Samira Ahmed

Samira Ahmed is a multi-award winning journalist and broadcaster with a special focus on culture, politics, and social change. She won Audio Broadcaster of the Year at the 2020 British Press Guild Awards for her work as a presenter of Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and her podcast How I Found My Voice.

Susie Alegre

Susie Alegre is an international lawyer, author, and speaker. She has worked on some of the most challenging legal and political issues of our time, including: human rights and security; combatting corruption in the developing world; protecting human rights at borders; the human rights impact of climate change on small island states; and privacy, cybersecurity, disinformation, data protection, and neurotech. Her experience includes both judicial, and oversight roles in the UK and internationally.

She has particular expertise on tech ethics and neuroscience through the lens of human rights, bringing both legal skills and a background in philosophy to the key ethical questions of our time.

Her book Freedom to Think: The Long Struggle to Liberate our Minds, argues that only by recasting our human rights for the digital age can we safeguard our future, has been chosen as one of the Financial Times’ Best Summer Books of 2022, and is longlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.

Callum Brown

Callum G. Brown is Professor of Late Modern European History at the University of Glasgow, UK. He is author of The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000, Religion and the Demographic Revolution, Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West, and, with David Nash and Charlie Lynch, The Humanist Movement in Modern Britain.

Andrew Copson

Andrew is Chief Executive of Humanists UK. He became Chief Executive in 2010 after five years coordinating Humanists UK’s education and public affairs work. Andrew is also current President of Humanists International.

He is the author of Secularism: A Very Short Introduction and, with Alice Roberts, The Little Book of Humanism and The Little Book of Humanist Weddings. The Little Book of Humanist Funerals, also with Alice Roberts, will be published in on 8 June 2023.

Clare Delderfield

Clare Delderfield is Chair of Humanist and Secularist Liberal Democrats.

Bobby Duffy

Bobby Duffy is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute. He has worked across most public policy areas in his career of 30 years in policy research and evaluation, including being seconded to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

Bobby sits on several advisory boards including Chairing both the Campaign for Social Science and the CLOSER Advisory Board, is a member of the Executive of the Academy of Social Sciences, a trustee of British Future and the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) and a Senior Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.

His first book, The Perils of Perception – Why we’re wrong about nearly everything, was published by Atlantic books in several countries, drawing on a set of global studies on how people misperceive key social realities. His latest book,

Generations – Does when you’re born shape who you are?

, came out in September 2021 and challenges myths and stereotypes around generational trends, seeking a greater understanding around generational challenges.

Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and an elected Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. He has been awarded the Osman Hill Medal and the Huxley Medal. His popular science books include The Human Story, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, and Human Evolution, and, most recently, How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures. They have been translated into a dozen languages.

Chris French

Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a patron of Humanists UK. He has published over 150 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. His most recent book is Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience.

Neil Garratt AM

Neil Garratt is a Member of the London Assembly, for Croydon and Sutton.

Madeleine Goodall

Madeleine is the Humanist Heritage Coordinator for Humanists UK, researching and writing about the history of humanism to celebrate the organisation’s 125th birthday. She has a background in education, museums, and community history, and is also Humanists UK’s Wikimedian in Residence.

She currently leads on a two-year National Lottery Heritage Fund project – Humanist Heritage: doers, dreamers, place makers – which focuses on the remarkable freethinkers and activists who changed the world, and the communities they built around them.

Robin Ince

Robin Ince is many things: a comedian, an author, a broadcaster and a populariser of scientific ideas. The Guardian once declared him a ‘becardiganed polymath’ which seems about right.

He is probably best known as the co-host of the Sony Gold Award winning BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox. He also co-hosts the podcast Book Shambles with Josie Long, An Uncanny Hour and Science Shambles with Dr Helen Czerski, all three of which are a part of The Cosmic Shambles Network, which he also co-created.

His 2018 book, I’m a Joke and So Are You, was described by Chortle as ‘one of the best books ever written about what it means to be a comedian’.

Emily Kenway

Emily Kenway writes and speaks about thought-provoking social issues. Drawing on a decade-long career working in social justice, from campaigning for living wages to tackling worker exploitation, alongside a MSc with Distinction in Social and Political Theory, she researches and writes about crucial forces shaping our lives and communities.

As a writer of political thought, Emily has been published by the Guardian, Independent, Huffington Post, Times Literary Supplement and more. Her memoir and creative non-fiction writing has been published in several literary magazines. In 2020, Emily was shortlisted for the Alpine Writing Fellowship and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Zion Lights

Zion Lights is a passionate science advocate and writer who wants to change the world for the better. She is the author of the evidence-based book The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting</em?, the nature poetry book Only a Moment, and has contributed to humanitarian Rob Greenfield’s Zero Waste Kids

In 2018 when working as a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, Zion also founded The Hourglass newspaper, the first climate reporting newspaper in the UK. Hourglass reached a print run of 180,000 copies that were distributed across the UK by a network of volunteers.

Zion was the Co-Editor of JUNO magazine, and has written for the Metro, openDemocracy, Byline Times, Gal-dem, Telegraph, BBC Wildlife Magazine, City AM, Resurgence magazine, the Ecologist and internationally for Die Welt, la Tribune, Atlantico.fr, Marianne, le Point, l’Opinion, l’Express, and other publications.

Zion has an MSc in Science Communication from The University of the West of England (UWE) and lives in Devon, UK, with her two children. Zion is an astronomer and her TED talk, Don’t Forget to Look Up, is on the importance of stargazing. Zion is also an Honorary Member of Saving our Planet.

S I Martin

Specialising in the fields of Black British history and literature, S I Martin works with museums, archives and the education sector to bring diverse histories to wider audiences. He has published five books of historical fiction and non-fiction for adult and teenage readers.

He founded the 500 Years of Black London walks nearly 20 years ago in response to the low profile given to the Black historical presence on the capital’s streets. He has consistently encouraged and championed the provision of plaques, street names, and street furniture to this end.

He has worked with and for the Black Cultural Archives, National Maritime Museum, the V&A, Tate Britain, London Metropolitan Archives, National Portrait Gallery, Horniman Museum, The National Archives, RAF Museum, Wellcome Trust, and many others. He regularly provides workshops and sessions for heritage institutions, schools, borough councils, and community groups across the country.

He is a firm believer in the power of archives as an agent of positive change for literacy, social cohesion, and audience/visitor development.

Lee Peart

Lee Peart is a comedian, presenter, broadcaster and actor. He gigs at all the major comedy clubs across the UK including The Comedy Store, Komedia, The Glee Club and The Stand, and has previously supported Jason Manford and Judi Love on their UK tour, as well as TikTok sensations and comedians Kevin James Thornton and Steff Todd.

As well as being the resident warm-up act for ITV’s Loose Women, he has also warmed up audiences for some of the biggest shows on TV, including Strictly Come Dancing, Britain’s Got Talent, Netflix’s Dance Monsters and Love Island: Aftersun, and was the main stage warm-up for This Morning Live & Loose Women Late​.

He has been a regular contributor on BBC Radio London, BBC Radio Manchester and Gaydio – discussing the morning papers and providing insight and comedic commentary on the latest news.

He has his own podcast, Let’s Talk with Lee Peart – on it he has interviewed the likes of Lorraine Kelly, Tom Allen, Nadia Sawalha, Gloria Hunniford OBE, and more. He also has a weekly podcast called ‘Fab Life with Lauren & Lee’ which was featured in OK! magazine and the Sunday Express as podcast pick of the week.

Kate Pickett

Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology, Deputy Director of the Centre for Future Health, and Associate Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, all at the University of York. Kate is a Fellow of the RSA and a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the worldwide best-selling The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018). The Spirit Level was awarded Publication of the Year by the Political Studies Association, chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of the Decade by the New Statesman, and one of the top 100 books of the century by the Guardian. She is a co-founder and trustee of The Equality Trust.

Hannah Platt

Hannah is a stand-up comedian, writer and Finalist of the BBC New Comedian of the Year Award in 2019. Merseyside-via-Manchester’s finest misanthrope has already been making her mark as a comic, having been described as ‘A voice of a new generation’ by The Skinny and ‘a voice with something to say’ by Chortle, never shying away from sensitive topics with brutal honesty and quick wit. Recently she has been commissioned to make a Laugh Lesson for BBC3 and written on The Now Show and The News Quiz for BBC Radio 4. She prides herself on her ability to take difficult and complex topics and turn them into sharp, refreshing gags.

Adam Rutherford

Dr Adam Rutherford is a scientist, writer, and broadcaster. He’s a Lecturer in Biology and Society at UCL, and has written and presented award-winning series and programmes for the BBC, including Radio 4’s Start the Week, Inside Science, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry with Dr Hannah Fry. He’s written an indefinable number of books including A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, the very humanist Book of Humans, the Sunday Times bestselling How to Argue With a Racist, and, most recently, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics, published in 2022.

Tommy Sheppard MP

Tommy Sheppard has been the MP for Edinburgh East since 2015, representing the Scottish National Party. In May 2022, he was elected Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, having been a Vice Chair for five years previously.

Alison Spittle

Alison Spittle is host of BBC Sounds Wheel of Misfortune, and The Guilty Feminist podcast, and a writer for Have I Got News For You. She’s fresh off the back of a complete sell-out run at The Edinburgh Fringe, where she was voted to have one of the best reviewed shows in the comedy section.

David Voas

David Voas is Professor of Social Science at University College London, where he led the UCL Social Research Institute until 2020. He has had senior roles in the European Values Study and various scholarly associations, and serves on the editorial boards of academic journals in his field. His research is mainly concerned with religious change in modern societies, based on quantitative analysis of large survey datasets.

Richard Wilkinson

Richard Wilkinson is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School, Honorary Professor at University College London and Visiting Professor at the University of York. He wrote The Spirit Level with Kate Pickett, a bestseller now available in 24 languages. It won the 2011 Political Studies Association Publication of the Year Award and the 2010 Bristol Festival of Ideas Prize. He co-founded The Equality Trust (with support from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust). In 2013 Richard received Solidar’s Silver Rose Award and received Community Access Unlimited’s ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ Award. The Irish Cancer Society awarded him the 2014 Charles Cully Memorial medal, and he was the 2017 medalist of The Australian Society for Medical Research.