Dr Shireen Kassam MBBS, FRCPATH, PHD, DipIBLM

Consultant Haematologist, founder of PBHP

Shireen is a Consultant Haematologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College Hospital, London with a specialist interest in the treatment of patients with lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system). She is also passionate about promoting plant-based nutrition for the prevention and reversal of chronic diseases and for maintaining optimal health after treatment for cancer.

Shireen founded Plant-based health professionals UK in 2017 in order to bring evidence-based education on plant-based nutrition to the UK. Since then she has been appointed as Visiting Professor of Plant-Based Nutrition at Winchester University where she has developed and facilitates the UK’s only University-based CPD-accredited course on plant-based nutrition for healthcare professionals. In January 2021, Shireen co-founded and launched the UK’s first CQC registered, online, multi-disciplinary, plant-based lifestyle medicine healthcare service, Plant Based Health Online. She is also a member of the Research Advisory Committee for the Vegan Society. Her work has been published by The Times, Mirror, Metro, Plant Based News and BBC food. Her first book, co-authored with her sister Zahra, was published in January 2022 and is called Eating Plant-Based, Scientific Answers to Your Nutrition Questions.

Kerstin Plehwe

Global CEO of PAN International and President of PAN US

Kerstin Plehwe is an award-winning entrepreneur, international board professional, and powerful business visionary. She is one of Europe’s leading female keynote speakers and has delivered over 900 talks in more than 20 countries.

As the global CEO of PAN International and President of PAN USA, a fast-growing health and nutrition-focused medical organization, her vision is to help people and organizations win the war against diet-related diseases. Kerstin is passionate about healthy, science-based nutrition, sustainable diet changes, and the much-needed transformation of the global healthcare system.

She believes that food can truly change lives and that it is the most underestimated instrument in public health today. Kerstin lives happily married with her family and Dachshund, Anton, in Germany and the United States. Her kitchen and cooking parties are beloved by a steadily increasing group of friends and family.

Dr Dagfinn Aune

Associate professor at Oslo New University College in Oslo, Norway and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London

Dagfinn Aune completed his PhD in Public Health at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2016 and has a Master’s degree in Clinical and Public Health Nutrition from the University of Oslo in 2008. He has since 2010 worked for several years in the Continuous Update Project of the World Cancer Research Fund, updating systematic reviews and meta-analyses on diet, anthropometry, physical activity and cancer risk and has contributed to several Continuous Update Project reports as well as the Third Expert Report “Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: A Global Perspective” which was published in May 2018. He has also worked on projects in the UK Biobank, EPIC, and Cancer Prevention Study-2 Nutrition cohort with the aim of clarifying associations between diet and lifestyle factors and less common cancers and causes of death using outcome-wide analyses.

Dr Alicja Baczynska

Consultant Geriatrician and Lifestyle Medicine Physician

Dr Alicja Baczynska is a Consultant Geriatrician at the Hampshire Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust and a BSLM certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician. She completed her medical undergraduate training in Poland and has worked in the NHS as a doctor for the last sixteen years. She received an MPhil degree from the University of Southampton in 2018 which focussed on qualitative research around older inpatients’ sedentary behaviour.

Dr Baczynska developed an interest in plant-based nutrition in 2015. She completed the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell in 2019. She has contributed lectures on dementia and frailty to Dr Kassam’s nutrition course at the University of Winchester. Her passion is healthy ageing and root-cause treatment of cognitive and physical frailty which she wishes to be able to introduce more extensively in her own practice despite the multiple obstacles to do so within the traditional model of healthcare.

Dr Nitu Bajekal

Senior Consultant ObGyn, Author and Board-Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician

Dr Nitu Bajekal MD is a Senior Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in the UK with over 35 years of clinical experience in women’s health. Her special interests include Lifestyle Medicine, PCOS, Endometriosis, period problems, menopause, precancer, complex vulval problems and medical education. She is a keyhole surgeon with experience in laparoscopic procedures including robotics.

She is the co-author of Living PCOS Free along with her daughter and nutritionist, Rohini Bajekal. It was published in April 2022 and is available in the UK, USA and worldwide.

Dr Bajekal is a Fellow of the Royal College and recipient of the Indian President’s Gold medal. She is one of the first board-certified Lifestyle Medicine Physicians in the UK. She has written the women’s health module for the first UK University-based plant-based nutrition course.

Dr Bajekal is passionate about spreading health awareness, providing reliable medical and lifestyle information for the general public, doctors, workplaces and schools.

Find out more about her via nitubajekal.com (35+ free factsheets available) and follow her on Instagram and TikTok where she shares daily tips, recipes and more.

Dr Rajiv Bajekal MS, FRCS Orth. MCh Orth. IBLM

Consultant Spinal Surgeon

Dr Rajiv Bajekal is a Consultant Spinal Surgeon practicing in London. He has over 35 years’ experience in Orthopaedics and Spinal surgery. His surgical practice is mainly in the lumbar spine with a keen interest in managing Sciatica, low back pain, Spinal Stenosis, Osteoporotic fractures, and infections. He is particularly keen to find simple and often non-surgical solutions for patients in severe pain and practices lifestyle medicine to look at problems more holistically rather than just the presenting problem.

He was a senior examiner for the FRCS Trauma and Orthopaedic Examination and lectures widely Nationally and Internationally for General Practitioners and is part of a group called Total Orthopaedics which provides high quality patient focussed care. Dr Bajekal is also a Board-Certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner who has personally experienced the healing benefits of a whole food plant-based diet and has since become a passionate advocate for lifestyle medicine with his patients. He has featured on conversations with Chef AJ and Ocean Robbins of the Food Revolution Network in very popular YouTube videos.

Dr Bajekal has written a module and lectured on the UK’s first plant-based nutrition course on bone health and osteoporosis conducted by Winchester university. He has also cowritten a chapter on bone health academic book for health professionals titled ‘Plant-Based Nutrition in Clinical Practice’.
Dr Bajekal is passionate about teaching and lecturing, often making difficult areas of spinal surgery easy to understand.

For more information visit rajivbajekal.com

Rohini Bajekal MA Oxon, MSc Nutrition and Food Sciences, Dip IBLM

Nutritionist, Communications and Marketing lead, PBHP

Rohini Bajekal is a nutritionist and a Board-Certified Lifestyle Medicine Professional. She is based in London where she provides evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle advice to her clients and has previously worked in India and Singapore.

A keen recipe developer, Rohini is passionate about making delicious, affordable and nourishing plant-based meals. In her spare time, she volunteers as a Cookery Teacher at Made in Hackney, the UK’s only eco-community cookery school and charity. Rohini also provides expertise around South Asian diets as part of the Dietitian and Nutritionist Advisory Committee at Diet ID. She is the co-author of Living PCOS Free.

Sarah Bentley

Founder & Project Director of Made in Hackney.

Sarah is the founder of Made In Hackney (MIH), the UK’s first vegan community cookery school. Since firing up its hobs in 2012 the school has inspired and upskilled over 400,000 people nationally – and more recently internationally – to grow, cook and eat more plants. Sarah & the MIH family work at the intersection of health inequalities, food access, the climate crisis and community cohesion, using culturally diverse plant-based cuisine as a vehicle to bring about positive change. The school has delivered cook and eat sessions for Public Health Hackney since 2014 and has delivered vegan cookery courses in collaboration with Homerton NHS Diabetes department.

Over the last decade plus she has seen the incredibly varied benefits of plant-based food education – from type 2 diabetes patients condition going into remission and no longer needing to take insulin, chronic bowel disorders in children being healed after years of suffering and a myriad of mental health issues supported with the benefits of socially cooking and eating nourishing plant-based foods. In 2021 MIH launched Plant Futures – a national influencing scheme to upskill and empower food power players to create more plant-centred menus in educational and health facilities, civic society and the corporate sector. 2023 saw the exciting launch of Global Plant Kitchens – a training and mentoring scheme to accelerate a global movement of plant-based community cookery schools.

Sarah is proud to have worked with celebrity chefs such as Sami Tamimi, Andi Oliver, Anna Jones, Bosh! and Miyoko Schinner. A former print and radio journalist, when not speaking or writing about food issues – Sarah loves to have her hands in the soil growing organic food and teaching SEN students’ food growing skills.

At the end of September 2023 she is stepping down from her full-time position as MIH founder to explore new projects – including trying to secure a MIH cookery book deal. Visit madeinhackney.org for more information.

Dr Emma Copsey

Consultant Cardiologist

Dr Copsey is a Consultant Cardiologist working in Northamptonshire with a specialist interest in heart failure, preventative cardiology and lifestyle medicine. She is passionate about providing a holistic approach to her patients, looking at lifestyle factors as a root cause of their chronic illness and addressing these to prevent and even reverse these conditions.

In 2022, Dr Copsey set up and now runs four community asset groups around Northamptonshire for patients with heart failure and ischaemic heart disease, ‘Pumped Up’, which are co-delivered with the charity Northamptonshire Carers. An important part of these groups is education, of which plant-based nutrition is central. Within the first year a reduction in hospital admissions was demonstrated.

Dr Copsey trained as a CHIP facilitator, has completed the University of Winchester certificate in plant-based nutrition and is a professional member of the European Society of Cardiology.

On a personal level, she has experienced the significant benefits first hand of adopting a whole food plant-based diet.

Brenda Davis, RD

Registered Dietitian & Best-selling Author

Brenda Davis, registered dietitian, is a world leading plant-based pioneer and an internationally acclaimed speaker. Brenda has been a featured speaker at medical, nutrition, and dietetic conferences in 25 countries on 6 continents.

As a prolific nutrition writer, Brenda has authored/co-authored 13 books with nearly a million copies in print in 15 languages. Her latest book, Plant-Powered Protein, was hot off the press in April 2023. Brenda has also authored and co-authored numerous professional and lay articles and is a past chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association. Brenda was the lead dietitian in a diabetes intervention research project in the Marshall Islands. On her last trip (November 2017), she developed a nutrition education curriculum for kindergarten through grade 6 and trained teachers in all public schools. Brenda was the 7th recipient of the Plantrician Project’s Luminary Award in 2022 and was inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame in 2007.

Kate Dunbar

Kate knows first-hand the power of a whole food plant-based diet (WFPBD). Nearly 20 years ago and a highly stressed teacher, she became seriously ill with psoriatic arthritis. She spent the whole summer in bed, in excruciating pain all over and dosed up on painkillers. Once on the mend, she started to wonder if certain foods might be contributing to symptoms, even though close family members also had this disease. However, she was told that ‘diet has nothing to do with it’.

17 years ago, she became an ethical vegan and in doing so managed to cut her medication by half but still suffered flare-ups. Now, she is five years medication- and pain-free having discovered No Oil WFPBD. At the age of 60 much to her astonishment, she has just completed her first marathon. Her patient case study has been published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

Kate is an enthusiastic member of her local community, helping bring people together to plant a community orchard of over 180 trees. She loves parkrun, either running herself or cheering very loudly.

Kate loves cooking and growing her own food. As a graphic designer, she is honoured to work with members of PBHPUK to produce their factsheets. She sincerely hopes that others can also improve their health and be their best selves.

Colette Fox

ProVeg UK - Head of Programme

Colette leads ProVeg UK’s flagship programme, School Plates, working directly with schools and local authorities all over the UK to support their meat-reduction efforts by making small changes that make a big difference to children’s health, the planet and save money – all free of charge. Colette co-created The Recipes, the first fully plant-based recipe resource created specifically for UK schools, to meet the much-needed demand for low cost, low carbon, and nutritionally balanced plant-based recipes that children love. She is a certified nutrition coach and co-founder of The Health Habit.

Dr Laura Freeman

GP and Lifestyle Medicine Physician

Dr Laura Freeman obtained her Medical Degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2006. She completed her vocational training in General Practice in 2011. Between May 2012 and May 2019, after attaining full accreditation from the Medical Council of Canada, Dr Freeman ran her own Family Medicine practice in midtown Toronto, taught medical students at the University of Toronto and worked with the Medical Council of Canada as an examiner for International Medical Graduates.

Both within and outside of her General Practice, Dr Freeman has developed a strong interest for plant-based nutrition and optimising health through lifestyle choices. In 2019, Dr Freeman became a diplomat of the International Board for Lifestyle Medicine and a certified CHIP (Complete Health Improvement Program) practitioner.

Dr Laura Freeman is co-founder and medical director of Plant Based Health Online, the UK’s first CQC registered online plant-based lifestyle medicine healthcare service. She was also one of the first GPs in the UK to bring ‘Walk with a Doc’ walking groups to her community.

Sharon Gardner

Holistic practitioner and chef

Sharon holds a BSc in Health Sciences with Naturopathy, and a Diploma in Teaching Pilates. She is a plant-based nutritionist and lecturer, a cookery school teacher at Made in Hackney, a holistic wellness practitioner and chef.

Sharon takes a very holistic approach to promoting health and wellness, with a focus on educating, encouraging and empowering individuals and groups to take steps towards managing their own health and wellness. As she knows all too well, from personal experience that the ‘one size fits all’, approach to health and wellness does not always work. Particularly for those with different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

As a holistic practitioner, Sharon works with the individual with the condition, helping to get to the underlying root cause rather than just the presenting symptoms. Wherever possible, preventative methods are always her first point of call, as well as to complement the care that her clients are already receiving, supporting and guiding them towards healthier outcomes.

Sharon is a passionate advocate of positive ageing. She believes that everyone should practise ‘self-care’ to help support their own health and wellbeing. Her favourite thing to do is to demonstrate how to create plant-based versions of traditional dishes, that everyone can enjoy.

Joshua Gibbs

PhD Candidate

Whilst working towards his BSc in Biomedical Sciences, Joshua led multiple plant-based diet focused research projects with support from the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Nutrition based at the University of Warwick. These resulted in three high-impact publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Joshua’s latest research article, which has amassed significant media coverage, investigated the effect of plant-based and mycoprotein-based meat alternatives on multiple cardiometabolic risk factors.

Joshua is currently studying for a PhD in health sciences, in which he aims to answer whether the UK should go plant-based to support its green recovery. Joshua will use state of the art mathematical techniques to model the public health, environmental, and economic impacts of different dietary scenarios. He will also be studying the implementation barriers and facilitators of plant-based diets in the UK.

Dr Matt Hawker

Ophthalmologist and CHIP trainer

Dr Matt Hawker has a longstanding interest in holism alongside his vocation as an ophthalmologist.

His special interest is in lifestyle medicine, and he leads a social enterprise called Compass Lifestyle Medicine that trains healthcare staff and volunteers to improve the health of Britons by facilitating dietary and lifestyle behaviour change to improve health. Coaching is based on the Complete Health Improvement Programme and has been commissioned by the NHS in several settings.

He is particularly interested in existential perspectives on health and found his MA in theology, spirituality and health at Durham University absolutely fascinating.

Marisa Heath

CEO of the Plant-based Food Alliance

Marisa is the CEO of the Plant-based Food Alliance representing businesses, NGO and academics who are advocating for a shift to more sustainable, healthy diets. She is also a founding member of the International Working Group of Plant based Association including U.S., Canada, Mexico, India, China, EU and the UK.

She has 17 years of experience as a policy adviser and campaigner, working on issues relating to food production, sustainable, food systems, conservation and animal welfare standards. Marisa has been part of a re-forestation project in Fiji and spent time in Laos, Vietnam and Sabah on forestry projects learning about agro-forestry in particular.

She is also cabinet member for Environment at Surrey County Council responsible for the Climate Change Delivery Plan and the Surrey Food Strategy.

Samantha Josephs

Nutritional Therapist

Samantha is an experienced Nutritional Therapist working to improve the health and wellbeing of clients with a range of health concerns. She has a special interest in brain health, specialising in Multiple Sclerosis due to a personal connection.

Samantha is passionate about education and works as a guest lecturer for colleges of Integrative Nutrition covering modules on Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s Disease, Mental Health and the role nutritional therapy can play. She has experience working with schools and colleges creating workshops on the value of healthy eating practises and has direct involvement with school catering companies to provide nutritionally beneficial school lunches.

Being actively involved in supporting a loved one with MS, Samantha works with the charity Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis as a speaker and facilitator on retreats for people with MS. She works with the MS Academy (www.neurologyacademy.org) giving nutritional advice for the Healthy Living Services clinics and has contributed to the recent academic paper on managing brain health in people with MS.

Amir Kassam OBE, FRSB, CBiol, PhD

Visiting professor in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, UK

Amir Kassam OBE, FRSB, CBiol, PhD, is visiting professor in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, UK, and the Moderator of the Global communication platform for the Conservation Agriculture Community of Practice (CA-CoP). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK). In 2005, he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Honours List for services to agriculture and to rural development.

Born on 30 June 1943 in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Kassam received his BSc (Hons) in Agriculture and PhD in Agro-ecology from the University of Reading, and MS in Irrigation from the University of California-Davis. During his career, Kassam has worked in many countries with a number of national and international agricultural research and development organizations in the fields of sustainable agriculture and rural development with a focus on Conservation Agriculture.

His former positions include: Deputy Director General at the Africa Rice Centre; Chairman of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK); Chairman of the Focus Humanitarian Assistance Europe Foundation; Interim Executive Secretary of the CGIAR Science Council; and Chairman of the Tropical Agriculture Association (UK). He has published extensively on Conservation Agriculture, and on systems agronomy, agroecology, land use and natural resources management and in land resource assessment for development planning.

Anna-Lena Klapp

Specialist in Nutrition and Health, Proveg International

Anna-Lena Klapp is a PhD candidate in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Göttingen with a Master in Public Health Nutrition. In 2018, Anna-Lena joined ProVeg International, the first NGO focused on promoting plant-based diets to be awarded Observer Status at the UN’s IPCC. Until today she operates as the organisation’s Specialist in Nutrition and Health. Anna-Lena brings her unique expertise to various projects at ProVeg, where she also leads a research project on national dietary guidelines.

Dr Jane Kostelnik

Plant-based GP and planetary health activist

Jane has been a UK GP for over 20 years and in the last 5 years has become well-versed in the benefits to both human and planetary health of a whole food, plant-based diet.  The dots were joined up in Jane’s personal and professional life by a deep dive into the climate and ecological crises, leading her to make connections across the intersecting worlds of climate change activism, planetary health advocacy, lifestyle medicine and population health.

Jane moved to Devon in 2019 after 16 years of GP partnership in Wiltshire and became part of an innovative project delivering a unique, evidence-based and motivational lifestyle course to the patients of a Devon Coastal Primary Care Network.  The WholeLife project is enabling a wide range of patients in the primary care network to experience the power of lifestyle changes in determining their present and future health, in large part by helping them switch to a predominantly whole food, whole-grain plant-based diet, increasing their physical activity and enhancing their social and community connections.

Karen Lee

Nutritionist, Event Organiser - PBHP

Karen believes that food is the key to health and puts this into practice herself by using a whole food plant-based diet to manage a variety of health challenges, including multiple sclerosis. As a (now retired) intensive care nurse and registered nutritionist, she combines her love of delicious food with her professional background to inspire others to experience the powerful effects of using food as medicine.

As ‘The Sensitive Foodie’, Karen has run courses, workshops and cooking classes, and has a popular blog where she shares easy and tasty recipes for her readers to try. She published her first book Eat Well Live Well with The Sensitive Foodie in 2019 and is currently working on her second.

Karen is an Ambassador for Overcoming MS, a diet and lifestyle programme and has helped to create PBHP factsheet on MS and was co-author on a case study about WFPB diet and MS published in AJLM.

Dr Emily Leeming PhD

Postdoctoral researcher

Dr Emily Leeming PhD is a postdoctoral researcher at Kings College London and registered dietitian. Her research investigates the impact of diet on the gut microbiome.

Emily was previously the senior scientist on the ZOE team, a personalised nutrition tech company running the ZOE PREDICT studies.

Claire Lynch, RD, MNutr, Dip IBLM/BSLM

Education lead, PBHP

After starting out as a children’s nurse, Claire had a long career break to bring up her family. She returned to studying in 2015 to qualify as a dietitian. During her training Claire became increasingly aware and saddened that many of her patients were suffering with burdens of diseases that, with alternative lifestyle choices, were largely preventable. She started looking into the research around this, and quickly discovered the well-evidenced health benefits of a whole food plant-based diet. Claire took this on board in her own life and became vegan in 2018. After qualifying, Claire worked as a community dietitian, then a specialist diabetes dietitian. Most recently, Claire became a locum dietitian, providing the flexibility needed to undertake the Lifestyle Medicine diploma and to begin building up work as a freelance dietitian.

Claire’s focus is to seek every opportunity to educate and empower people with the knowledge and practical skills needed to begin transforming their lives through diet and lifestyle changes. She believes this necessarily includes working with those who influence the public’s abilities to make sound choices, including our health professionals, educators and decision makers.

Claire is lucky enough to live on the edge of the Peak District, and enjoys indulging in her love of nature and the outdoors by getting out onto the hills, walking, trail running and cycling.

Rosie Martin, RD

NHS Employee Health & Wellness Dietitian

Rosie is a plant-based registered dietitian working both in the NHS and freelance. As a former zoologist working in animal welfare, Rosie turned to plant-based nutrition in 2014. Having studied and experienced the physical and psychological benefits of a diet based on whole plant food, Rosie now works to support others embrace a plant-based diet for human, planetary and animal health through her business, Rosemary Nutrition & Dietetics.

Having worked in a variety of specialties, from acute hospital wards to IBS and cancer, Rosie developed a particular interest in preventative and lifestyle nutrition, as well as the wider impact of food choices on our planet. Rosie currently works as NHS Employee Health & Wellness Dietitian, as a freelance practitioner, and as a board member of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK.

You can connect with Rosie via [email protected],her website www.rosemarynutrition.co.uk or through Instagram @plantdietitianrosie

Ailsa McHardy, RD

Registered Dietitian

Ailsa graduated with BSc (Hons) Nutrition and Dietetics in 2010. She went on to gain 10 years of clinical experience in the NHS, developing her specialism in Paediatrics for six of those. In her most recent NHS post Ailsa worked at the acclaimed Southampton Children’s Hospital within the Neonatal, Allergy and Diabetes teams. She has undertaken postgraduate study with two MSc modules in Paediatric dietetics (Plymouth University), most recently being awarded a Distinction on completion of Nutrition and Dietetics in Common Paediatric Disorders.

In 2020 Ailsa established her freelance dietetic practice, Nourish-RD, where she supports children and families across the UK and beyond in her virtual clinics. She has also done consulting work including menu analysis, supporting transition to plant-based menus in the nursery setting and media work.

In 2021 Ailsa took up an academic post as Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. She uses her clinical experience to bring application to theory, and is privileged to support the evolving dietetic profession in this way.

Ailsa’s interest and passion for plant-based eating patterns has grown since she became a parent herself. She recognises the challenge of navigating the health, environmental, ethical and societal aspects of nutrition for children and strives to be an open-minded and supportive Dietitian. In her clinical work she supports families who follow omnivorous and vegan dietary patterns, and everything in between. She is a passionate believer in informed choice and in supporting health through nutrition in a non-judgemental way.

Dr Miriam Martinez-Biarge

Consultant Paediatrician

Dr Miriam Martinez-Biarge qualified as a medical doctor in 1999. She trained in Paediatrics and Neonatal Medicine in Madrid, Spain. She first came to UK in 2008 to do a fellowship in perinatal neurology and neurodevelopmental follow-up at Imperial College London. During that time she also finished her PhD in perinatal brain injury.

Miriam works part time as an honorary Consultant Paediatrician at Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust (Queen Charlotte’s and Hammersmith Hospitals). She is also an honorary Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol. She specialises in the follow up of infants and young children who have been born prematurely, who have had neurological problems around the time of birth, or who are at risk of neurodevelopmental impairments. She has a private paediatric practice in UK and Spain where she offers consultations on general and developmental Paediatrics, neonatal follow-up and paediatric plant-based nutrition.

She has written a book in Spanish on plant-based diets for children and adolescents (Mi familia vegana), which is now in its second edition.

Miriam is an Advisory Board Member of Plant Based Health Professionals UK.

Dr Ifeoma Monye, MD, FRCGP, FACLM, DipIBLM/BSLM

President of the World Lifestyle Medicine Organisation

Dr Ifeoma Monye, MD, FRCGP, FACLM, DipIBLM/BSLM, is the President of the World Lifestyle Medicine Organisation, WLMO. A Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Portfolio NHS GP, Chief Consultant Family Physician, National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria, an alumnus of the “Women Transforming Leadership”, SAID Business School, University of Oxford, founder of the Brookfield Centre for Lifestyle Medicine, founder and Chairman of the Society of Lifestyle Medicine of Nigeria and Co-founder and President of the Africa Lifestyle Medicine Council.

Dr Monye, who is a global leader in Lifestyle Medicine practice and education, has been fortunate to find herself at the cradle of developing Lifestyle Medicine societies across the world, joining the ACLM in 2009, thereafter becoming one of the early adopters in Europe, a founding member of the European Lifestyle Medicine Organisation, a founding member of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, where she currently serves as a Regional Director and the Chairman of the International Special Interest Group. She is one of the leaders in Africa, dedicated to establishing evidence-based Lifestyle Medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable health care system.

An alumnus of the University of Benin, Nigeria, Dr Monye promotes Lifestyle Medicine education in schools, universities and post-graduate colleges in the UK, USA and Africa.

Founder of the “GoGreen: Grow your garden” initiative, this community-oriented programme helps families understand the importance of whole food plant predominant meals in health, teaches how to prepare healthy plant-predominant meals, the role of gardening for total well-being, and trains GoGreen community leaders to teach families how to grow their own vegetables and fruits and feed from their own organically grown gardens. She is a CHIP facilitator and a Walk with a Doc Group Leader.

Africa is a continent of music and dance. As a lover of dance, she enjoys dancing with her husband and four children, as well as her local dance and lifestyle medicine group and is the founder of the popular “Dance with the Doc” monthly dance and Lifestyle Health education community event.

Samantha Morgenstern, RD

Client Executive, Sodexo

Samantha received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from New York University and her Master of Science in Applied Physiology and Nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Samantha began her career with Sodexo 20 years ago as an entry level Dietitian working in long term care and quickly moving into the acute care setting. She found her love for nutrition in a Traumatic Brain Injury unit where she was able to work very closely with patients and families to ensure that all nutrition needs were being met and supporting the recovery process. Being a true member of an interdisciplinary team showed her how the art of collaboration and teamwork can ensure great outcomes in patient care. As Samantha’s journey with Sodexo continued, she moved on to become the Clinical Nutrition Manager at various hospitals throughout NYC which brought her to NYC Health + Hospitals. In 2011 she joined the NYC Health + Hospitals team as the Clinical Nutrition Manager at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn. A few years later Samantha took on a larger role on the Health + Hospitals Corporate team as the CBORD administrator and Associate Director for the system, building and implementing nutrition systems in 11 acute care and 5 post-acute care facilities to ensure standardization, efficiency and safety for patients.

In November of 2021 Samantha began to lead the development, planning and organization for the implementation of the Healthy Eating Plant Based Initiative at NYC Health + Hospitals. The mission of this initiative was to provide patients with experiences and education to assist them, as needed, to make nutritional choices that would have a positive impact on their lives, while utilizing a comprehensive approach to address the health and nutrition of patients, staff and communities across the continuum of care. This program has grown from a few small ideas into a widespread movement that is inspiring institutions to think about how they too can make small changes that can lead to great and impactful results.

Dr Gemma Newman

General Practitioner

Dr Gemma Newman is a medical doctor and Senior Partner at a family medical practice in West London. She studied at the University of Wales College of Medicine and has worked in many specialties as a doctor before becoming a family physician.  She has gained additional qualifications in gynaecology and family planning. She is a founding member and ambassador for PBHP UK and a member of BSLM. Dr Newman has a specialist interest in holistic health, plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine. She is regularly invited to teach other doctors and the general public via training programmes, podcasts and conferences about the benefits of plant-based nutrition, and has authored  ‘The Plant Power Doctor; a simple prescription for a healthier you’, which was a number one bestseller in Popular Medicine and Green Living.

Dr Newman has also written a chapter for ‘A prescription for Healthy Living, a guide to Lifestyle Medicine’ a textbook for Clinicians published by Elsevier Academic Press, and the chapter on diabetes for the clinical textbook ‘Plant Based diets in Medicine.’ She contributed content for two books on alcohol-free living; Janey Lee Grace’s ‘Happy Healthy Sober’ and Millie Gooch’s ‘The Sober Girl Society Handbook.’ and the cookbook ‘How to Go Plant Based’ by Ella Mills. She is also host of the award-winning podcast by Holland and Barratt ‘The Wellness Edit’. As a broadcaster she has been featured on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News Sunrise as well as BBC Radio. She has featured in magazines including Glamour, Zest and Health magazine, as well as The Daily Telegraph.

Dr Minil Patel

General Practice Registrar

Dr Minil Patel is a General Practice Registrar from London, currently based in Buckinghamshire. He graduated from King’s College London with an MBBS and BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience in 2016. He has since worked across multiple roles from general medicine, paediatrics, endocrinology, psychiatry, general and hepato-biliary surgery, trauma and orthopaedics, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology and geriatric medicine. His passion for all aspects of the human condition inspired him to pursue a career in general practice.

Minil has been vegan for ethical reasons since 2017 and since then developed an interest in plant-based nutrition as well as the power of lifestyle medicine in the treatment and prevention of chronic disease. He has completed the Plant-Based Nutrition course at the University of Winchester and has a PGCert in Medical Education from King’s College London. He is also an active member of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK and has been featured in the upcoming documentary “I Could Never Go Vegan”.

Minil has a background in powerlifting, strength training and bodybuilding and has been featured in Men’s Health. He is passionate about teaching others about plant-based nutrition, fitness and veganism using social media as well as presenting at public events on optimising plant-based diets for plant-based athletes.

Dr Sundhya Raman

Lifestyle Medicine Physician

Dr Sundhya Raman is the founder and director of My Wellness Doctor – a Lifestyle Medicine Health consultancy. She has a degree in Pharmacology & Physiology, a Medical degree from Guys, King’s and St Thomas’s, London, a PhD (D.Phil) in Genetics & Epigenetics from Oxford University and is a qualified Lifestyle Medicine physician with the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine & British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr Raman has held a variety of both clinical and research roles.  She has worked with well known scientists in labs around the world including in cancer genetics at Yale University, and Alzheimers’ cellular physiology at the Wolfson Centre, London.

Her current roles include: creating toolkits on lifestyle for cardiovascular health on behalf of NHS England; lifestyle doctor at the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and diabetes lead at Plant Based Health Online. She has created and runs a lifestyle programme for lowering cholesterol in primary care.  She regularly delivers talks and teaching on lifestyle medicine and healthy ageing to both healthcare professionals as well as to the lay public, including a focus on specific risks and solutions for ethnic minority groups. Her advice on lifestyle shifts for optimum health has been featured in national news publications.

Niko Rittenau

Nutrition scientist

Niko Rittenau is a nutrition scientist with a focus on plant-based nutrition. With more than 100,000 followers on YouTube and Instagram Niko has one of the largest German speaking online communities in the area of nutrition science and he authored 5 best-selling books on plant-based nutrition.

After completing his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, the five-time bestselling author is currently completing his doctorate at Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Universität in Bonn in the Department of Food and Nutrition Sciences on the topic of nutrient speciations in plant-based foods to research ways to improve bioavailability of minerals and other nutrients from plants.

Further information about his work is available at www.nikorittenau.com

Dr Urvi A. Shah, MD

Oncologist

Dr. Urvi A. Shah, MD, is an Assistant Attending in the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. She completed fellowships in hematology/oncology at Montefiore Medical Center, and in cancer immunotherapy at MSK and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in New York. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology.

Her clinical practice includes all plasma cell disorders and her research interests include modifiable risk factors (diet, metabolism, and the microbiome) and immune therapies. She opened the first pilot nutrition trial in plasma cell disorders to date (NUTRIVENTION; NCT04920084) in 2021 that completed enrolment. She has 3 other NUTRIVENTION/immune therapy investigator-initiated trials (NCT05640843, NCT04497961, NCT04174196) currently enrolling. Dr. Shah has been supported by career development awards from the National Cancer Institute Paul Calabresi K12, International Myeloma Society and American Society of Hematology Scholar Award. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Science degree through the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Shah has published first author papers in prominent journals such as Blood and Clinical Cancer Research amongst others and has been an invited speaker and session chair nationally and internationally.

Lisa Simon, RD

Registered Dietitian

Lisa studied Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics at Cardiff Metropolitan University for four years, graduating with first class honours in 2014. She has nine years clinical experience working in the NHS, providing care to patients in both the inpatient and outpatient setting. Her past roles have included working in the areas of neurology, cardiology, critical care, and gastroenterology.

Lisa now splits her time working in the NHS as dietetic lead in an inpatient child and adolescent mental health unit, and working at CQC (Care Quality Commission) registered health care service, Plant Based Health Online, running individual and group consultations and delivering educational webinars. Lisa has written a clinical update on diet and fertility for the British Dietetic Association, and her first book ‘The Plant-Based Dietitian’s Guide to Fertility: From Pre-Conception to Healthy Birth’ was published in April. She has also co-authored and co-edited ‘Plant-Based Nutrition in Clinical Practice’ which was published last year.

In her spare time, Lisa enjoys experimenting with plant-based foods to create nutritious meals for herself and her family, strength training, pilates, and taking her dog, Max, for long walks.

Dr Laura-Jane Smith

Consultant Respiratory Physician

LJ is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at King’s College Hospital London with special interests in lung cancer, airways disease and breathlessness. She also has expertise in sustainable healthcare and holds positions as the Clinical Lead for Sustainability at King’s College Hospital, and the British Thoracic Society Trustee for Sustainability.

LJ is motivated by supporting patients to thrive rather than just survive and is passionate about the potential for plant-powered diets to dramatically reduce health inequalities. She campaigns on a number of social justice issues with MedAct and is actively involved in campaigns to end the hostile environment for migrants in healthcare, and on the intersections of climate and health with a focus on air quality.

LJ adopted a vegan approach to life in 2017, motivated by a wish to extend the compassion she brings to her clinical practice to other aspects of life. She sees veganism as part of a commitment to compassion and equality for humans, non-human animals and the planet. Since studying the transformative impact of a whole grain plant-based diet for health through the University of Winchester plant-based nutrition course, and a Diploma in Lifestyle Medicine she has committed to bringing the evidence to her patients and the NHS more widely.

Julie Stewart NT Dip; MAPharmT

Registered Nutritional Therapist and Pharmacy Technician

Combining over 25 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical profession with an interest in nutritional science led Julie to study naturopathic nutritional therapy and ignited her fascination in the world of nutrigenomics – how food and lifestyle has the power to influence our genes.

Discovering using food as medicine for herself, going from obesity and a host of chronic diseases in her thirties, to being medication-free and fitter than ever in her fifties, Julie decided to swap dispensing pharmaceuticals for prescribing food and nutraceutical supplements to her patients.

Balancing her time between private clients and NHS commitments, Julie offers support for those seeking evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle guidance for a wide range of chronic conditions, including in weight management and gut health.

Julie is passionate about coaching those seeking a safe and effective transition to a whole food plant-based way of eating. There’s nothing she loves more than seeing people reach their goals and find freedom from years of feeling sick, tired and unmotivated.

More importantly, supporting clients to sustain their new lifestyle, helping them find the tools they already possess within themselves to become masters of their own body to live their best life!

One of her professional goals is to bridge the gap between mainstream allopathic medicine and complementary medicine, through integrated health services, supporting patients to self-manage their conditions and ultimately take a preventive approach to healthcare.

Dr Hayley Tait

GP, chef, author

Hayley is an NHS GP based in Liverpool, UK and has a love for cooking and all things food.  After adopting a vegan lifestyle in 2017 she explored the benefits of a whole food plant-based diet for global and planetary health and is passionate about social justice.

Hayley has worked in the NHS for over 25 years with a varied and interesting career path. She returned to her hometown of Liverpool in 2010, where she became a GP partner in a central practice and lives with her daughter, 2 dogs and 2 chickens.

Armed with the certificate in plant-based nutrition from the University of Winchester, Hayley encourages patients to embrace the abundance of real food and has witnessed many positive benefits.

In November 2019, Hayley published a plant-based cookbook, Health on the Hob, to make easy, quick, healthy meals accessible. Her latest book “The Adventures of Chef Animo and Granny Vegano” is a children’s book of travel stories and recipes encouraging conversations about diet, sustainability, loss of biodiversity, climate change and veganism.

Hayley has developed a new culinary medicine course for PBHP UK, ‘’Cooking for the Climate’’, which encompasses both individual and planetary health. This course is offered at three UK medical schools.

With sponsorship from PBHP UK and Samson Security, Hayley has established a Community Plant-Based Cook School “Vinny’s Kitchen”. Vinny’s Kitchen aims to teach individuals and families how to cook delicious plant-based meals, which are then distributed to the homeless and other vulnerable groups.

You can follow Hayley on Instagram @health_on_the_hob

Dr Aryan Tavakkoli MBBS MRCP FRACP CFMP

Consultant physician

Dr Tavakkoli is a consultant physician with a 25-year background in hospital medicine. She is the medical director of Quantum Clinic in East Sussex, where she provides integrative support for adult patients with previous or current cancer.

Her Integrative Cancer Programme includes modulated electro-hyperthermia (oncothermia), high dose intravenous vitamin C infusions, mistletoe injections, oxygenation therapy, nutritional advice, mind-body therapy, information on metabolic pathway blockers and recommended anti-inflammatory supplements.

She performs functional medicine laboratory testing to identify and address underlying issues such as inflammation, hormonal imbalance, micronutrient deficiencies and microbiome imbalance, with the aim of optimising the body’s innate systems and placing the patient in the best position going forward.

By offering a supportive integrative programme to run alongside conventional treatment, her aim is to enable her patients to achieve long term wellness and a better quality of life than would be achieved by using an allopathic medical approach alone.

Dr Tavakkoli is a member of the Royal College of Physicians, fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, member of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, allied member of OncANP (The Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians), member of the General Naturopathic Council, member of the British Medical Laser Association, member of the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis, member of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, and member of the Independent Doctors Federation.

Angeline Taylor, RD

Renal Dietitian

Angeline Taylor has been a registered dietitian for 15 years and worked within the kidney specialty for the past 12 years. She is extremely passionate and committed to supporting those with kidney conditions to live a healthy lifestyle.

Angeline holds the position of Renal Dietitian in the NHS, Chair of the British Dietetic Association Renal Nutrition Group, and Renal Dietitian for Kidney Care UK’s Kidney Kitchen. She also sits on the UK Kidney Association Sustainability committee and advocates a plant-based approach to managing kidney disease.

Angeline sees patients with a variety of kidney conditions at various stages of the disease, from early to advanced stages of chronic kidney disease, dialysis, kidney transplantation, as well as acute illness on a busy NHS ward. In collaboration with the Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, Angeline has developed a range of factsheets on plant-based diets for people with kidney disease.

Dr Tammy Tong

NDPH Senior Fellow and Senior Nutritional Epidemiologist at Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford (Oxford Population Health)

Dr Tammy Tong is a Senior Nutritional Epidemiologist at the University of Oxford.

Her main research interests are the roles of diet and related biomarkers in health. Tammy’s recent research focus has been on the health effects of vegetarian and vegan diets, including cardiovascular disease and bone health, using data from EPIC-Oxford and the UK Biobank.

She also leads research in dietary protein and related markers in disease aetiology, particularly for stroke prevention, in collaboration with colleagues in EPIC-Europe, and other UK and non-UK based cohorts.

Tammy is a Steering Committee Member of the EPIC-Oxford cohort, a long-running UK based study that began in the 1990s and follows the health of 65,000 men and women living throughout the UK, many of whom are vegetarian.

Tammy completed both her PhD in Epidemiology and MPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Richard Twine

Social Scientist

Dr Richard Twine is Reader in Sociology and Co-Director of the Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS) at Edge Hill University, UK. He is author of Animals as Biotechnology – Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (Routledge, 2010) and co-editor of The Rise of Critical Animal Studies – From the Margins to the Centre (Routledge, 2014). His next book, forthcoming with Sydney University Press in early 2024, will be titled The Climate Crisis and other Animals.

His website can be found here https://www.richardtwine.com

Simone Venner

Registered Holistic Nutritionist

Simone Venner is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, public speaker, and yoga and meditation teacher passionate about wellness and gut health.

As the founder of Msholistic, she empowers others to embrace a holistic lifestyle. Currently a Dietetic student, Simone continues expanding her comprehensive well-being knowledge. Her journey exemplifies a commitment to personal growth and positively impacting lives one breath at a time.

Dr Carlijn Wagenaar

PhD student at Amsterdam UMC and researcher at Reade, Plants for Joints project

Dr Carlijn Wagenaar is currently a PhD student at Amsterdam UMC and researcher at Reade where she works on the Plants for Joints project under the direction of Prof. Dr. Dirkjan van Schaardenburg.

After a childhood spent practicing elite sports in the United States, Carlijn studied medicine in Groningen (The Netherlands), where she gained interest into the effects of (plant-based) nutrition on health. Before graduation, she had already joined the Plants for Joints team, working initially as a research associate, and, after graduating as a medical doctor, starting as a PhD student in 2021. She is also a board member of the Physicians Association for Nutrition in the Netherlands.

Wendy Walrabenstein, RD

Registered dietitian, PhD student at Amsterdam UMC and researcher at Reade, Plants for Joints project

Wendy Walrabenstein, RD is a PhD student at Amsterdam UMC and researcher at Reade where she works on the Plants for Joints project under the direction of Prof. Dr. Dirkjan van Schaardenburg.

After studying economics, Wendy worked in international finance for 15 years. After this, she trained as a dietician at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, where she is now also a lecturer-researcher. Wendy wrote the book “Food Body Mind” as preliminary research for Plants for Joints which she developed together with Dirkjan. She works from her own lifestyle therapy practice and is also a board member of the Physicians Association for Nutrition in the Netherlands.