Viren is Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University and Director of the Centre for Psychological Medicine, a collaborative research centre between Anglia Ruskin University and Perdana University in Malaysia. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and an Associate Editor for the journal Body Image. Viren is the author of Attraction Explained, The Psychology of Physical Attraction, and The Missing Arms of Vénus de Milo, as well as over 250 peer-reviewed publications.

Viren’s work on human appearance and body image is focused on situating embodiment within different cultural and socio-political contexts. He is particularly interested in cross-cultural differences in beauty ideals and body image, and his research seeks to map changing rates of negative body image across different world regions. His other research on body image borrows concepts from first-wave feminist scholarship to examine the way in which beauty ideals and practices shift awareness away from real competencies to superficial aspects related to beauty and appearance. The aim of this research is to identify factors that might protect women and men from body image concerns and disordered eating. Separately, Viren also studies mental health literacy or the knowledge and beliefs that non-experts hold about mental health and illness. His work on mental health literacy is particularly focused on the ways in which masculinities impede adequate knowledge of mental health disorders and help-seeking for symptoms of mental illness.

Colin Davidson is a neuropharmacologist and neurochemist. His main research interest is in drug abuse, and he has studied many of the new psychoactive substances or ‘legal highs’. He is particularly interested in their pharmacology and their effects on transmitter release. Previously, while an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Duke University, he tested novel pharmacotherapies for stimulant abuse. He has also published in the field of Stroke where he has an interest in pre-ischaemic conditioning. His PhD was in the field of antidepressants and 5-HT efflux.

Colin was Head of School in the School of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire (2017-23). Previously Colin held faculty positions at St George’s University of London, University of Leicester and Duke University Medical Centre. Colin has a BSc in Biology & Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, a PhD from Queen Mary’s, University of London and was a postdoc at the University of St Andrews.

Lauren has over ten years’ experience in cancer care, managing all tumour types across all adult and paediatric age groups. She worked as a senior oncology dietitian at Peter Mac for close to 10 years, as well as working as a paediatric dietitian at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne before leading the team of dietitians at Epworth Freemasons. She is passionate about applying her knowledge food elements, nutrients and eating patterns to prevent, manage and recover from cancer and a range of other health conditions. She has a passion for nurturing you from the inside out and is committed to supporting you to tailor your lifestyle to feel the best version of yourself. She is passionate and experienced with the management of gastrointestinal disorders, including those related to surgical or anatomical changes, cancer treatment and other medical interventions, functional gut disorders and irritable bowel syndrome. She takes a holistic approach to managing your symptoms and gut health. Lauren is a member of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Nutrition Group Executive Committee and has been recognised for her expertise in nutritional management of adolescent and young adult cancer care and cancer care planning at a national level. She provides education, research and training to Deakin University, University of Melbourne and Swinburne University.

João has a degree in medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon (2007). He is currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Medical Sciences Abel Salazar, since 2015, researching autoinflation as alternative in the treatment of Otitis Media with Effusion (OME) He is a specialist in Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery at the Hospital de Santo António since 2014. Area of sub specialization: Ear pathology and auditory rehabilitation. Joao is also a coordinator of the Cochlear Implants Team at CHUPorto (National Reference Center), since 2018. And a visiting Professor in School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences – Porto since 2014 and ENT Coordinator since 2022.

Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is a Professor at University College London and the Natural History Museum of Denmark. He is a co-founder of the leading AI geospatial analytics company Rezatec Ltd and he was a Royal Society Industrial Fellow. He is science advisor to Transition Lab, Sopra-Steria, Net Zero Now, Lansons, and Sheep Inc. He is member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. Maslin is a leading scientist with particular expertise in past and future global and regional climatic change and has publish over 195 papers in journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Climate Change, The Lancet and Geology. He has been awarded research council, charity and Government research and postgraduate training grants of over £75 million.

Professor Maslin has presented over 50 public talks over the last three years for example: Twitter (EU/Asia), New Scientist Live, Guardian ‘Master Classes’, Google (UK), Global Leaders Forum (South Korea), RGS, Royal Society, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hay literature festival, Harvard, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge Universities etc. He has supervised 15 Research fellows, 20 PhD students and over 60 MSc students. He has also have written 10 popular books, over 80 popular articles (e.g., The Conversation, New Scientist, Geographical magazine, The Times, Independent and Guardian), appeared on radio and television (including Timeteam, Newsnight, Dispatches, Horizon, The Today Programme, Briefing Room, BBC News, Channel 5 News, and Sky News). He was also one of the key presenters of Sir David Attenborough’s BBC One ‘Climate Change: The Facts’. His books include the high successful ‘Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction’ (OUP, 2021), ‘The Cradle of Humanity’ (OUP, 2019), ‘The Human Planet: How we created the Anthropocene’ co-authored with Simon Lewis (Penguin, 2018) and ‘How to save our planet: the facts’ (Penguin, 2021). Maslin was also a co-author of the 2009 Lancet report ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’ and a contributor the annual Lancet Commission on climate change and global health.

Prof. Maslin was included in Who’s Who for the first time in 2009 and was granted a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award for the study of early human evolution in East Africa in 2011. He is currently the Co-Director of the London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership.

Dr. Geil has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Ohio State University. He is currently Professor of Biomechanics and Associate Dean for Research in the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta, Georgia. He also holds adjunct faculty appointments at Georgia State University and Georgia Tech.

Dr. Geil conducts research in pediatric biomechanics, studying ways to improve mobility in children with amputations and neurological movement disorders.

Jenny Graves is an evolutionary geneticist whose research exploits the genetic diversity of Australia’s unique mammals as a source of genetic variation to study the organisation, function and evolution of mammalian genomes. This has lead to new theories of the origin and evolution of human sex chromosomes and sex determining genes.

Jenny is Distinguished Professor and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University, Professor Emeritus at ANU and Thinker-in-Residence at the University of Canberra.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and served on the Executive for eight years, first as Foreign Secretary, then as Secretary for Education and Public Affairs. She was elected a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Science USA in 2019.

Jenny is an international L’Oreal-UNESCO Laureate (2006) and has made many contributions to women in science at the local and international level. She was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in 2009 and a Companion in the Order of Australia (AC) in 2022. She won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in 2017, the first woman to be individually recognised.

Anthony Hew is an Addiction and General Psychiatrist working in both public and private practice. He is a current PhD candidate with Monash University at Turning Point. His PhD project is focused on the use of big data and data linkage to reduce the impact of addiction, self-harm and mental ill health at a population level.

Dr Bethany Boulton is a Queensland FACEM who has developed an interest the important topic of physician wellbeing and belongs to the group WRaPEM (Wellness Resilience and Performance in Emergency Medicine). She co-wrote a chapter on physician health for the Australian bible of Emergency Medicine and organises annual workshops on Performance Optimisation. More recently, she has added medical writing and playing football (the world’s game) to her list of hobbies. When she is not travelling the world attending Physician Health conferences, she can be found using ingredients such as black beans and zucchini to create the perfect paleo brownie much to the disgust of her two sugar loving children. Bethany dreams of living in a world where active wear bears no stigma and physicians thrive, not just survive.

Dr Brooke Harcourt is an approachable Nutrition Therapist with over a decade of experience in infant and child nutrition and metabolism conditions. She is passionate about giving children the best chance for health over the course of their life and believes that excellent early life nutrition is key for this. She understands that some members of the community have trouble accessing nutrition because of developmental conditions, disabilities and delayed skill development. She has an in-depth knowledge of the development of eating processes and skill development, the reasons behind food choices and optimising eating environments; so can help parents and children work towards making positive changes to their nutrition intake.

Dr Harcourt is an SOS Feeding Therapist, but recognises this is not suitable for all clients so incorporates multiple approaches into her therapy design including responsive feeding therapy and food chaining.

More recently, Dr Harcourt has enjoyed teaching and passing on her feeding therapy methods to the newer Family Dietetics team members. This has allowed her practice to expand and ultimately help more learn how to love and access more foods.

Dr Sanjiva Wijesinha trained in Sri Lanka and Oxford and passed the AMC exam in 1996. He was Associate Professor of General Practice at Monash University and a senior medical officer in the Australian Army reserve. He still practises as a GP in Melbourne.

Dr Nicholas Aroney is a Queensland born, bred and educated Interventional and Structural Cardiologist. He achieved First Class Honours in his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from Griffith University in 2011. He achieved a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in Adult Cardiology after appointments at the Royal Brisbane and Prince Charles Hospitals. Following this, he performed a two year coronary and structural fellowship at The Prince Charles Hospital. In 2020-21, Nick was the Structural Heart Fellow at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, United Kingdom, a worldwide centre of excellence in TAVI, adult structural and adult congenital heart procedures. Whilst at St Thomas’, Nick was involved with international trials and first-in-man procedures. Dr Aroney’s main interests are coronary and structural intervention, cardiac 3D modelling and 3D printing. He has published manuscripts and abstracts in peer-reviewed journals and presents regularly at national and international conferences. He performs coronary and structural interventions including; percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and adult congenital interventions (PFO, ASD, PDA). Dr Aroney works from St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside as well as Mater Public and Mater Private Hospital’s South Brisbane. He is a proud member of Heart of Australia, providing cardiac services to regional Queensland and is an associate lecturer for The University of Queensland.