Daisy Fancourt is Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at University College London and Head of the Social Biobehavioural Research Group. Her research focuses on the effects of social behaviors on health, including loneliness, social isolation, social & community assets, arts and cultural engagement, and social prescribing. Daisy has received over £30m in research funding. And her work has been recognized with over two dozen national and international research awards, including being named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Daisy has published 300 peer-reviewed papers and given over 40 keynotes around the world. She is listed by Clarivate as one of the most highly cited scientists in the world.

In the field of arts and health, she authored the World Health Organisation’s global evidence review on arts in health, published in 2019, which synthesized the findings from over 3,500 published studies on arts and health and made policy recommendations to 53 countries. The report is the most read WHO evidence report ever published and was named Global Aesthetic Achievement of the Year 2019. Daisy is Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, as well as a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Cultural Insights and an Expert Scientific Advisory to UK Government on arts, culture and heritage. She chairs the Scientific Committee of the WHO Jameel Arts Health Lab based at NYU—a $7 million global programme focused on scaling up arts and health work internationally.

Daisy Fancourt is also an expert in broader social factors and health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Daisy led the multi-award winning Covid Social Study – the UK’s largest study into the psychological and social impact of the virus – and directed the COVID-Minds Network: an international network of over 170 longitudinal studies exploring the global mental health impact of the pandemic. She was a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission and the World Health Organisation Expert Group on mental health in COVID-19.

Daisy received the prestigious British Science Association Award for Arts & Sciences and the BBC named her a New Generation Thinker. Her research has been covered in over 2,000 newspaper articles globally and she has contributed to over 100 radio and TV programmes. She has presented her own BBC Radio 3 programmes and podcasts and BBC Ideas programmes on arts and health, including a short film on arts on prescription that went viral in 2018, receiving over 1 million views. She also writes for popular outlets including the Conversation, BMJ Opinion, and the Guardian.