Daisy Fancourt

Daisy Fancourt is the chair of Jameel Arts & Health Lab steering committee and head of the social biobehavioural research group, University College London, where she is professor of psychobiology and epidemiology. Her research focuses on the effects of social connections and behaviours on health, including social deficits (e.g. loneliness and social isolation) and social assets (e.g. community engagement, arts and cultural activities and social prescribing).

Daisy is director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health as well as a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on cultural and behavioural insights on health. She has received over £30 million in research funding as principal and co-investigator and her research has been recognised by fellowships from Wellcome and British Academy and two dozen national and international awards including from the British Science Association, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome, British Academy, British Federation of Women Graduates, American Psychosomatic Society, AHRC, ESRC, Royal Society for Public Health and NHS England. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and Royal Society of Arts and has been named a BBC New Generation Thinker and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

Daisy studied at Oxford University and King’s College London before completing her PhD in psychoneuroimmunology at UCL and postdoctoral work at Imperial College London/RCM alongside working in the NHS.