Speaker biographies

Nicola Steuer, Head of Centre for Well-being at the new economics foundation

Nicola Steuer joined nef (the new economics foundation) in June 2006 and is Head of its Centre for Well-being where she leads work on quality of life and people’s well-being. She has particular interests in the role of well-being in public policy and local service delivery, including how a greater understanding of people’s experience of life can inform the way policies and initiatives to enhance quality of life and well-being are designed, delivered and evaluated. 

Nicola has recently undertaken work with the Audit Commission, Young Foundation, Improvement and Development Agency and Professor Richard Layard at the LSE to explore how people’s subjective well-being could be measured at a local authority level. She has also designed measurement tools for the Big Lottery Fund’s Well-being Programme and assessed people’s well-being in regeneration areas, such as Margate and Wigan. 

Prior to joining nef, Nicola led research and consultancy work as Deputy Director at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES).

Sherry Clark, Well London DIY Happiness Mental Health Promotion Coordinator, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Sherry Clark currently works as a mental health promotion coordinator at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). 

In 2007, Sherry and Tony Coggins, head of mental health promotion at SLaM, developed the idea for what is now the Well London DIY Happiness project. Through DIY Happiness, people living in 20 of London’s most disadvantaged communities will be using positive psychology principles to design their own ‘recipes for happiness’. 

Sherry is particularly interested in designing and developing participative approaches to promoting positive psychology in urban environments and other community settings. Her interest in this area was sparked in 2005 after taking part in Glasgow’s Centre for Confidence and Well-being Vanguard Programme and through her participation in the first UK Positive Psychology tele-course run by the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Warwick.  

In 2005, Sherry co-authored “Hidden work: co-production by people outside paid employment’ while at the new economics foundation (nef) and wrote ‘You Cannot Be Serious: a guide to involving volunteers with mental health problems’ while at the National Centre for Volunteering in 2003. 

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health services for over 1 million people in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark. 

Samantha Heath, Chief Executive, London Sustainability Exchange
Samantha Heath joined LSx as Director in September 2005, and brings a wealth of experience in delivering sustainable development in London. She is a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission, and held the position of co-chair from September 2004 - October 2005.
A qualified construction engineer, Samantha worked for 10 years in the construction industry before moving into London politics. She has been a Member of the London Assembly, and served as its Deputy Chair in 2003-4. Before moving to LSx, her most recent post was as Sustainability Manager for Future London, the capital's regeneration centre of excellence.
Samantha's knowledge of London's public and private sectors mean she is well placed to lead LSx in delivering sustainability across the city.

Workshop leader biographies

Dr Marcia Brophy, Wellbeing Programme Leader, Young Foundation 

Before joining the Young Foundation Marcia was a Senior Evaluation and Research Analyst at the Big Lottery Fund and was responsible for developing and implementing strategies for evaluating the impact of BIG's funding streams. She also identified and led on new dissemination approaches for these findings including organising their first UK evaluation conference "Tidy Findings in an Untidy World" in 2007.

Previously Marcia led the first ever UK-wide Inquiry into Self-harm among Young People, funded by the Mental Health Foundation and the Camelot Foundation. This influential Inquiry identified and commissioned innovative approaches to react and influence current knowledge, practice and policy in this field. She has also been the Research Manager at Safe in the City, a SRB-funded action research programme established to pilot new ways of preventing youth homelessness in London by working with young people and their families.

Marcia has also worked as a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry on a longitudinal examination of outcomes for English and Romanian Adoptees; at the Institute of Education examining the impact of parents on their children's employability; and has worked freelance as a consultant for PACE helping them evaluate the effectiveness of a therapeutic group work approach to HIV prevention with gay men in North London.

Marcia holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the Institute of Education and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, respectively.

Nerys Edmonds, Mental Health Promotion Co-ordinator, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Nerys Edmonds has worked in mental health for over 12 years. She worked as a mental health nurse in the voluntary and housing sectors with clients with severe and enduring mental health problems and homeless people with mental health problems and drug and alcohol issues. 

Since 2000, she has worked in mental health promotion in both the voluntary and statutory sectors. She has developed mental health promotion strategies in Lewisham and Surrey and developed and managed a range of mental health promotion programmes and also initiatives to tackle the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health problems. 

She was the National Manager for the Foyer Health programme until April last year; this programme was to improve well-being for disadvantaged 16-25 year olds living in Foyers across England. She now works for South London and Maudsley Trust leading on Mental Well-being Impact Assessment.

Professor Angela Clow, Department of Psychology, University of Westminster

Professor Angela Clow is trained in neuropharmacology, physiology and psychology and likes to work at the interface of these disciplines. For her PhD (Institute of Psychiatry, London) she investigated the function of brain dopamine receptors and during her post-doctoral studies (Royal Postgraduate Medical School) she developed an interest in the biochemistry of stress. In 1989 she joined the University of Westminster where she became a founder member of the interdisciplinary Psychophysiology and Stress Research Group (PSRG). Professor Clow's current research investigates the physiological pathways by which stress and well-being can affect health. In particular she studies daily patterns of cortisol secretion, a hormone important in the regulation of day-night cycles as well as stress responding. Professor Clow has published over 91 full-length peer-reviewed papers, 2 books, and 25 book chapters or reviews. Angela is an Honorary Vice-President of the International Stress Management Association and the Society for Coaching Psychology.
  
Currently Angela (along with Research Fellow Dr Sarah Edmunds) is working to establish a new interdisciplinary Institute of Well-being and Health at the University (WIWH). This initiative has attracted substantial University investment and brings together colleagues from across the University with a shared interest in well-being and health.  The overall aims of the WIWH are to:
•	To advance the understanding of what is meant by and what promotes well-being 
•	To investigate the links between subjective feelings of well-being and health by identifying biological processes linking the mind and the body. 
•	To translate our multifaceted understanding of well-being into the design and evaluation of effective interventions. 
•	To provide an evidence base from which we can inform future well-being and health related policy.

Dr Ilona Boniwell, Senior Lecturer in Positive Psychology, University of East London
Dr Ilona Boniwell is the programme leader for the first Masters Degree in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP), the first postgraduate degree in positive psychology in Europe. 
Ilona is the author of Positive Psychology in a Nutshell (2006, PWBC). She founded the European Network of Positive Psychology (ENPP), and is currently the member of its steering committee. Furthermore, she organised the first European Congress of Positive Psychology (June 2002, Winchester) and is the vice-chair of the newly created International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). She was a recipient of several awards and grants from the Positive Psychology Network and the Gallup Organisation. Recently, Ilona was a consultant for and appeared in the BBC2 series The Happiness Formula. Her other media work included Guardian, Times, Psychologies, Top Sante and Cosmopolitan articles and interviews, as well as radio and TV interviews for BBC 24, BBC London and other channels. She is a prolific speaker and often addresses international psychology and professional audiences. 
In addition to her academic work, Ilona is also interested in practical applications of positive psychology. She is a qualified coach and a facilitator of personal development programmes. She is a co-founder of Personal Well-Being Centre: a social enterprise dedicated to the promotion of well-being and personal development in individuals, organisations and educational settings. 
Ilona has received her PhD from the Open University. Prior to joining UEL, she worked at Oxford Brookes University and City University.
Areas of interest/Summary of Expertise:
•	Perceived time use: factors that contribute to satisfaction with time use. Relationships between time use, well-being and other measures of well-functioning. 
•	Well-being: studying the lay conceptions of well-being using qualitative methodologies. Operationalisation of the construct of eudaimonic well-being. 
•	Positive education: the development and validation of educational programmes aimed at different aspects of optimal functioning. 
•	Coaching: the evaluation of coaching effectiveness (with regard to outcomes such as increase in well-being, realisation and the use of strengths, etc.) and studying the mechanisms underlying coaching interventions. 
•	Time perspective: validation and further development of existing time perspective inventories (for example, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory).