Our SPEAKERS

Dr David Luke is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich. His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience. When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness.

Dr Jane Sedgwick-Müller is a senior lecturer, researcher in adult ADHD and an advanced mental health nurse practitioner. She is also an ADHD psychosocial therapist/coach, executive board member of the UK Adult ADHD Network (UKAAN) and professional advisory committee member of ADDISS: The National Charity for ADHD Information & Support. Her PhD project with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, focused on the impact of ADHD on the educational outcomes of university students with ADHD and usefulness of disability support in promoting positive learning experiences. She has presented at conferences around the world and published some of her work. She has received the Royal College of Nursing 2020 Muriel Fleet Award for outstanding achievement in professional development, and the 2020 Genius Within Award for Neurodiverse Research of the Year, sponsored by Microsoft.

Dr Jonathan Iliff is a medical doctor in the NHS, with a background in neuroscience and mental health. Jonathan has been an associate researcher with the psychedelic research group attached to King's College, was the founder and chair of the UCL Society for the Application of Psychedelics and has worked with prominent figures in the field, including writing a comprehensive review with Professor David Nutt. His research focused on the use of psychedelic compounds, like LSD and psilocybin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms - in the treatment of mental health disorders. Today his focus is clinical - focussing on helping with people, and their problems in the here and now.

Christopher Timmermann (PhD) is a neuroscientist and psychologist from Santiago, Chile and based at the Centre for Psychedelic Research in Imperial College London, where he conducted the first neuroimaging studies on the effects of the potent psychedelic, DMT. His work focuses on the neuroscience, psychology, beliefs and ethics of the psychedelic experience.

Dr James Brown is a biomedical scientist and science communicator. James was diagnosed with ADHD in 2021, and subsequently co-founded the registered UK charity ADHDadultUK, the evidence-based online ADHD magazine focusmag.uk and The ADHD Adults podcast. James also coaches adults with ADHD and provides institutional training on ADHD and neurodivergent conditions. Alongside this, James work as Communications Director for Psychiatry-UK, the countries leading adult ADHD service.

Darren Le Baron is an educator, researcher and event organizer based in the UK. Known around the world for his Shroomshop Master classes he is keen mushroom cultivator and teacher. He has been growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms for over ten years and has translated his home growing experiences into a social enterprise. He is an Organic Horticulturist and Permaculture tutor who supports schools, businesses and so called hard to reach communities around the world to create holistic and sustainable working systems.

Maria Balaet is a computational neuroscientist at Imperial College London who specialises in large scale cognitive testing. Her work focuses on understanding how cognitive processes such as memory, attention, problem solving and language differ in people who consume drugs (such as psychedelics) recreationally, or suffer from neurological and psychiatric disorders. She is currently running an online study where people can play brain games while they are under the influence of psychedelics to help scientists understand how their abilities are affected.

After completing a PhD in organic chemistry, David worked in R&D in the pharmaceutical industry developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect and how some people's condition improved because they believed a placebo was a real drug, he left the industry to write and educate people on how to best harness their mind and emotions to improve their health and wellbeing. He is now a bestselling author of 11 books, including the Amazon bestseller, 'The Five Side Effects of Kindness'. He is a magazine columnist, a frequent podcast guest, and has been featured on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch Live. He's a much sought after speaker in both the public and corporate sectors and has delivered talks for Google, Bank of England, HSBC, 3M, Costa, the NHS, and many more. David is also honorary scientific advisor for the charity 52 Lives, which helps people in need through acts of kindness.

Dr Samantha Hiew is a storyteller with a medical science PhD, specialising in demystifying ADHD & neurodiversity. Sam founded ADHD Girls in 2020 before she was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 40, and identifies as an autistic, dyspraxic, and Touretter. She is passionate about reframing the medical labels given to neurodivergents, where we see each individual as more than their diagnosis. Sam has spoken at over 40 organisations to date and hosts the Utopia podcast where she uncovers hidden stories of neurodivergence across culture, race, high achievers, parenting, and learning disability. Her work received multiple nominations of Stereotype Buster and Community Choice Awards at the 2022 Celebrating Neurodiversity Awards.

Dr. Anna Machin is an evolutionary anthropologist, author of Why We Love: The New Science Behind Our Closest Relationships and broadcaster. She is fascinated by the science behind close human relationships; those between lovers, friends, parents and children. She is a visiting academic at the University of Oxford where she researches human social behaviour and is a regular contributor to TV, radio and print including two seasons of “Married at First Sight” (Channel 4) and the upcoming series “Meet the Humans” (BBC Earth).

Professor Vincent Walsh leads the Applied Cognitive Neuroscience group at UCL. His goal is to use neuroscience to improve high performance in sport, high pressure decision making and advancing human brain stimulation in cognition and health. His research has been used by elite performers, including Great Britain’s Rio olympic team!

Dr Ben Sessa has been at the forefront of psychedelic research in the UK through his affiliations with Imperial College London. Ben qualified as a medical doctor from UCL in 1997 and went on to specialise in psychiatry. Ben started studying psychedelics as a junior doctor, and has taken part in research projects at Bristol University, Cardiff University and Imperial College London with LSD, psilocybin, DMT, ketamine and MDMA - receiving and/or administering all of these compounds in legal research settings.

Dr. Kathrine Bejanyan is a practicing therapist and relationship consultant in Central London. She works with individuals and couples on love, dating and relationship issues with a focus on building deeper intimacy, connection and authenticity in their love life. Outside of her private practice, Kathrine is a speaker, consultant, as well as a lecturer in psychology. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology and a Masters in Counselling Psychology. She is an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy with a license as a Marriage Family Therapist from the United States.

Michael Brooks, holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a journalist and broadcaster. He is physics consultant to New Scientist magazine, co-host of the award-winning podcast Science(ish), and the author of numerous books, including The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook and the bestselling 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense.

Dr. John Biddulph works in the field of autism as a trainer, mentor, diagnostician and lecturer. He takes part in the diagnostic process for children and adults as an associate at ASDirections. For the past 20 years he has been a freelance autism consultant. John is also a visiting associate lecturer at University College London, Anna Freud Centre and works with many NHS Trusts. John has delivered training to many organisations and is in demand as a speaker at conferences on a wide range of autism-related subjects. John’s professional expertise in autism has the added benefit of being focused through the prism of his own diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition.

Fini is a qualified breathwork therapist and coach, originally training with the renowned Transformational Breath, and furthering her knowledge with the great teacher Alan Dolan, as well as Oxygen Advantage with Patrick McKeowen. Prior to this, she gained a BSc in Psychology as well as an MSc in Organisational Psychology, which complement her understanding of the mind-body connection to the breath. Fini spends her time working with individual clients in areas ranging from nervous system regulation to trauma release and integration. She also teaches at events and festivals across the country. Her passion is to help people optimise their physical and mental health, enabling them to find more clarity, connection, peace and joy in their lives.

Christopher Gill is a former Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter. His books include The Stuctured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy (2006), a translation and commentary of Books 1-6 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (2013), and (forthcoming) Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance, all with Oxford University Press. He has also written the introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics translations of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Since 2012 he has taken a leading role in ‘Modern Stoicism’, an organisation which aims to present Stoic ideas as a basis for modern living, runs an on-line course each year (Stoic Week) and holds regular conferences (‘Stoicon’).

Helen McCarthy is a writer, presenter and independent scholar who was introduced to anime in 1981 and has been studying it ever since. She has spoken at universities, cultural institutions and of course anime conventions across America, Asia and Europe, from the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution to Akita International University and the Japan Foundation in London and Kuala Lumpur. Her works include The Anime Encyclopedia, widely recognised as a seminal text for the study of anime; Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation; The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga; and Leiji Matsumoto: Essays on the Manga and Anime Legend.

Shiro Yoshioka is a lecturer in Japanese Studies at Newcastle University. His main research interests include Japanese popular culture, especially anime, fan culture, popular history, memory and nostalgia. Recently he is interested in how fans experience anime, manga and video games beyond the texts in various ways such as events, theme parks and ‘pilgrimage’ to the locales. He has published articles and book chapters on Ghibli and Miyazaki in English and Japanese, and is currently working on a monograph on Miyazaki, which overviews his life and career focusing on how he came to be seen as an auteur and public intellectual.

Alex Conner is a consultant in ADHD support and education. He was the Director of Taught Post-Graduate Education and a Reader in Biomedical Science Education at the University of Birmingham Medical School until last year when he became a full-time ADHD consultant and coach. He also has ADHD and was diagnosed as an adult. In 2021, Alex won a National Teaching Fellowship for a non-directive coaching approach to teaching technical, medical education and is the Chair of the charity “ADHDadultUK” advocating and supporting for adults with ADHD. He also co-hosts the most popular ADHD podcast in the UK, “The ADHD Adults” with Professor James Brown. Alex gives talks and writes articles on ADHD, including for the THES, The Independent and Medical News Today.

Dr Tomlinson is a Clinical Academic Psychiatry Fellow working at the University of Oxford. Having worked with and treated many adults with ADHD, she now focuses on targeted individualised treatment in mental health, particularly ADHD and mood disorders. Dr Tomlinson manages the Oxford Precision Psychiatry Lab (OxPPL) with Professor Andrea Cipriani and has been published widely in the field of mental health. In addition, working alongside Professor Samuele Cortese (ADHD international expert) at the University of Southampton on a number of projects examining the side effect profiles of ADHD medication and identifying treatment predictors in patients with ADHD.

Prof. Amelie Saintonge is an Astrophysicist working at University College London. Originally from Canada, she did her PhD studies at Cornell University (USA) and held research positions in Switzerland and Germany before joining UCL. Amelie studies the formation and evolution of galaxies through cosmic time by using the world’s largest radio telescopes.

Dr Athanasios Hassoulas is the Director of the MSc Psychiatry programme at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine. He also teaches extensively on the undergraduate medical programme. His primary research focuses on anxiety disorders, specifically Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). His interest in this particular area of research was sparked by his own personal experience of the disorder, having been diagnosed with OCD at 16 years of age. He speaks openly about his early research as well as his own experience of living with the condition, having been interviewed by BBC Wales and other media outlets as a subject expert on OCD. He feels passionately about challenging the misconceptions and stigma around mental illness. He is equally passionate about understanding which factors lead to the onset of psychiatric conditions such as OCD, and how improving our scientific understanding of these conditions can lead to more tailored and targeted treatments.

Whether he’s taking the roof off a club with his unique selection of deep and tough house music, enchanting a backroom with a genre-bending set of disco, Balearic, rock and hip hop or playing chillout music in a bay in Croatia, Bill Brewster is the man for all occasions.In a former life, Bill was a punk rocker, a chef and also the co-editor of football magazine When Saturday Comes but has been a record nerd all of his life. He began DJing in the 1980s, but came into his own in the early 1990s, particularly during a two-year stint in New York running DMC’s office, where nights at the Sound Factory and hanging out with Danny Tenaglia gave him the musical grounding you can still hear in his music today. Bill was also one of the founding residents at Fabric in London, a position he held for five years. There are few still playing regularly today that have his dedication, eclecticism and encyclopaedic knowledge of music.His parallel life is as a writer and with his long-term partner-in-crime Frank Broughton they have written four books together, including the acclaimed Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (latest edition published last July), How To DJ (Properly) and The Record Players. The pair are also behind the legendary DJhistory.com and their party, Low Life, has been running for nearly 30 years. They now spend most of their time on a dinghy moored on the Rochdale Canal. He has been working in the industry’s fringes for over 40 years including the running of various labels from Twisted UK and Forensic in the ’90s to Disco Sucks and Anorak in the noughties. Occasionally Bill finds time to secrete himself away in a studio to make music or cook up edits. And when he’s not doing any of that he has a family and a dog called Mavis to tend to. He is currently working on a secret project involving badgers, GM crops and disco.

Cate Mackenzie is an Accredited Sex and Relationship Therapist and works with individuals, couples and groups. She is trained in Emotionally Focussed Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Sensorimotor Therapy, Rosen Bodywork Therapy and Clean Language. She was the Dating Coach on Channel 4’s “The Undateables”, The Flirting Coach on Channel 5’s “The Jeremy Vine Show”, and Sex Therapist on Channel 4’s “Kinky Britain”. She has run workshops in six countries and is regularly on the radio and in the press. She has two podcasts, performed comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe and paints hearts which were sold in 80 countries through IKEA.

Dr Deba Choudhury-Peters is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience. She is the founder of DCP Therapy an independent psychological therapy practice established for almost 10 years based in the City of London and Surrey. Dr Deba takes a tailor-made holistic approach to all cases and uses a range of clinical models including Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Experiential Dynamic Therapies and Schema Therapy. Dr Deba works with a wide range of complex psychological problems and specialises in trauma therapy. She offers treatment for both childhood and adulthood traumas including psychological and physical traumas. In her former NHS position, her specialist role was at the Institute of Psychotrauma and The Royal London Hospital working on an innovative psychological service in the Maxillo-facial Trauma Surgery Team. She has published in this area and presented at both national and international conferences on facial trauma and psychology. Dr Deba has also published articles for the general public and presented on a radio show during the Covid-19 pandemic. She offers training to services/teams to inform management of psychological difficulties as well as clinical supervision to other Clinical Psychologists.

Diana is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Mental Health at Leeds Beckett University. As a dual qualified Social Worker and Solution Focused Psychotherapist, Diana has extensive experience in supporting children and adults in both statutory services and private practice. Diana’s current PhD research is on trauma informed practice, meaning she looks at attachment, childhood developmental trauma and adult adversity – and how services and organisations can better recognise and care for people who suffer from traumatic stress.

Harry Cliff is a particle physicist based at the University of Cambridge and carries out research with the LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. He was a curator at the Science Museum, London for seven years. His 2015 TED talk "Have We Reached the End of Physics?" has been viewed more than 3 million times.

Dr Helen Nuttall is a passionate science communicator and Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University UK, where she leads the Neuroscience of Speech and Action (NoSA) Laboratory. The NoSA Lab investigate research questions surrounding how speech, action, and cognition are represented in the brain, our neuroplastic ability, and how our brains are affected by ageing and disease. She uses a variety of methods including brain imaging and brain stimulation to understand the links between the brain and our behaviour.

Joseph Pack is a founder with ADHD. He’s also co-founder of drugfreeadhd.org, where he is exploring the possibilities for drug-free ADHD. Joseph was diagnosed ADHD at 27 after suffering 5 seizures from years of self-medication and workaholism. Since then, he’s been on a 6 year journey of self-experimentation to see if he can manage ADHD without medication. He’s tried almost everything. Sticking with what works and ditching the rest. He shares his unique insights on LinkedIn, his weekly newsletter and on his podcast, Quick Start Founder. Joseph has given lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham University and General Assembly. And speaks at events and conferences across the UK.

Dr Judith Mohring is a consultant psychiatrist with over 25 years' experience as a medical doctor, coach, therapist and trainer. She now works as an organisational and lifestyle psychiatrist leading a team delivering lifestyle prescriptions to individuals and organisations. Lifestyle prescribing uses evidence-based techniques to inform behaviour change through the science of wellbeing. It can be applied on an individual or organisational level: as prevention, treatment and to build resilience.

Keith Abraham was a paratrooper who experienced great trauma in combat situations. After switching careers to JP Morgan, Keith found traditional methods of dealing with this trauma weren’t working. This left him hopeless, and he flew to Peru to experience Ayahuasca. You will hear Keith’s incredible story of transformation and how he now helps other veterans through their struggles by using Ayahuasca, through Heroic Hearts UK.

Laura Hanbury is a clinician and PhD research student at Royal Holloway University. Laura’s overall work is centred around the study of how behaviours develop in the context of experienced attachment trauma and how behaviours adapt and change over the course of a lifetime. Having worked in the field of child protection for over 16 years, she also works as an independent lecturer, author and trainer, specialising in the analysis of family dynamics and behavioural responses.

Laura Elin Pigott is a Clinical Neuroscientist; She is the youngest person in the U.K to become a lecturer and at the age of 22 started teaching Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation at LSBU. Laura strives to share her passion for neuroscience and health care with everyone. After all, there is so much of the human brain we know nothing about, which to her just means there is so much left to discover. We can all take part in these discoveries. She started her career in Physiotherapy but quickly sought out the underlying processes of neurological disease and rehabilitation. Her research focuses on neural mechanisms, circuitry and electrophysiology of neurological disease at the Neurophysiology Unit, UCL and Cancer surveillance and progression in the brain at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology, NHNN.

Lindsay Dukes is a Clinical Sexologist / Sex & Relationship Therapist specialising in Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity (GSRD) including Kink, BDSM & Consensual Non-Monogamy. Lindsay has been working with, and within kink communities across the UK, Europe and Asia as a writer, performer and educator since 2015. Her therapeutic work focuses on re-centring consent, communication and pleasure as radical components for human connectivity.

Dr Lori Beth Bisbey is a psychologist, accredited advanced GSRD (gender, sex, relationship diversity) therapist, sex & intimacy coach, author, podcast host speaker and resident specialist therapist on Open House: The Great Sex Experiment (channel 4). She has been working with people for the past 35 years to help them create and maintain incredible relationships that contain exciting sex and are without shame. She specialises in GSRD - which is gender, sex, and relationship diversity (which includes non-monogamy, kink and BDSM) and the treatment of trauma.

Dr Lucy Thompson is a research psychologist interested in early child development, neurodiversity, and parenting support. Her research work is driven by a passion for ensuring that all children and families can access the right services for recognising, understanding, and supporting mental wellbeing and functional difficulties associated with ADHD and related conditions. She is a chartered psychologist with a PhD in psychology and a master’s in public health. She currently works as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen Institute of Applied Health Science, is affiliated with the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre at Gothenburg University, Sweden, and has an honorary research fellow position at the University of Glasgow School of Health and Wellbeing. She has recently begun training as an ADHD coach.

Moudou Baqui is a Detroit native and visionary community organizer. He served as the spokesperson and principle organizer of Prop E Decriminalization of Entheogens in Detroit, which successfully passed in 2021. Under the tutelage of Kilindi Iyi, he has studied African combative martial arts and sacred plants use and culture for over 20 years. He was exposed to the knowledge and application, cultivation and cultural history of entheogens. He has further continued his studies of ancient human history, metacognition, and entheogens via travel on several continents. He currently sits on the National Decriminalize Nature Board. He is the founder of H.U.U.D Noetics (Healing Urban Communities Through Unleashed Divinity) an organization dedicated to educating the public on the major benefits of psychedelics as a therapeutic tool for addiction and depression. He works as a psychedelic coach for mental health professionals in a nationally recognized Psychedelic Therapy training program. His work has been featured in 2022 Psychedelia magazine series.

Mourad is a senior registrar in psychiatry, currently working with the Regional Affective Disorder team in Newcastle (part of the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust (CNTW)). Being of Egyptian origin, Mourad came to the UK nine years ago to work in Psychiatry with a special interest in mood disorders, substance misuse, and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, and has dedicated his career to combining his passions. . He is the lead for the psychedelic service in Newcastle which is currently in development after taking part in its first project investigating psilocybin for treatment resistant depression. The service aims to facilitate the delivery of psychedelic therapy within the region, both through hosting further research trials and raising awareness to clinicians and the general public.

Dr Peter Sloane is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Film at the University of Buckingham. He has published widely on film and fiction, including the monographs David Foster Wallace and the Body (Routledge, 2019), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Gestural Poetics (Bloomsbury, 2021), and edited collections Kazuo Ishiguro: 21 st Century Perspectives (Manchester University Press, 2023) and ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). He works closely on the intersections of film and text, and on the postmodern.

Rayna Denison is Professor of Film and Digital Arts at the University of Bristol. Her books Anime: A Critical Introduction (2015) and Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History (2023) explore the histories and cultures of Japanese animation. Rayna is widely published on anime, popular animation and popular cinema topics, and her work can be found everywhere from academic journals like Cinema Journal through to popular sites like The Conversation. Rayna’s current projects include work on representations of disability in anime, as well as animation’s transformative cultural potential.

Rebecca Harding is a neuropsychopharmacologist at University College London. She has a varied experience of working within the psychedelic field. She previously worked in the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry as a Research Scientist for Clerkenwell Health. She completed her Master's thesis at the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, which used brain imaging to look at the difference between antidepressants and psilocybin for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. Her current work focuses on how and why psychedelics can be used to treat addiction.

Rob is co-founder of Inwardbound psilocybin retreats in the Netherlands (www.inwardbound.nl), where for the past five years he has facilitated hundreds of people through a psilocybin retreat process for healing and personal transformation. Rob is a university lecturer, has a Graduate Diploma in Counselling and Integrative Psychotherapy (Dublin City University), is an accredited psychotherapist (MIACP) and is a professional member of MIND- the European Foundation for Psychedelic Science. He is also a qualified Shamanic Counsellor at the Irish Centre for Shamanic and Transpersonal Studies (Dunderry Park), and has finished an 8 year training as a Transpersonal Therapist in the tradition of Dr. Stan Grof. He passionately believes that the only way to create change in the world is through inner psychological work, and his work has been around reconnecting people to themselves, to each other and to nature.

Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author, speaker and broadcaster who has appeared many times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour, Saturday Live and Four Thought and at major festivals around the world. The creator of global hit podcast and book The Breakup Monologues, she has spent the last decade interviewing scientists, sociologists and psychotherapists to investigate the psychology of human relationships. Known for an immersive and very personal style of storytelling that has earned her the nickname ‘the lesbian Louis Theroux’, Rosie has performed comedy at a sex party, participated in a ‘sex lab’ and conducted surveys asking ‘what counts as cheating?’ - all in the name of ‘research’. She uses humour to accessibly unpack the broader life lessons about improving the quality of our human relationships that she has unearthed in these unusual situations.

Sam is a PhD ecologist and independent researcher. He has varied experience of working within the psychedelic field, including as a past scientific assistant to the director of the Beckley Foundation and as a research assistant with the Synthesis Institute. His work has also involved science communication, including a past role as a senior science writer for Wavepaths. A lifelong nature lover, he has a research interest in the capacity of psychedelics to influence human relationships with nature, and is a collaborator with the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. His main work focus is within the ecological field, working as Innovation Team Leader with environmental consultancy Ecosulis.

Professor Sophie Scott CBE is Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She studies the neurobiology of human vocal communication, from speech and sound to social interactions and non verbal emotional expressions, such as laughter. Sophie has appeared on The One Show (BBC1) and Sunday Brunch (C4) multiple times among a slew of other TV appearances. Her TED talk ‘Why We Laugh’ has over 5 million views! Sophie is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Science and has published over 130 scientific papers. Her first book ‘The Brain: ten things you need to know’ is coming out this autumn.

Tim LeBon is a founder member of the non-profit organisation Modern Stoicism, for which he is Director of Research. Tim is an accredited CBT therapist working in the NHS and private practice in the UK. His latest book is 365 Ways to be More Stoic (John Murray, 2022).He is the author of two previous books, Wise Therapy and Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology and lectures on Positive Psychology and Stoicism on the short-course programme at City University, London.

Tom is a lecturer of mental health nursing and a speaker, trainer, and advocate for neurodiversity and ADHD. Tom's PhD project explores the lived experiences of parents whose children are undergoing ADHD assessment, listening to, and retelling their changing stories over a period of two years: From waiting list, to diagnosis, to living with a diagnosis. Tom is a registered mental health nurse with experience working within the neurodevelopmental assessment service within the Children and Young People's service. Diagnosed with ADHD in childhood, Tom uses his personal lived experience of ADHD alongside his clinical and academic background to give a multitude of perspectives to his work.

Dr Veronica Lamarche is a social-personality psychologist and relationship researcher at the University of Essex. Veronica's work stems from the big question "What makes some couples more resilient in the face of uncertainty?" She is particularly interested in understanding how people maintain relationships by balancing trust and dependence, and how feelings of vulnerability and uncertainty can upend these efforts.

Dr. Zara Brodie is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on the impact of childhood adversity on attachment security and interpersonal functioning in adulthood, with a particular interest in the role of emotions and maladaptive behaviours in romantic relationships. She has worked with domestic abuse charities to examine the impact of COVID-19 on domestic abuse.