Siân enjoyed a five-star run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 with her pole dancing comedy hour ‘Pole Yourself Together!’, asking whether hanging off a stick can cure your existential dread. In 2024, Siân served as MC for QED, the UK’s biggest grassroots celebration of science, reason and critical thinking, held in Manchester.

Jim Al-Khalili is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Surrey and one of Britain’s leading science communicators. He has written numerous books that have been translated into twenty-six languages, among them The Joy of Science and The World According to Physics. A fellow of the Royal Society, he is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries and is best-known in the UK for his long-running BBC Radio program, The Life Scientific.

Professor Sheena Cruickshank is an immunologist based at the University of Manchester. Her research is centred on understanding how the immune interacts with beneficial things like the microbiome versus threats such as infectious agents or harmful pollutants. She is also an award-winning science communicator who involves diverse communities in her research and has worked with groups such as Independent SAGE to communicate the risks of infections and benefits of vaccination.

Dr Chantal Den Daas leads the Health Psychology group at the University of Aberdeen. Her work spans social, behavioural, and health psychology, with a focus on understanding and changing health behaviours in infection and disease prevention, with a particular focus on sexual health. Her research brings together theory-driven behavioural science and real-world public health challenges, including the design and evaluation of messaging interventions to improve public health and reduce inequalities. She has a particular interest in how people make decisions in contexts of risk or temptation, and how psychological processes such as habits and impulsivity shape behaviour. More recently, her work has explored the role of communication and misinformation in shaping health behaviours, and how evidence-based messaging can be used to support healthier choices.

Lily O’Farrell is a writer, cartoonist and feminist commentator. Her documentary podcast series, No Worries If Not! has just finished its fourth season, exploring the intersection of culture, misinformation, the Internet, and feminism. Since 2018, she has been publishing funny, educational cartoons about misogyny, feminism, and Internet culture, building an audience of more than 400k online followers, with translations into Vietnamese, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic and several other languages. She has collaborated with organisations including the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, Refuge, the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Good Law Project, helping to turn their campaigns into accessible, engaging cartoons. In 2021, she published her first book, Kyle Theory, and has appeared in and written for The i, Metro, Stylist, Glamour, The Sunday Times, The Week, and BBC Radio 4s Woman’s Hour.

Christina Pagel is professor of operational research at University College London, using mathematical tools to support delivery of health services. Her research includes understanding and communicating outcomes in congenital heart disease; improving intensive care services for children and adults; using systems methods to improve services for children with complex health needs across health, social care and education. Since January 2025, she has been tracking authoritarian actions of the Trump administration (trumptractiontracker.info) and writing about their implications for the US and internationally. She is President Elect of the UK Operational Research Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.

Journalist, author, university lecturer, and science communicator, Massimo Polidoro is widely regarded as one of the most prominent investigators of mysteries and unusual phenomena, as well as one of the most well-known and respected science communicators in Italy. He began his career as James Randi’s apprentice, is a Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry and a columnist for ‘The Skeptical Inquirer’. A longtime collaborator of Piero Angela (the Italian equivalent of David Attenborough), with whom he co-founded CICAP (the Italian skeptics group), he is a regular presence on television. He teaches ‘Science Communication’ at the Politecnic in Milano and to PhD students at the University of Padua, and has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, where he was invited by prof. Naomi Oreskes. He regularly tours with his lectures and theatrical performances, and reaches over one million people each month on his YouTube channel. He is also the author of numerous successful podcasts and has written over 70 books. The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid (‘193818 Polidoro’) in his honor for ‘his contribution to science communication and the promotion of critical thinking.

Mike Wendling is a journalist who specialises in covering the US and international far-right, conspiracy theories and fringe movements and American politics. A former editor of BBC Trending and co-founder of the BBC’s disinformation unit, he is the author of two books – Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House and Day of Reckoning: How the Far-Right Declared War on Democracy. His current blog is available on Substack.