Speaker Biographies

Speaker biographies are shown in the order they confirmed. Check back soon for the latest additions.

Jenny Wiles 

Regional Director (North), Living Streets

Jenny is the Regional Director (North), for the national charity for everyday walking, Living Streets. She currently leads a team delivering projects in schools, workplaces and communities across the north of England, develops strategic partnerships and influences policy and investment in the walking agenda. In her ‘spare time’ she is studying for a MSc. Future Cities at Northumbria University.   

Jack Windle

Senior Projects Manager, Love to Ride

Jack’s cycling advocacy career started aged fourteen when he convinced the caretaker at his secondary school to keep his bike in the workshop as there was nowhere to park it. Whilst studying for a PhD in English Literature at the University of Sheffield, he sat on the Transport Policy Group as Campus Union Representative and on completion moved into sustainable transport. Since then he has managed successful projects at Love to Ride and helped them scale up to become global leaders in behaviour change for cycling.

Councillor Waseem Zaffar

Cabinet Member – Transport & Environment Birmingham City Council

Born and brought up in the Lozells neighbourhood in Birmingham, the area he represents, Councillor Waseem Zaffar was for many years a local magistrate, as well as the CEO of a local not-for-profit organisation and has had his community work recognised by a number of awards including an MBE for services to the voluntary sector.

In May 2018, Councillor Zaffar was appointed Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at Birmingham City Council. This brings together the responsibilities for: sustainable transport policy and strategy to improve connectivity and safety across all modes of travel; while working with partners to develop liveability and environmental improvement for Birmingham.

He is also a Non-Executive Director at the Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust which includes City Hospital where he was born. At the Trust, he chairs the Charity Funds Committee.

He lives in Lozells with his family, in the house where he was born; is a Governor of the primary school he attended; is a member of Unite the Union; and is a lifelong (yet still optimistic) Aston Villa fan and enjoys spending summer weekends playing cricket.

Emma Bird

Senior Lecturer in Public Health, University of the West of England

Emma Bird is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health in the Department of Health and Social Sciences, University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). Emma’s research takes a socio-ecological approach and is focused on developing and evaluating public health interventions that aim to promote the health behaviours of a range of population groups in a variety of settings. Emma is an experienced lecturer and she is also skilled in the utilisation of quantitative, qualitative and evidence synthesis research methods. She has published widely in international peer reviewed journals and presented her work at numerous regional, national and international conferences.

Aimee Stimpson

National Lead, Healthy Places, Health Improvement, Public Health England.

I joined the Public Health ‘family’ in 2008 and have worked in various public health roles in the NHS, local authority and most recently I joined PHE in 2014 where I have worked on regional and national public health programmes across the domains of healthcare public health and health improvement. I now lead the national Healthy Places team which has responsibility for health and planning, housing, transport, NSIPs and the environment programmes

Dr Tom Porter

Consultant in Public Health Medicine with the Cardiff and Vale local public health team in South Wales

Tom trained as a doctor in Cambridge and London, and in public health in Oxford.  Tom is passionate about increasing the uptake of healthy and sustainable forms of travel, and edited the report ‘Moving Forwards: Healthy travel for all in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan’ in 2017. He is currently working with Cardiff and Vale Public Services Boards and Cardiff Council Transport team to take forward the recommendations in the report. A Staff Healthy Travel Charter for Cardiff will be launched in April 2019, with 11 leading public sector organisations in Cardiff signing up at launch, representing over 33,000 staff. 

Rod King MBE

Founder and Campaign Director,
20’s Plenty for Us

Rod started to campaign for lower speed limits in Warrington, UK in 2004. He went on to set up 20’s Plenty for Us in 2007 in order to assist others in communities which wanted lower speeds and speed limits. With a focus on the single issue of campaigning for 20mph limits for most roads across a complete local authority, 20’s Plenty for Us now has 400 local campaigns in UK and globally. It works by empowering local campaigns and acting as a catalyst for communities to change their speed limits. It has been influential in government and transport thinking and guidance on the use and benefits of 20mph limits.

Alan Tapp

Professor of Social Marketing,
Bristol Business School.

Formerly founder and Director of the Bristol Social Marketing Centre, Alan now works on behaviour changes relating to travel and health in particular driver behaviour, car use, and physical activity including cycling. Alan has attracted funding of over £1.6m and is a regular expert advisor to government departments.

Nicholas Lyes

Head of roads policy and public affairs lead, RAC

Nick was appointed as Head of Roads Policy and public affairs lead in January 2015. Nick is responsible for the RAC’s overall public affairs campaigns, Government relations and policy, taking a lead in measuring motoring opinion and devising the organisation’s public policy positions on motoring related issues. Nick also oversees much of the RAC’s research work which aims to make motoring safer, cheaper, greener and more enjoyable. Nick is a regular contributor and spokesperson on local and national news programming. Prior to this, he worked as a political adviser in the housing sector and started his career off as a political consultant for business.

EVELINE DE JONG

Mobility Advisor, Mobycon

Eveline has a lot of experience in the design of streets and public space at home and abroad. As a mobility consultant, Eveline supports projects in the field of infrastructure, networks and research. During her training she developed a solution-oriented mentality and strong analytical thinking ability. Eveline is very involved, has a broad interest in the field, is creative and looks at every problem from multiple perspectives to come to the best solution for all stakeholders. Since she started working at Mobycon, she has taken on many innovative design projects and studies. She quickly switches to complex design assignments and knows how to find solutions to (regulatory) challenges.

LENNART NOUT

Senior Advisor, Urban Mobilty, Mobycon

Lennart is an urban mobility specialist with Mobycon in The Netherlands. He is an urban problem solver with experience from a wide range of countries including The Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Australia and Albania. Because of his wide ranging experience in design, policy and strategy, he is an expert in translating global best practice into local solutions. He specializes in project management of complete street planning in design. He approaches each problem with an open mind and a broad view of the desired outcomes.

Ruth Miller

Lead Cycling Delivery Manager - Southern Regions

Bio and photo to follow

Dr Kevin Golding - Williams

 Head of Cycling and Walking Policy, AAT, Department for Transport 

Kevin leads on cycling and walking policy including the ongoing development of the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy and works with Departments across Government to support delivery of the Strategy. Previously, Kevin led the development of the first statutory Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. Prior to joining the Department Kevin delivered Living Streets public affairs functions in Wales and England as Head of Public Affairs.

Tom Quay

CEO, Passenger 

Tom is Founder and CEO of Passenger Technology Group, based in Bournemouth UK.
Starting out in creative technology 20 years ago near London’s Silicon Roundabout, Tom’s career specialised in digital transformation projects in the transport, finance, education and third sectors.
Over the last 5 years, Tom has been dedicated to making public transport a viable choice through digital innovation with Passenger.
With a focus on accessibility as a driving force in tech advancement, Tom provides forward-thinking strategy to Passenger, a digital retail and travel information product designed specifically for transport operators and their customers.

Anthony Carver-Smith

Marketing Manager, Nottingham City Transport 

Buses are in Anthony’s blood and his childhood dream of working in the bus industry came to fruition in 2002 when he joined Nottingham City Transport as a Call Centre Assistant. Several promotions and 17 years later, he is their award-winning Marketing Manager and has overall responsibility for all aspects of customer and employee communication, customer accessibility and NCT’s customer feedback and complaints processes. Anthony regularly drives NCT’s buses too, identifying areas of improvement for customers and employees and it is after driving a bus that the initial idea for using the NCTX Buses app to ‘stop the bus’ for people with accessibility needs came.

Rebecca Posner

Rebecca Posner is an experienced behavioural psychologist and a member of the British Psychological Society’s division for Academics, Researchers and Teachers in Psychology. Her work focuses on understanding the factors influencing road user behaviour in order to develop interventions and recommendations designed to promote safer and healthier transport behaviour. Rebecca is currently leading TRL’s work in the area of mental health and transport, which looks at improving our understanding of the relationship between the two, including the impact of mental health on driving and travel behaviour as well as ensuring the accessibility of our transport system for all.  

Dr Suzanne Audrey

Senior Research Fellow in Public Health,  University of Bristol 

Suzanne Audrey is Senior Research Fellow in Public Health at the University of Bristol. She is the Principal Investigator of the Travel to Work study, evaluating an intervention to increase walking during the daily commute. Suzanne is an executive member of Bristol Walking Alliance and co-directory of SHINE (Supporting Healthy Inclusive Neighbourhood Environments) health integration team with Bristol Health Partners. 

Professor David Croisdale-Appleby

David holds Ministerial appointments in health and education, and professorships at a number of UK Universities. At NICE, David has led the creation of the National Guidance in many fields and chairs the NICE Public Health Advisory Committee. At HEE he holds responsibilities for all Higher Education, Medical Education and Educational Quality.

David’s work is focused on improving the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged people in this country and internationally.

In 2016, he won the Sunday Times Non-Executive Director of the Year Award in recognition of his major contribution to UK health and social care policy and the not-for-profit sector.

Benjamin Fenech

Ben Fenech leads the noise and public health group at Public Health England, where he provides expert advice to central government and other national stakeholders on the non-auditory health effects of sound and noise. He sits on two BSI technical standard committees, and chairs an advisory board for two research projects on aviation noise and health funded by the Medical Research Council and NIHR. He has over 15 years’ experience in the field of acoustics, having worked in academia, the private sector and as a civil servant.

Poppy Brett

Chief Executive, Life Cycle UK

 Life Cycle UK is a registered charity that has been working in Bristol to transform lives and the environment through cycling.  Poppy has worked in the voluntary sector championing sustainable initiatives since 1992 and received an Outstanding Award from the Earth Champion Foundation in 2015 for her work.  Life Cycle has been awarded two major awards for their work under her leadership including the ‘Robin Corbett Award for Prisoner Re-integration’ and the prestigious ‘Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service’.

Katie Millard

Senior Consultant, SYSTRA

Katie is a Senior Consultant, within SYSTRA’s Transport Planning team in London, with 6 years of experience working in the sustainable transport field. Some recent projects have included cycle infrastructure trials, travel demand management within Somerset and advising on electric vehicle planning policy.

 In the last 12 months, Katie has been working closely with the London Borough of Islington with respect to encouraging participation in the TfL STARS accreditation scheme and in the implementation of School Street schemes.

Katie Edmondson

CCAG Communications and Engagement Lead, West Yorkshire Combined Authority

Katie is the Communications and Engagement Lead for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s award winning £60m CityConnect Programme. The programme is delivering high quality cycling infrastructure across the Leeds City Region, including the largest segregated cycle route in the country, the Leeds - Bradford Cycle Superhighway.

Embedded within the programme are behaviour change initiatives, to achieve the objective of making journeys by bike, or on foot, for the natural and easy choice. By integrating targeted interventions with the building of high quality infrastructure, the Combined Authority, with partner councils in West Yorkshire and York, are aiming to deliver a real step change in how people can travel sustainably across the region.”

Kelly Theis

Project Coordinator , Living Streets

Living Streets is the UK charity for everyday walking. Our ambition is to get people of all generations to enjoy the benefits that this simple act brings and to ensure all our streets are fit for walking. Kelly has been working in partnership with Bristol City Council since 2015 to deliver walk to school projects across the city, exploring ways to create positive behaviour change and modal shift from cars to active journeys to schools. She has worked with numerous stakeholder groups to cut vehicle congestion at school gates and she is now managing the school street events for National Walking Month with the aim to improve road safety, cut congestion and promote better air quality around schools . Kelly is passionate about supporting families to walk to school and create healthy lifelong habits.

Dr Christina Mitsakou

Air Quality and Public Health Group

Dr Christina Mitsakou is an Environmental Public Health Scientist in the Air Quality and Public Health Group, Environmental Hazards and Emergencies Department of Public Health England. Christina’s scientific background is on Environmental Science and interactions between the environmental factors and people’s health. Christina has worked on developing and implementing mathematical models that simulate the dispersion of air pollutants, estimate people’s exposure to air pollution or calculate the dose of pollutants accumulated in the human body. Christina’s great interest is on exploring ways for improving health and reducing harm whilst living in various environmental conditions.

James Watmough

Pilots and Priority Places Manager,
Sport England

James' role in Sport England is to provide support to the local delivery pilot and it's partners to help create systematic and sustainable population level changes in decreasing inactivity. I've worked in Sport and Physical Activity Promotion for nearly 20 years and I've been with Sport England for 6 and a half years. Previous roles included working closely with National Governing Bodies of Sport, County Sport Partnerships and Local Authorities. I was also the lead officer for the 'City of Football' programme in Nottingham which was seen as a pre-cursor to the Local Delivery Pilot approach.

Adrian Davis BA (Hons) PhD, FFPH

Professor of Transport & Health,
Edinburgh Napier University

For over 30 years, Adrian’s work has focused on the health impacts of road transport, the understanding of the importance of health by transport planners, and the application of science in selecting which policies and practices most support health enhancing travel behaviours. Awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of the West of England in 2015 in recognition of his ‘multi-disciplinary approach and collaboration on transport and health’, Adrian has practitioner experience through 11 years p/t with Bristol City Council’s transport team. In September 2018 he became Professor of Transport & Health at Edinburgh Napier University. He is a founding Editor of the Journal of Transport and Health.

Jim Mills

Managing Director and Founder,
Air Monitors Ltd

Managing Director and Founder of Air Monitors Ltd, the UK’s foremost provider of air quality monitoring instrumentation and services. Originally trained in Scotland as an industrial chemist, later became a specialist in environmental monitoring instrumentation including spectroscopy and chromatography.  Jim has been involved in the introduction of many of the de-facto standard technologies currently used in air quality networks in the UK and Europe. More recently, he has been involved in the successful introduction of over 700 small sensor systems across the UK which are designed to enhance the spatial coverage of ambient monitoring in our towns and cities. He has been involved with Breathe London which is a network of 100 sensors across the city and designed the reference grade monitoring technology deployed within Google Street View cars

Lynda Addison

Lynda Addison OBE BSc Dip TP FCIHT MTPS is Chair of the Sustainable Transport Panel of CIHT, Chair of the Transport Planning Society  as well as an Adviser to The Campaign for Better Transport. She was a member of the Foundation for Integrated Transport’s Steering Group on Transport and New Homes. As a Director of Garden City Developments CIC she is promoting 21st century “garden settlements” and is a former Trustee of Living Streets and of the TCPA. She is a town planner by profession and transport planner, receiving an OBE for services to planning in 2006 and the RTPI/TPS Transport Planning Network award in 2010. She was founder Director of an award winning consultancy, Addison & Associates following leaving her last local government role as Director of Planning and Transport in the London Borough of Hounslow. She has worked at national and local level supporting central government and local authorities to improve planning and transport services, led on national best practice research and guidance ranging from the operation of travel planning, local plans and housing assessments to resourcing and delivering effective development management and local planning. She was until recently an English Heritage Commissioner, and a Visiting Professor in Planning at the University of Westminster

Jenny Box

Head of Behaviour Change & Development - England Cycling UK

Jenny is Head of Behaviour Change and Development – England for Cycling UK. She has joined Cycling UK after nine years’ experience in National Governing Bodies for sport and now focuses on helping to achieve Cycling UK’s mission of enabling millions more people to cycle through key behaviour change projects including the Big Bike Revival, Community Cycle Clubs and Cycle for Health.

Eleanor Eaton

Researcher, University of Bath

Eleanor Eaton is based in the Economics Department at University of Bath.  Her research focuses on environmental economics and health, most recently contributing to the Wellcome Trust funded project; UPSTREAM: moving health and sustainability upstream into strategic urban decision making.  By working towards an understanding of the relative value of different characteristics of urban development, this research aims to explore how we can make the economic case for healthier places to live.  Before joining UoB, she worked for several years in World Heritage Sites in the South West on urban and rural visitor management, transport, and sustainability. In her spare time she is studying for a PhD in environmental economics.

Jess Read

Principal Transport Engineer, Witteveen+Bos UK

Jess Read has over 18 years experience delivering walking and cycling projects in places like Bristol, London, Copenhagen, Oslo and Portland, Oregon. She recently led the “iWalk - innovations in inclusive walking” project based in Bristol City Council. The iWalk project identifies 10 pragmatic innovations to better embed inclusive walking in day-to-day transport practice (https://issuu.com/witteveenbos/docs/iwalk_wb). Jess was the technical design lead for the award-winning Copenhagen Blue-Green Infrastructure Masterplan (2011-2014). This project developed a new design standard for Copenhagen street upgrades, which through an innovative co-financing approach has liberated an additional £500m investment in walking, cycling and green infrastructure in Copenhagen

Liz Wathen

Traffic & Safety Manager, Islington Council

Tyler Linton

Group Manager for Sustainable Transport,  Hackney Council

Tyler Linton is Group Manager for Sustainable Transport at Hackney Council, working to deliver Hackney’s ambition to be the exemplary of sustainable urban transport in the U.K. With the highest levels of active travel in London, Hackney is leading the way on reducing the dominance of motor vehicles on our streets and creating a more liveable city. For over a decade, Tyler has worked to reduce the number of cars on the school run - one of the key indicators of a healthy city - including a key role in the STARS Europe project which created a common framework for school travel plans across nine major cities. Tyler has been involved from the start in bringing the school streets concept to the UK from Milan, Italy via the STARS Europe project. Tyler is an external advisor to Modeshift.

Tom Roberts

Senior Transport Planner, Mott MacDonald

Tom is a dual qualified Town and Transport Planner. He leads Mott MacDonald’s ‘Placemaking’ initiative in the North of England - tying transport, urban design and regeneration together, to better provide connected thinking and solutions. He has a real passion for urbanism, people & places!

Hannah Bowden

Programme Director, BetterPoints

Hannah Bowden is Programme Director at BetterPoints. She oversees programme design and manages the implementation team as well as leading on research and regularly speaking at conferences and events.  

Hannah is passionate about behaviour change and is working towards her PhD in Machine Learning, Incentives and Behaviour Change at University College London. She won the 10 Digital Ladies Innovation Award in 2018 and was commended for her fresh, disruptive thinking and never-ending passion for learning. She holds a Psychology Masters from Edinburgh and has 20 years’ experience in business strategy and development, innovation, digital marketing and community engagement.

Jane Robinson

Senior Managing Consultant,  Atkins

Jane Robinson is a Senior Managing Consultant with Atkins, primarily involved in undertaking policy-related research and evaluation, and providing advice and guidance to national and local government. She was the Project Manager for the long-term 20mph Research Study for the Department for Transport, comprising both a process and impact evaluation of 20 mph schemes across the country. She has also led various other evaluation studies, including an evaluation of the Impact of Sustainable Transport Schemes on Town Centres (as part of the DfT’s LSTF evaluation programme).

Heather Clarke 

Strategy, Engagement & Impact Director – Canal & River Trust

Heather oversees the Trust’s brand, marketing, and public affairs. She is responsible for strategy, public policy, research and measurement, strategic performance and reporting, spatial and statutory planning functions, and planning and urban design consultancy functions. Heather joined the Trust in 1997, after working for an urban development corporation which was charged with delivering large scale area-based regeneration. A chartered planner, she has gained extensive experience in strategic and statutory planning, property-based regeneration, place-making and partnership working with the Trust.

Stuart Reid

Interim Director of Vision Zero, Transport for London

Stuart has worked in the field of transport and behaviour change since 1993. In that time he has been the organiser of National Bike Week, a contributing author to the Manual for Streets and developed and implemented the Travel Demand Management behaviour change strategy around the London 2012 Olympics. He joined TfL in 2013.

Councillor Eleanor Combley

Eleanor Combley was elected in 2016 as the Councillor Bishopston and Ashley Down ward in Bristol, and became Leader of the Green Group of councillors in March 2017. With a background in physics, she has worked as a teacher, teacher trainer and software engineer, as well as studying renewable energy technologies.

As a councillor she has been active in campaigns on 20mph limits, implementing a Clean Air Zone, safer streets around schools and on rethinking how we share our public space between different uses and different modes of transport.

Jason Torrance

Clean Air Cities Director, UK100

Jason Torrance is a third sector Director with 25 years’ experience of directing effective public policy initiatives, creating influential programmes and delivering strategic impact.

He is a respected partnership convener who has used entrepreneurial approaches to build relationships within organisations, at high levels in Government, and with a wide array of cross sector partners to deliver on-the-ground change and long-term impact. 

Most recently he led work that delivered the National Clean Air Summit in February 2019. The summit was delivered through a UK100 partnership with Greater London Authority and Unicef UK that convened city Mayors and leaders representing 20m people from across the UK for face-to face talks with Government ministers to identify solutions to air pollution.  

He has previously held roles as Policy Director at Sustrans and Co-chair of Stakeholder Advisory Group at Highways England before joining UK100 in April 2018.

Scott Snaith

CEO - Co-Owner, 50Cycles

Scott Snaith: A Total Futurist that takes transport personal. Exploring and applying concepts of how personal transport can enhance the worlds efficiency of movement. Further>>Faster

Please Follow on twitter: @scott50cycles

Or Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/scottsnaith

Emma Cocksedge

Delivery Coordinator, Sustrans.

Emma started working for Sustrans in 2014 as an Active Travel Officer, where she gained first-hand experience of delivering an effective sustainable travel behaviour change engagement project. In January 2016, Emma became a Delivery Coordinator and took on management of this project along and several community, workplaces and community co -design projects. Emma has 19 years’ experience of working in behaviour change and is an experienced and skilled communicator and project manager. Prior to joining Sustrans she had 14 years’ experience of working in the public sector on waste management behavioural change projects

Chris Bennett

Head of Behaviour Change and Engagement, Sustrans

Chris leads the Sustrans School Programme among other responsibilities. Chris is currently working with local authorities, communities and Playing Out to understand the challenges of delivering School Streets and develop Sustrans’ School Streets programme. Chris has over 10 years’ experience designing and delivering engagement programmes with communities, universities, workplaces and volunteers and is passionate about developing community led approaches.