Refocus on Recovery 2025 international conference
Scientific Advisory Board
The concept for our conference has been developed by a scientific advisory board, who bring a mixture of lived experience, practitioner, and academic perspectives and identities.
The scientific advisory board will decide which abstracts are given a platform at the conference, and allocate full (20 minute) and lightning (1 minute) presentation slots. Only 12 abstracts can be accepted for full presentations, and we always receive a large number of high quality abstracts.
Therefore, in their selection of who to provide a platform to, the scientific advisory board will seek to strike a balance between lived experience perspectives and empirical research studies, seeking to enable contributions from a diverse range of delegates.
Scientific advisory board members are:
Sandra Ferreira (Global Mental Health Peer Network)
Sandra has been a teacher, manager and leader in various fields, primarily in Education and Mental Health Advocacy. She holds an Honours Degree in Educational Management and is person with lived experience of bipolar. She is currently the Global Manager for the Global Mental Health Peer Network (GMHPN).
The GMHPN is an international organisation that builds capacity among people with lived experience of a mental health condition through empowerment, mentorship and support. The GMHPN’s vision is to empower experts by experience to emerge as influential agents of change who contribute significantly to reshaping global mental health narratives and transform policies worldwide.
Emma Watson (Imroc)
Emma is the Peer Support Lead at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, and the Programme Lead for research, publications and development at Imroc. She started working as a peer worker in 2010 and has since worked in a variety of peer roles. Her PhD explored the experience of peer workers in the NHS, and she continues to be interested in how systems impose meaning on ‘lived experience’, and how this affects the individuals working within them. She is co-editor of peer support in mental health, the first book to be published on the subject in the UK. Outside of work, Emma loves reading, climbing, and chasing after her daughter Lola.
Alex Russell (Harvard Medical Schooll)
Alex is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Research Scientist at the Recovery Research Institute and National Center on Youth Prevention, Treatment and Recovery within Massachusetts General Hospital. His research, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), focuses on the intersection of media, technology, and alcohol use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery. More specifically, he is interested in how digital technology can be used to address the treatment gap among youth and young adults.
Catherine Conchar (Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust)
Catherine is the Associate Director of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She has worked within the private and education sectors for over 25 years, both operationally and strategically, helping drive forward EDI, challenging discrimination, tackling health inequalities, and working with services to ensure that they consider and meet individual needs. She is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Her PhD, from the University of Nottingham, explored the experiences of staff with lived experience of mental health problems within a UK mental health trust. She is a champion of the value of lived experience in the workplace and the resounding power and strength of the wounded healer.
Fiona Ng (University of Nottingham, conference co-chair)
Fiona is a mental health researcher working at the Institute of Mental Health and School of Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She is the Principal Investigator on the Evaluating Positive Changes in Psychosis (EPOCH) Study which is developing a new digital intervention to support posttraumatic growth in psychosis. Her other research interests include mental health recovery, meaning making, digital interventions in mental health.
Stefan Rennick-Egglestone (University of Nottingham, conference co-chair)
Stefan is a mental health researcher working in the Institute of Mental Health (Nottingham, UK). He was the co-ordinator for the NIHR-funded Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) study which has looked at how our stories of recovery from mental health problems can help others. Through NEON, Stefan has been deeply involved in work to examine how organisations can use mental health recovery stories in an ethical and responsible manner, and hence avoid misuse of what can be very sensitive material. Stefan brings his own lived experience of mental health problems to his work, and advocates for greater inclusion of lived experience perspectives in healthcare research and practice. He has a PhD from the University of Nottingham, looking at how novel rehabilitation technologies can find a place in the homes of stroke survivors. He has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.