lewis

Assistant Project Manager Volunteer (part-time)
Martin is working on several projects for Fight Bladder Cancer that must be delivered this year. These vary from worldwide clinical trial monitoring, event management, patient support groups database building and awareness campaigning with worker’s unions. He is a qualified engineer and project manager, amassing over 25 years of experience delivering projects in the automotive industry.

When not at work, Martin likes to be outside, cycling, running, and walking. He enjoys travelling, often including camping in his VW campervan.

Anupama Gamanagari

Grants Coordinator- England, Wales, Northern Ireland 
Anupama Gamanagari holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Media and Communication from Birmingham City University and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media from Wilson College. With experience in grant writing for both the arts and women’s wellbeing sectors, she brings a strong commitment to supporting meaningful initiatives. Anupama has also volunteered as an editorial assistant for Fight Bladder Cancer, contributing to their website, newsletter, and Fight magazine.

In her free time, she is a lens-based artist, exhibiting at the RBSA and featuring a winning image in the English Heritage Archive’s Picturing Highstreets Project.

Anne MacDowell

Corporate Partnerships Volunteer (part-time)
Anne has 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She has lived and worked in the US, France, the UK and Switzerland. She has an undergraduate degree in music and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Anne stopped paid work in 2017 and is currently working with charities on a volunteer basis. Her role with Fight Bladder Cancer is to build mutually beneficial relationships between the charity and its corporate partners to improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Anne has been married to her husband for 30 years and they have two grown children. In her spare time she enjoys travelling, learning, singing and sports.

Janine Norris

Grants Coordinator – Scotland
Janine Norris is our Grants Coordinator for Scotland. She brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and grant writing, including her work at the Muirhead Outreach Project. Janine’s responsibilities include researching potential funding sources, maintaining positive relationships with funding bodies, and managing the grant application process. Janine ensures everything she does in adherence to the Fundraising Code of Practice — legal, fair, open, honest, and respectful. Her personal experience with chronic illness drives her commitment to our cause.

In her free time, Janine is an avid reader and nature lover and loves travelling, wild swimming and camping with her husband and children. She also practises yoga and enjoys spending time with her bunny Toya. 

Vicky Fernandes

Charity Administrator
Vicky plays a crucial role in ensuring our charity office runs smoothly and efficiently. She brings a wealth of experience in administration, particularly within digital marketing and communications teams across various industries. She handles enquiries by telephone, email, and post, always offering a friendly and professional response. Vicky maintains our filing systems and provides administrative assistance to the charity team. This includes word processing, managing electronic communications, and keeping records up to date. She also arranges travel, sets up meetings, and coordinates events. She holds a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Southampton.
Away from work, Vicky enjoys weight training and reading crime novels. 

Pamela McGowan

Communications Volunteer
With over 12 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, she is a versatile professional, specialising in oncology. Trained in biomedical sciences, she transitioned to the field of medical communications, combining her strong clinical background and passion for writing. She has authored a non-fiction book on autism, runs a blog focussed on special educational needs and health issues, and also volunteers as an awareness ambassador for the cleft lip and palate charity CLAPA.
Pamela enjoys keeping fit, climbing mountains, long walks and singing in her spare time.