Professor Elelwani Ramugondo, University of Cape Town 

Professor Elelwani Ramugondo is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor responsible for Transformation, Student Affairs and Social Responsiveness at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa and is passionate about student mental health. Professor Ramugondo’s work at UCT over the past 25 years has focused on leading with integrity, recognising this to be pivotal in advancing transformation and excellence as interdependent and interlinked concepts. Professor Ramugondo’s decolonial approach to teaching and convening postgraduate courses has received international recognition, leading to numerous invitations to lead symposia for postgraduate students and faculty in South America, the United Kingdom, and North America.

Dr Roscoe Kasujja, Makerere University

Dr. Roscoe Kasujja is the Chair of the Department of Mental Health and Community Psychology at Makerere University. He is also the President, Uganda Clinical Psychology Association since 2014. He has been one of the leading individuals advocating for the regulation of psychology work in Uganda. He is passionate about adaptation of both mental health interventions and measures for people in low- and middle-income countries. He is the director of Innovations at StrongMinds global where he has supported the effort of treating over 350,000 women and men suffering from depression in Uganda. He has done this by ensuring that the organization adapts and uses the most cost-effective interventions to treat Africans suffering with depression at scale.

Dr China Mills, Healing Justice London

Dr. China Mills (she/her) is the Disability Justice Lead at Healing Justice London. She manages the Deaths by Welfare Project, exploring how welfare policies harm people and what can be learned from the strategies of disabled people and bereaved families in fighting for justice. Formerly a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London, Dr. Mills' research and teaching in the area of global mental health focuses on state and corporate production of harm, distress and deaths by suicide. Dr. Mills is author of the book Decolonizing Global Mental Health: the Psychiatrization of the Majority World (published in 2014 by Routledge).

Professor Paul Cook, University of Leeds

Professor Paul Cooke is the Centenary Chair in World Cinemas at the University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. His areas of expertise include World Cinemas; Participatory Video; Arts for Development; the role of arts-based practices in mental health research; community engagement and AMR; Cultural Studies; GDR Studies; German Cinema. Professor Cooke's research interests include arts-based mental health research and how using creative practices like music, theatre, dance, drawing, and poetry can bring new insights and understanding about adolescent mental health in ways that traditional, often adult-led, research methods cannot.

Professor Siobhan Hugh-Jones, University of Leeds

Professor Siobhan Hugh-Jones is Professor in Mental Health Psychology at the University of Leeds School of Psychology. Her areas of expertise include adolescent mental health (UK and LMICs); public mental health; school-based interventions; digital interventions; implementation science; participatory, arts, co-design and qualitative methods. Professor Hugh-Jones is interested in understanding the nature, origin and experience of mental health difficulties, particularly in adolescents, and in investigating the potential of co-designed programs as prevention and early intervention. She is also interested in global mental health, and in working with collaborators in low-and-middle income countries, to address adolescent mental health in different contexts, with varying conceptualisations of mental health, resources and needs. Along with Professor Sarah Waters, Professor Hugh-Jones leads the University of Leeds Interdisciplinary Mental Health Network and is involved in setting up the University’s Patient and Public Involvement Panel to support mental health research informed by those with lived experience.

Professor Ghazala Mir, University of Leeds

Professor Ghazala Mir is a Professor of Health Equity and Inclusion at the University of Leeds School of Medicine. Her areas of expertise include health inequalities; health and public service development; ethnicity; religion; social inclusion; and discrimination. Professor Mir is currently the Research Lead at the Nuffield Centre for Health and International Development and her research projects focus on the experience of people underserved by health services and seldom heard in decision-making about health policy and practice. Professor Mir has substantial experience of translating research findings into policy and practice through education and training, engagement with policy bodies and participatory research that brings together service users, practitioners and policymakers in order to develop health services.