4EU+ Migration and Health Days: Registration open

Linda Lovett has been an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Humanities at Keele University since 2012, following a decade as Senior Lecturer in Medical Education at Keele Medical School and over 20 years as a Consultant in General Adult Psychiatry, specializing in mood disorders and early-onset psychosis. She trained in psychiatry at Cardiff and Liverpool after studying mathematics and physiology at London University and earning her medical qualification from Guy’s Hospital. A Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists since 2005, she served as Clinical Lead for General Adult Psychiatry in North Staffordshire and was the Royal College's regional representative for public education in mental health. She also taught medical students in Malawi and developed medical humanities projects at Keele. In retirement, she has published books on medical and social history, including Casanova’s Guide to Medicine (2021), long listed for the Arnold Bennett Prize. She also served as a board member for a Stoke-on-Trent scheme supporting asylum seekers and refugees. 

Maria Melchior is a Research Director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) (ScD in Social Epidemiology at Harvard University). Her research focuses on social inequalities in mental health, with a particular emphasis on developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood and intergenerational transmission. Most projects have relied on data collected in longitudinal cohorts in France (EDEN, ELFE, TEMPO) or in other countries (ELDEQ in Canada, DNBC in Denmark). She was awarded the Research Prize from the European Psychiatric Association (2012), the Early Career Award from the International Society of Behavioural Medicine (2004), and the Research Addictions Prize from MILDECA (2018). She is the author or co-author of more than 180 original publications in international peer-reviewed journals. Her research is funded by France's national research agency (ANR), France's Addiction Fund, and the European Union (H2020, ERC Consolidator 22021-2025).

Trish is a Senior Researcher at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH), Heidelberg University. She leads a research group called Climate Change, Migration and Health. The group sits within a larger team of climate change and health researchers and focuses on the nexus between climate change, migration and health, climate change and humanitarian medical assistance and climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems in low and middle-income countries. Her work has been based in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Chad and South Africa. Trish is on the steering committee of CliMigHealth an international thematic network of researchers focusing on matters related to migration and health in the context of climate change. Trish also advises governments, NGOs and multi-lateral agencies on matters relating to climate change and health.

A dedicated humanitarian and an activist, a co-founder and CEO of ReFOCUS Media Labs foundation which provides refugees with media creation skills. Before entering the humanitarian sector and working in Serbia, Greece and Bangladesh, Sonia worked for the European Parliament. She specializes in the refugee crisis and human rights advocacy. For the past nine years Sonia expanded ReFOCUS presence to Lesvos, Athens, Cracow and Berlin focusing on and working with the most vulnerable communities.

Sonia is a producer of feature documentaries "Even After Death", “Nothing About Us Without Us” and narratives “Dead End”, “Dancing Bells” and “Stitches”.

In 2017 Sonia created 1976km – a storytelling project devoted to distributing news about the refugee crisis, promoting important initiatives, and giving refugees a voice to tell their own stories. The project reported from Bangladesh, Greece, Morocco, Spain, and Serbia.

Sonia is the originator and the original host of the Fractured podcast which reports on the situation of refugees and people on the move focusing on underreported stories.

Sonia has two Masters degrees: in International Relations from the Jagiellonian University (2009) and in Sociology from the University of Silesia (2007). She was a guest lecturer at the EUCA Summer School at Cambridge University and a featured speaker on the refugee crisis at multiple universities and high schools in Europe and the United States.

Michal Hermanowicz is a physicist and high-performance computing (HPC) specialist who has been active in materials research since 2009, with a focus on electronic structure calculations within the density functional theory framework. He received his PhD from Poznań University of Technology in 2016 and currently works as a Research and Technical Specialist at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, University of Warsaw. Through international collaborations and work with European HPC centers, he has developed expertise in both computational research and supercomputing software maintenance.

Veronika Hunt Šafránková is Head of Brussels Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since April 2019, working with EU partners in addressing global environmental challenges. Veronika has over 20 years of experience in the field of international environmental affairs.

Before joining UNEP she worked at Charles University in Prague, as director of international relations and partnerships (2014-2018). In this capacity she was also co-leading preparations for the establishment of 4EU+ Alliance.

Prior to that she held different management positions at the Czech Ministry of Environment (2000-2014), incl. first deputy minister, responsible for a number of areas including international relations, EU legislation, environmental policy and sustainable development (incl. formulation of the Czech State Environmental Policy 2012-2020). She was involved in the preparations for the EU accession (2000-2004), EU membership (2004) and co-ordination of the first Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU (2009) in the field of environment.