Registration
Registration

Keynote Speakers

  1. home
  2. Conference
  3. Keynote Speakers

Featured Speakers

Meet Our Keynote Speakers

Benjamin Schüz

University of Bremen, Germany

Provisional title:

The Unequal Everyday: How Socioeconomic Conditions and Contexts Shape Health Behaviour

Brief bio

C
Benjamin Schüz is Professor of Public Health at the University of Bremen. He has previously held positions at the University of Tasmania, Australia and has completed his PhD at Freie Universität Berlin. His research examines how socioeconomic circumstances shape the interactions between individual and contextual determinants of health behaviours, and what this means for the design of interventions.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad

Brigham Young University, USA

Provisional title:

The Social Context of Health: Making Social Connection a Health Imperative

Brief bio

C
Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad is a distinguished professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University. She is also the co-director of the Social Connection in America, a 25-year national survey, and the founder of the Social Connection Institute. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering research on social connection and health, including seminal findings showing that lacking social connection is a major risk factor for premature mortality comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. She is recognized by Clarivate as one of the top 1% most influential scientists in the world.

She served as the lead author of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Isolation and Loneliness and advises global organizations, including the WHO, CDC, United Nations, and OECD. Her work bridges science and policy to advance evidence-based action for a healthier, more connected society. Her TEDx talk and frequent media features have helped bring global attention to the critical role of social connection.

Mathew White

University of Vienna, Austria

Provisional title:

The Physical Context of Health: Bridging Health and Environmental Psychology

Brief bio

C
Mat White is an Associate Prof. of Health & Environmental Psychology specialising in ecological public health and especially the role of natural environments for mental health, subjective well-being, and biopsychosocial resilience. From 2011-2020 he was coordinator of the ‘Blue Gym’ project exploring these issues in various ‘blue space’ settings and Co-I on three related international research programmes (BlueHealth; Seas Oceans & Public Health in Europe; Blue Communities in South-East Asia). He is currently Principal Investigator on the EU Horizon Europe RESONATE programme (2023-2027) developing and testing nature-based social prescribing. He has been a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2020 and has been awarded the triennial Delcroix prize for Oceans & Human Health.

María del Río Carral

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Provisional title:

Healthy Selves, Good Social Media Users, and Template-Thinking: Critical Reflections on Impact in Health Psychology

Brief bio

C
To be announced