Guest Speakers

Robin Ince is many things. A multi award winning comedian, author, broadcaster, bibliomaniac and a populariser of scientific ideas. He is perhaps best known as the co-host and co-creator of the Sony Gold Award winning BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox, and hosts the BBC Radio 4 series Writing the Universe. As a stand up Robin has toured the world, and as an author he has written four acclaimed books, including Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, his poetry collection Ice Cream for a Broken Tooth, and Bibliomaniac, which earned him the prestigious Booksellers Association Author of the Year award. Robin co-created the Cosmic Shambles Network and created the groundbreaking science variety night Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People which has been adapted worldwide. He has received an Honorary Fellowship of UCL, an honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway College (University of London), and is a fellow of the British Science Association.

Subhadra Das is a writer, historian, broadcaster and comedian who looks at the relationship between science and society. She specialises in the history and philosophy of science, particularly the history of scientific racism and eugenics. For nine years she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London. She has written and presented podcasts and stand-up comedy shows, curated museum exhibitions, and has appeared on radio and TV. Her first book Uncivilised: Ten Lies That Made The West was published in February 2024.

Annie Kelly is a journalist and researcher specialising in digital antifeminism, conspiracy theories and the far right. She completed her PhD about digital antifeminist networks at the University of East Anglia in 2020 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded ‘Everything is Connected: Conspiracy Theories in the Age of the Internet’ project at King’s College London. She is the UK correspondent for the QAA Podcast (formerly QAnon Anonymous).

Dr Suze Kundu is a nanochemist, science communicator, and all-round champion of curiosity. Over the past decade, she has blended a career in research with a passion for sharing science in ways that are engaging, inclusive, and impactful. Suze is currently the Research Community Engagement Consultant for NASA’s Science Explorer (SciX) platform, and previously served as Director of Researcher and Community Engagement at Digital Science, working with global research communities to make science more open, collaborative, and accessible.

Michael Marshall is the Project Director of the Good Thinking Society, President of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, and editor of The Skeptic. He is the co-host of The Know Rogan Podcast, and has been the co-host of Skeptics with a K for over 15 years. He has interviewed proponents of pseudoscience for over a decade for the Be Reasonable podcast, and is a regular contributor to God Awful Movies, The Scathing Atheist, and The Skepticrat. He has gone undercover to investigate psychics, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and alternative medicine practitioners. His investigative work has informed reporting across the UK media, and he has given lectures on journalism and PR to undergraduate students as part of degree courses at several universities.

Emma McLachlan is a bird of prey specialist with a particular interest in vultures, and a field worker with a research focus on raptor species found in Cumbria, such as barn owls. She currently works as Head of Birds at Muncaster Hawk & Owl Centre, based in the Lake District National Park. They are a small but passionate organisation committed to bird of prey conservation both locally and internationally, alongside education work delivered through inspiring flying displays.

Sian Norris is a writer and journalist, currently working as Senior Investigations Reporter at openDemocracy. Her book, Bodies Under Siege: how the far right attack on reproductive rights went global, was published by Verso in 2023. She has reported from the UK, Ukraine, Poland, Kenya, Bangladesh and Romania for the Times, Observer, i news, the Ferret, the Lead, the Guardian and many more.

Lucia Osborne-Crowley is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her second book, My Body Keeps Your Secrets, was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize for Literature in 2022. Her third book, The Lasting Harm: Witnessing The Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, was awarded the 2025 University of Sydney People’s Choice Award, was awarded the 2025 Ned Kelly Prize, was shortlisted for the 2025 Gordon Burn Prize and the NSW Literary Prize, and was longlisted for the Walkley Book Award, the Nib Literary Award, the Victorian Premier’s Award and others.

Cyriac Abby Philips is a clinician-scientist in Hepatology at Rajagiri Hospital, Kochi, Kerala, India, a medical science communicator, and public-health social-media activist. Under the viral handle ‘The Liver Doc,’ he combats health misinformation, superstition and dogma in the Indian subcontinent, informing 430,000-plus followers across X, Instagram and YouTube about dangers of pseudoscientific practices, alternative medicine and the wellness industry. His myth-busting posts are consistently profiled by national & international media, making him India’s most litigated science communicator and the target of multiple suits from Ayurveda & Homeopathy industry. Philips is a leading authority on herb- and supplement-induced liver injury. His honours include the President of India’s Gold Medal for Academic Excellence in Hepatology (2016), multiple investigator awards from American and European liver societies, Indian Society of Gastroenterology’s Rising Star Award (2022) and Indian Medical Association's coveted Social Media Award (2023). HarperCollins will publish his non-fiction debut, The Liver Doctor, in 2025.

Naomi Ryan is a criminal and public law barrister. After completing the BCL at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, she taught criminal law to undergraduates at St Hilda’s College Oxford and University College London before embarking on her career as a criminal barrister. She both prosecuted and defended before moving to the Civil Service, where she has worked for an array of prestigious departments, including the Attorney General’s Office, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Court of Appeal. She continues to work as an advisory barrister on criminal matters. When she isn’t advising legal luminaries, she delivers spirited (!) talks on macabre events in legal history. She is a regular feature at London’s Month of the Dead festival, and can often be found addressing museums and other legal and supernatural organisations on the spooky and scintillating topic of ghost law. Her favourite subjects include ghosts as witnesses, the prosecution of fraudulent mediums and the High Court’s treatment of demon mongooses called Gef.

Matthew Sweet is co-writer, with Mark Gatiss, of the U&Alibi series, Bookish. He presents Free Thinking on BBC Radio 4 and Sound of Cinema on BBC Radio 3. His 25 years of programmes include The Culture Show (BBC2), Checking into History (C4), five series of The Philosophers Arms (Radio 4) and 1922: The Birth of Now, a ten-part history of modernism (Radio 4). He is the author of Inventing the Victorians, Shepperton Babylon, The West End Front and Operation Chaos. His novel, The New Forest Murders was published in June; his biography Barbara Cartland: The Great Dictator is published next year.

Paul Zenon is currently celebrating 40 years as a multi-award-winning full-time professional trickster, presenter, actor, writer, pundit and avoider of ‘work’. He's performed live in around 40 countries and appeared on hundreds of TV shows, most notably as the UK pioneer of ‘Street Magic’, debunker of peddlers of the paranormal, and as long-term guest in Dictionary Corner on C4’s Countdown. His specialist subjects also include the history of Magic, Variety, and unusual entertainments. Since the inception of QED, Paul has been involved variously as host, panellist, speaker, and gala dinner comedy performer.

Cecil Cicirello is a professional podcaster who started podcasting over 17 years ago. For many years Cecil has been podcasting about skepticism, atheism and politics. His shows include Cognitive Dissonance, The Know Rogan Experience, Citation Needed, and Season Liberally. His hobbies include cooking, fencing, and ARPGs.

Andrew Copson was appointed Chief Executive of Humanists UK in 2009, having previously been its Director of Education and Public Affairs. He was President of Humanists International from 2015-2025. His books include The Little Book of Humanism (2020) and The Little Book of Humanist Weddings (2021) with Alice Roberts; Secularism: a very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2019); The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Humanism (2015) with A C Grayling. His writing on humanist and secularist issues has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and New Statesman as well as in various journals. He has represented the humanist movement extensively on television news on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as well as on programmes such as Newsnight, The Daily Politics, and The Big Questions. He has also appeared on radio on programmes from Today, Sunday, The World at One, The Last Word, and Beyond Belief on the BBC, to local and national commercial radio stations.

Professor Chris French is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London where, for more than two decades, he headed the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Patron of Humanists UK. He has published well over 200 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims, including several appearances on hit podcast, Uncanny. His most recent book is ‘The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal’.

Dr Jamie Gallagher is an engagement trainer and consultant who works with universities, charities, museums and professional bodies helping them to engage more effectively. Working full time in public engagement for over a decade he has helped improve the reach, profile and impact in almost every academic discipline. Jamie is also a science communicator and can often be found on TV, radio or stage making research accessible.

Dr Stella Marie Gaynor is Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication at Liverpool John Moores University. She is the author of Rethinking Horror in the New Economies of Television (2022, Palgrave MacMillan), and she has published journals and chapters in edited collections exploring the global reach of The Walking Dead, political commentary in Black Summer, and religious cults in The Returned. Her current research project, Murder Media, explores murder and serial killer stories as they spread across media, and is developing a new academic framework to understand contemporary true crime via the processes of transmedia storytelling, adaptation, and intertextuality. The Murder Media project has publications exploring nostalgia in Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, examining the Bundy case from the perspective of women, and the links between true crime podcasting and social media impulses. Stella writes and hosts The Murder Media Podcast, which is available across all podcast feeds.

Mike Hall is a web developer and Doctor Who fan (not in that order). He is a founding member of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, where he currently serves as secretary and treasurer. Since 2009 he has been producing and presenting the popular skeptical podcast Skeptics with a K, the longest running skeptical podcast in the UK. He is also on the organising team for QED, and is still coming to terms with a diagnosis of autism. Over recent years he has garnered a reputation as the ‘placebo effect guy’, much to his continual annoyance.

Dr Alice Howarth is a cancer cell biologist, science communicator, podcaster and writer. She has been part of the skeptical community for more than a decade, and is co-host of Skeptics with a K, vice president of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, deputy editor of The Skeptic Magazine, co-organiser of the QED conference and co-founder of Skeptics in the Pub Online. Alice has delivered lectures on the topics of science and skepticism all over the world, written for publications such as The Guardian, and worked on numerous investigations into pseudoscientific claims. In her day job, Alice is an open research advocate for the University of Liverpool and the UK Reproducibility Network, working to make research available beyond academia. She believes that accessibility and inclusivity is crucial to how we engage with science and critical thinking.

Matt Kemp is Head of Strategic Visualisation at visual thinking agency Scriberia. With years of experience as an illustrator and graphic facilitator, he has worked across business, academia and government, putting pictures to work to make complex ideas clear. A lifelong enthusiast for science and engineering, he advocates drawing as a powerful tool for understanding problems and sharing solutions.

Noah Lugeons is a podcaster, author, and atheist activist. He’s the host of The Scathing Atheist, the 2014 Podcast Award winner for Best Religious Podcast, and God Awful Movies, which has been recorded live at the largest atheist conferences in the US, the UK, and Australia. He’s the author of several books on the subject of atheism. His most recent book, Outbreak: A Crisis of Faith – How Religion Ruined Our Global Pandemic examines religion’s role in America’s error riddled response to the COVID-19 crisis. He temporarily resides in rural South Georgia, but not temporarily enough.

Icy Sedgwick is a folklore blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast. She is based in the north east of England, where she was born and raised amid the folk tales and legends of Tyneside and Northumberland. Icy is fascinated by history, cinema, art, and the occult, and griffins will always be her favourite mythical beast. She also holds a PhD in Film Studies.

Andy Wilson is a director of the QED conference and host of perennial QED-favourite InKredulous. As a former board member of the Merseyside Skeptics Society he was one of the driving forces behind the 2010 10:23 overdose campaign, and he took the role of emcee at QED 2012.

Professor Richard Wiseman has published over 100 academic papers examining skepticism, magic and illusion. He has written popular psychology books (including Paranormality) that have sold over three million copies worldwide, and has created YouTube videos that have attracted over 800 million views. A member of the Inner Magic Circle, Richard has tested a variety of paranormal claims including fire walking, hauntings and a psychic dog. Elizabeth Loftus (Past President, Association for Psychological Science) has described him as one of the world’s most creative psychologists and his On Your Mind Podcast reached number one in Apple Podcast’s Science charts. In 2004 the Royal Society presented him with the David Attenborough Award for his research into magic and critical thinking.