International Health Humanities Network Membership

William Viney is Postdoctral Research Fellow in the Centre for Medical Humanities and the Department of English Studies, Durham University.

My research is a fusion of language, drawing and installation. It results in conversations, writings, workshops and collaborations. With my research and teaching, I aim to foster humanization and care. I also provoke different ways of thinking about how we explore questions that touch on the liminal nature and complexities of our lived experiences. Originally trained as a responsive evaluator and qualitative researcher and the philosophical hermeneutical tradition, currently my work is about the intersection of care, aesthetics and ethics. 

I work as the Director Medical Humanities, Health & Society at Drew University, Madison New Jersey, U.S.A. In addition, I am an Associate professor of Care Ethics, University for Humanistic Studies in The Netherlands (one day a week). 

I’m fascinated by the complexity of human health and by the places, spaces and experiences that affect us all. I’ve worked in research, policy and practice across health and human services in government and for national and international charities, investigating ways to design, implement and evaluate integrated health interventions that will have impact for all of us. 

With a PhD in Social Science, I remain committed to understanding, analysing and synthesising complex information from diverse sources, and applying my skills in both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. I enjoy building programs in new environments, within and around systems. I grapple with complicated questions and interrogate them for and with the people that use the solutions I design and deliver. 

My work is often about conceptualising various approaches and weaving them together so that I can optimise the impact and success of the programs I deliver. It is about communicating complex information, simply. 

I have held strategic appointments focused on linking insights and evidence with action for Wellcome Trust, Access Arts and Culture, health and Wellbeing Alliance. As well, I’ve held senior management and operational positions focussed on scaling and implementing health programs with Sense, Cerebral Palsy League and Movember Foundation. I have held board director positions with Amnesty International UK and Engage, the visual arts charity. 

My academic career has included appointments in Australia and United Kingdom, at Queensland University of Technology, University College London, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. I have secured funding for research that advances our understanding of how to implement and scale interventions for improving people’s health. This includes support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), Esme Fairbairn Foundation Trust, Sport England and Big Lottery Fund. 

Medical Humanities Portfolio Manager at the Wellcome Trust

I am a literary scholar and specialist in literature and culture from 1890 to the present, with a focus on women's writing, feminism and sex, sexuality and gender, and I teach literature from the nineteenth century to the present.

I am currently writing a book on effeminacy and the experience of belonging in contemporary online and offline narratives, focusing on the intersections of gay bottom identity, gender nonconformity, and marginalisation across Western and non-Western settings. 

More broadly I am interested in mental health among gay men and men who have sex with men, particularly the experience of belonging in multiple contexts: in the body, home, family, school, workplace, online, and in healthcare settings (among others). 

Senior Teaching Fellow in Mental Health at Southampton University, Professional musician www.walkerbroad.co.uk and childrens book publisher www.thesanitycompany.co.uk

Creative practitioner, researcher, activist working mostly in youth and community development and wellbeing. Long history initiating award-winning youth development and wellbeing projects that sit at the intersection between arts, health promotion, education, community and social innovation. Currently working on:

- doctoral research at the University of Auckland using participatory methods to research the possibilities of creativity for youth mental health and wellbeing in Aotearoa

- The development of arts-based community youth mental health and wellbeing prgrammes

- the development of Te Ara Auaha, a new interdisciplinary strategic alliance for creative wellbeing innovation

Brian Walter is Associate Professor of English and Director of Convocations at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, which will begin implementing a new Bachelor of Science in Health Humanities degree in the fall of 2014 for which he is designing courses on mental health and illness in literature and in film. He is the director of the documentary "Stay More: The World of Donald Harington" (U. of Arkansas Press, 2013) and the author of more than fifty articles, essays, book chapters, presentations, and reviews that have appeared in (among others) "Boulevard," "The Southern Quarterly," and "Music, Sound and the Moving Image."  (More information is available at academia.edu.) 

Laura is Arts Programme Manager for Air arts at Derby Hospitals, Air arts runs twice yearly visual arts exhibitions, weekly music performances and a rolling programme of arts participation projects to enhance wellbeing and recovery for patients in hospital.  Air arts seeks to promote a holistic approach to healthcare, embedding the arts into the medical model and working in close partnership with hospital staff to ensure effective, meaningful, successful creative interactions between staff, patients and visitors.

Laura has a degree in Psychology, a Masters degree in Environmental Psychology and holds a Licentiate Diploma in Music Teaching from the Royal Schools of Music. Laura is a fellow of the Incorporated Society of Musicians and a member of the UK arts in health research network.

Dr Sara Watkin Biography

Sara is fascinated by the effect of cultural influences and illness narratives on health behavior, and the use of the creative arts to achieve shifts in perception. She is an Honorary Physician to the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine.

She completed her post-graduate training at The London School of Contemporary Dance, trained in Psychiatry and General Practice in Glasgow and London (whilst the Osteopath for Cirque du Soleil and London Studio Centre), and returned to Scotland in 2006. Whilst a GP in Irvine Welsh’s home territory Sara questioned traditional medical assumptions regarding how early childhood experiences shape one’s mind, personality, relationships, and nervous system throughout life. She was appointed as Medical Adviser to Scottish Adoption and Barnardo's Scotland, and joined the Board of Directors at North Edinburgh Arts.

Sara developed her interest and expertise in chronic pain, with support from Lorimer Moseley and David Butler ("Explain Pain"). She uses narrative, metaphor and imagery to help people process trauma, understand their pain, and develop healthy relationships and resilience.

Sara believes that the new computerized GP language of payment-linked boxes is a barrier to therapeutic relationship exchanges. She is committed to a bio-psychosocial model, effective multidisciplinary team working, and creative, culturally sensitive assets-based approaches to community health.

Sara was the GP for the women in HMP Edinburgh, remains on the SWGWO and CPG Families Affected by Imprisonment, and spends the rest of her clinic time as an independent GP and Osteopath.