Directors and Trustees

Joan Walton (Chair)

Dr Joan Walton PhD, MSocSci, DipSW, PGCert, DipSW, BA (Hons)

Joan has been Senior Lecturer at York St John University since 2014, in the School of Education, Languages and Psychology.  In her early career, she was a social worker with children and families, then a lecturer on a professional social work course.  Following this, she initiated an independent education centre which she led for 15 years, before achieving her PhD in 2008, and joining the Faculty of Education at Liverpool Hope University.  She has had a lifelong interest in spirituality, and in the various interpretations of the relationship between science and spirituality.  This has led to her taking an active interest in the phenomenon of consciousness, which, to quote Christian de Quincey, is 'our deepest mystery and our most intimate reality'.   She is a Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, a worldwide professional community for enquiry into themes bridging science, spirituality and consciousness. 

Further information: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/our-staff/staff-profiles/joan-walton.php

Katie Barron (Company Secretary - Governance and Compliance)

Katie Barron PGCert, BA (Hons)

Katie is a systems thinker, educator, and founder of By Your Side, a digital platform supporting new parents’ emotional wellbeing and identity transitions through neuroscience-informed, trauma-aware practice. Her work centres on early intervention and the long-term change that can arise when families are supported with care, compassion, and connection.

Katie has held leadership roles across education, health, and social impact sectors, designing programmes that translate complex theory into accessible, relational practice. She works with charities and community organisations to strengthen governance, sustainability, and impact, and is passionate about the power of story and communication in creating change.

Her interest in spirituality and wellbeing is rooted in exploring how connection, within ourselves, with others, and with the wider world, shapes resilience and belonging. Through her work, she seeks to bridge evidence, empathy, and ethics to foster systems that truly serve human flourishing.

Cheryl Hunt (Research and Scholarship Co-ordinator)

Dr Cheryl Hunt PhD, MEd (Continuing Education), DipEd (QTS), BA (Hons Psychol)  

Cheryl is the Founding Editor, a current Executive Editor, and former Editor-in-Chief (2010-2023) of the Journal for the Study of Spirituality. A member of the original Steering Group for BASS (now INSS) which was convened in 2007, she has served on the Executive Committee since its inception, including as Vice-President (2014-2018) and Co-Chair (2018-2021). 

Cheryl worked as a practitioner in adult and community education for many years before moving into academia. Developing innovative work in the use of critical reflective practice, she has since designed and directed a range of action-research and collaborative inquiry projects as well as doctoral and other postgraduate and professional development programmes. Her teaching and research interests in community education, transformative learning and critical reflection led her, via a doctoral thesis exploring the nature of 'community', into a study of spirituality informed by Gaia theory and the concept of different ways of knowing. She has since published and lectured extensively on these topics and the links between them. Her book Critical Reflection, Spirituality and Professional Practice (Palgrave Macmillan) further explores these links. Cheryl is currently an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK, where she was Director of the Professional Doctorates Programme. She is Co-Editor of the book series Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality (Springer). She is a former Executive Editor of the journal Teaching in Higher Education where she also had particular responsibility for editing the 'Points of Departure‘ section (a title she bestowed on it) which continues to encourage submissions that move away from the standard academic paper into more experimental territory. Cheryl is passionate about the use of educational processes that enable people to explore and develop their own meaning-making; to take a critical perspective which challenges orthodoxies; and to give voice to hitherto submerged knowledge which can make a difference both personally and politically.

Further information and links to selected publications: https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/1661-cheryl-hunt

Critical Reflection, Spirituality and Professional Practice (2021. London: Palgrave Macmillan)

Journal for the Study of Spirituality (All Editorials are free to access)

'"Doing" reflective practice and understanding spirituality as a way of being: Implications for professional and transformative practice' (Article based on Keynote Lecture given at the 2023 INSS International Conference)

Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality (Springer).

Wilfred McSherry (Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal for the Study of Spirituality)

Prof. Wilfred McSherry is a Professor in Nursing working in a joint appointment between Department of Nursing, School of Health and Social Care, Staffordshire University and the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust United Kingdom and part-time Professor at VID University College, Bergen, Norway.

Wilf has had a career in nursing working as a Registered Nurse primarily within Acute Hospital Care with a focus upon care of the older person and end of life care. His interest in the spiritual dimension developed alongside a realisation that this aspect of care was neglected and forgotten by some healthcare professionals. He has published extensively in this field with several books and many articles addressing different aspects of the spiritual dimension. In 2010 Wilf led on a piece of work for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) exploring members perceptions of spirituality.

Wilf is a founding and executive member of the British Association for The Study of Spirituality (BASS)  and a Principal Fellow of The Higher Education Academy. In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing for his unique contribution to nursing in the areas of spirituality and dignity. Wilf co-led (with 5 other partners) a Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership European project titled Enhancing Nurses Competence in Providing Spiritual Care through Innovation Education and Compassionate Care (EPICC) website: http://www.epicc-project.eu/

Michael O’Sullivan (Links Co-ordinator)

 Dr Michael O’Sullivan [PhD, LicTh, MTh, BDiv (Hons), BacPhil (Hons), BSocSc (Hons)]

Michael has been a member of BASS - now INSS - since its birth, and of its Board of Directors since 2017. He is also a  member of the Editorial Board of the INSS journal, Journal for the Study of Spirituality   

 Michael is Co-founder, Executive Director, and Treasurer of the Spirituality Institute for   Research and Education (SpIRE) in Dublin, Ireland (https://spiritualityinstitute.ie). He was Director of the Higher Dip and MA in  Applied  Spirituality when they were awards of the National University of Ireland (2005-11), founding Director of the MA in Applied Spirituality when it was an award of Dublin City University (2011-15), and founding programme leader of the MA in Applied Spirituality at South East Technological University (2016-2021).  He was also a lecturer and research supervisor in applied spirituality at those third level institutiions and he was the Coordinator of PhD studies in spirituality. He is Emeritus Senior Lecturer and foundng member of the Spirituality in Society and the Professions Research Group at South East Technological University (SETU), in Waterford, Ireland.

He lectured in theology, spirituality, and philosophy at the Milltown Institute of Theology, Philosophy, and Spirituality, Dublin, Ireland for twenty-five years, and was Head of Theology Studies and Head of the Dept of Systematic Theology, and of the Dept of Moral Theology at All Hallows College, Dublin City University. He is a research fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa, a member of the leadership board of the Centre for the Academic Study of Christian Spirituality at the University of Zurich, a founder-member of the International Relations Committee of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (SSCS), which is linked to the American Academy of Religion (AAR), Past President of that scholarly society, having previously served as its President, Vice President, member of its Governing Board, of its Board of Directors, and its Promotions Committee. He has served as a member of the editorial board of Spiritus, the Society's journal, since 2011, and is a former member of the steering committee of the Christian Spirituality Study Group of the AAR. He is also a fellow of the European Institute for Spirituality in Economics and Society (SPES), a research associate of the Centre for the Study of Spirituality at the University of Hull, a member of the Spirituality in Research and Innovation Group (SRIG) at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, a member of the American Academy of Religion and of Spiritual Directors International (SDI).

Michael has presented at international conferences in different parts of the world, including at BASS/INSS conferences. He was the lead organiser and chair of the INSS conference in SETU, Waterford, Ireland, in 2023, the first time the biennial conference was held outside the UK. He has published extensively and some of his work is available on YouTube and in podcasts; and national media interviews with him extend back to the 1970s..His research interests include ‘authentic subjectivity as a framework for the study of spirituality’, ‘spirituality in childhood as foundational in a life’, ‘spirituality and social transformation’, and ‘spiritual capital’. He also has training in spiritual accompaniment, counselling, and community development. He is Irish and living in Ireland, a Jesuit priest, and has worked in South and Central America, and East Africa.

Further information and links to selected publications:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelfosullivan1

https://spiritualityinstitute.ie/about-us/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Osullivan16

https://ufs.academia.edu/MichaelOSullivan

orcid.org/0000-0003-0215-9536

PURE: https://research.wit.ie/en/persons/michael-osullivan

Melanie Rogers (Spirituality Scholars Network Co-ordinator)

Prof. Melanie Rogers is a National and University Teaching Fellow for Advanced Practice and Spirituality at the University of Huddersfield in the UK. She is Professor of Advanced Practice and Spirituality. She is also an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in Primary Care as well as the Director of the International Council of Nurses, Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Practice Nurse Network Global Academy of Research. She is a Queens Nurse having been awarded this title for her work in practice and education. She has worked as a nurse for over 25 years having trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. She has worked in many settings including acute medicine, endocrinology, gynaecology, oncology and emergency care in the UK and Canada before training to be a Nurse Practitioner in 1998.

Melanie is passionate about advanced practice as a way of providing the care needed at the point of need for patients. She set up and is chair for the Spirituality & Compassion Special Interest Group at the University of Huddersfield and has successfully run several large conferences focusing on spirituality and health.  Her work and research has focused on spirituality and how to provide truly holistic care to patients and her doctoral studies have led to a spirituality framework for Nurse Practitioners to help patients find hope, meaning and purpose during times of illness and challenge. She been a member of INSS for many years and co-chairs the spirituality scholars’ network. She has run a number of research symposia for the network.

She has multiple publications on clinical aspects of advanced practice and spirituality, she has also co- edited a book on Spiritually Competent Practice. She has recently edited a book on spirituality and advanced practice nursing.

Further information and links to selected publications: https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/persons/melanie-rogers

Linda Ross (Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal for the Study of Spirituality)

Prof. Linda Ross BA, RGN, PhD, FHEA 

Linda is an Emeritus Professor of Nursing (specialising in spirituality) at the University of South Wales. Her PhD in 1992 was the first in Europe to explore nurses’ perceptions of spirituality and spiritual care which she published as a book in 1997. She has published extensively on the subject of spirituality, contributing to numerous texts such as the Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare (Cobb, Rumbold & Puchalski, 2012) and Spiritual Assessment in Healthcare Practice (McSherry & Ross, 2010).

For the last 30 years such has led numerous research studies on spiritual care in both nursing practice and nurse education, as well as leading training workshops and seminars for healthcare staff internationally. She contributed to the Royal College of Nursing’s Spirituality in Nursing Care Educational Resources. and to the spiritual care guidance which accompanies the Welsh Government’s Health and Care Standards (2015).  She is a founding member and former Membership Secretary for INSS and an Executive Editor since its inception for its affiliated journal, Journal for the Study of Spirituality.  She is also an editor for the Journal of Health & Social Care Chaplaincy. She co-led (with 5 other partners) an Erasmus funded 3 year project to establish best practice in spiritual care nurse education across Europe (www.epicc-project.eu)

Further information and links to selected publications: http://staff.southwales.ac.uk/users/261-lross/

Robyn Wrigley-Carr (Book Reviews Editor, Journal for the Study of Spirituality)

Assoc. Prof. Robyn Wrigley-Carr  PhD (Univ of St Andrews), MCS (Regent College), MA (Univ of London), B.Ed (Hons) (Univ of Syd), Grad Dip Spiritual Direction (Univ of Div), ATCL.

Robyn is Associate Professor in Spirituality and Spiritual Care at Whitley College, University of Divinity, Australia. She joined the Editorial board of the Journal for the Study of Spirituality in January 2018 when she assumed the role of Book Reviews Editor. Robyn gained her PhD in 2013 at the University of St Andrews having researched the religious philosopher, Baron Friedrich von Hügel, as a spiritual director. Robyn’s Masters thesis (Regent College, Vancouver) was a study of ‘self-knowledge’ in the writings of the 16^th century mystic, Teresa of Avila. As part of her Regent degree, Robyn was an exchange student at the University of Oxford. Since her doctorate, Robyn has engaged extensively in research of Evelyn Underhill, a significant writer in mysticism and spirituality in the first half of the twentieth century. Robyn discovered and edited Evelyn Underhill’s Prayer Book (2018) and has published Spirit and Becoming (London: SPCK, 2027); Bearing the Beams of Love: The Monastic Ideal of Evelyn Underhill (Nashotah: Nashotah House Press, 2025); Music of Eternity (The Archbishop of York's Advent Book, 2021; London: SPCK, 2021) and The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill (2020). In addition to research in historic spirituality, Robyn researches spiritual care for people with dementia at aged care homes and in-home care in Sydney, and spiritual care for aged care spiritual care practitioners. She has given several keynotes at international conferences as well as the Breck lectures (2025, USA) and the Liddon lecture (2021, UK).

Robyn is passionate about spirituality having lectured in the area for three decades. She is also a spiritual director and leads spiritual retreats in Australia and the UK and leads Quiet Days in the US and UK.

https://staff.divinity.edu.au/staff/robyn-wrigley%E2%80%90carr/

Noshina Yousuf (Treasurer)

Noshina Yousuf  MBA (University of the West of Scotland), FCCA

Noshina is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) with over 15 years of professional experience across academic and industry sectors in the Middle East and the UK. She currently works as a Business Consultant at a local firm. 

She is the Founder of the Hamilton Women's Club where she promotes community engagement and women’s empowerment. Noshina has volunteered with several charitable organizations, providing accounting and financial support to enhance their financial governance and sustainability. 

In addition, she trains and mentors accounting entrants and professionals transitioning into the accounting field, and provides practical training to business employees across different sectors.

Noshina is a strong believer in spirituality as an integral part of day-to-day living and lifelong learning. She is deeply interested in understanding spirituality from an academic perspective by connecting it with psychology, nurture, and wellbeing, and integrating these principles into personal and professional development.

Co-opted Members of the Executive Committee

Janice Darkes-Sutcliffe (Minute-Taker)

Dr Janice Darkes-Sutcliffe PhD, MA, B.Ed (Hons)

Janice worked for 17 years as a class teacher and Senior Leader in both mainstream and schools for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. She was a Local Authority Early Years Advisory Teacher for over a decade and is now involved as a part-time lecturer at York St John University supporting M.A. students. Currently, she is Chair of the Board of Trustees at the ‘Foundation Years Trust’, a charity which works directly with families, early years settings and schools across Wirral to help promote the importance of play and the central role parents and carers have in nurturing their young child’s learning and development.

Janice completed her doctoral research in 2023 at York St John University, a participatory research inquiry which revisited ideas of knowledge to explore the essential components of a process which enabled early years practitioners to generate new knowledge about how to create and sustain rich learning environments for young children through building their own learning and becoming knowledge creators within a learning community. Her thesis was based on a participatory worldview, which acknowledges the connectedness of individuals and the importance of democratic ways of working. Janice has been a research assistant on a further two research projects, undertaking research and co-writing three published journal articles. She has a particular interest in participatory action research, working in relational ways to support practitioners to undertake practitioner led inquiry. She recently became a member of INSS because her experience, reading and research interests encouraged her to think more deeply about spirituality, and of the importance of connection and inner worlds.

Trudi Garratt-Ward (Conference 2027 Chair)

Dr Trudi Garratt-Ward EdD, NPQEL, NPQH, PGCE, BA (Hons)

Trudi is a Senior Lecturer in Initial Teacher Training at York St John University, where she also sits on the University’s Academic Conduct Committee and the School of Education, Language and Psychology’s Ethics Committee.

Helen McSherry (Advisory role ~ Treasurer 2014-2025)

Mrs Helen McSherry has diverse experience in project management, administration and book keeping having worked for a range of private businesses and voluntary sector organisations. Her interests in spirituality are broad and wide-ranging, encompassing religious and secular approaches. She manages the Trussell Trust food bank in Market Drayton, Shropshire and is actively engaged in the work of a number of other charitable organisations.

Katja Milner (Membership Secretary)

Dr Katja Milner PhD, MSc, PG Cert, BA (Hons)

Katja is a Senior Lecturer and Course Lead for the MA in Spirituality Ecology and Mental Health at Buckinghamshire New University. She completed her ESRC Doctoral research at the Institute of Mental Health and Department of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her thesis explores the role of spirituality in mental health and recovery from the perspective of lived experience. It aims to help bridge what has been highlighted as a spirituality gap in understanding the importance of people’s spiritual experiences and needs, which are often neglected within clinical practice. It does this through a qualitative systematic review and the production of an evidence-based conceptual framework (MISTIC Framework). It includes an in-depth narrative analysis of the ways in which people describe meaning making, psychospiritual development and spiritual connection in their stories of spirituality, mental health and recovery.  

Katja has worked across an extensive range of mental health settings for 15 years prior to engaging in her PhD research. Most recently she was involved in developing a pioneering new role as a spiritual care practitioner and then as spirituality lead in an NHS mental healthcare trust. Katja has completed an MSc in Mental Health and Social Care, a PG Certificate in Psychological Therapies, and a BA (Hons) in Psychology. She has also undertaken Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy training for NHS mental health contexts, a Religion and Health Research Summer School at the Centre for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, USA, and she has attained an Associate Fellow award in teaching in Higher Education in the UK. Katja is interested in developing teaching, training and educational approaches towards spirituality, mental health, recovery and wellbeing, as well as furthering research and evidence. She co-chairs the INSS Mental Health and Wellbeing SIG and is interested in collaborations with others.  

Further information and links:

https://www.researchintorecovery.com/research/mistic/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-katja-milner-58441a283/ 

Claudia Psaila (Special Interest Groups Co-ordinator)

Dr Claudia Psaila PhD (Open), M.Ed (Brit Col), B.A. (Hons), B.A. (Gen) (Melita) Adv. Dip. Relational Supervision

Claudia is a Senior Lecturer and the current Head of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Malta, a position she has held since October 2024. Her academic journey at the University began in January 1998 as a Council-appointed Resident Academic.

Claudia is a warranted Counselling Psychologist, Social Worker, and Supervisor. Her teaching portfolio spans undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels. Her core lecturing duties involve training students in helping skills, personal development, and the spiritual dimension of practice across social work, midwifery, and psychology programmes. She is a regular guest lecturer at University College Dublin and RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, and she serves as the External Examiner for the MA in Applied Spirituality at South East Technological University in Dublin.

She has served as the University representative on the Social Work and Psychology Profession Boards. She previously coordinated the MA in Social Work (Children & Families) and Master of Social Work, and was instrumental in designing new postgraduate curricula.

Claudia's research focuses on spirituality, mental health, supervision, and resilience. She is currently a member of two major international research teams. Her publication record includes peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, such as "Spirituality: the cornerstone of wellbeing?" (2019) and contributions to The Routledge International Handbook of Glocal Social Work (2025). She is also currently co-editing the forthcoming book Social Work in Malta.

Claudia has served on the scientific committees of several international conferences, including INSS 2025. Locally, she remains engaged in the community, providing clinical supervision to professionals and maintaining a practice in counselling and psychotherapy.

Further information and links to selected publications: https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/claudiapsaila

Ruma Puri (Digital Operations Manager)

Ruma Puri has a multidisciplinary background spanning mainframe software development, quality assurance, business analysis, and product management, with experience across technology delivery, customer journeys, and data-led decision-making.

Her career spans multiple sectors, including banking, mobile, utilities, and e-commerce, where she has led and delivered digital products and platforms in complex, globally distributed environments. She has worked closely with engineering, design, and business stakeholders across global teams to improve systems, enhance user experience, and deliver improved commercial outcomes.

Alongside her professional work, Ruma has long practiced and explored different aspects of spirituality through yoga, meditation, and the philosophical and contemplative traditions within Hinduism.

At INSS, she is responsible for digital operations, including first-line technical support, website strategy, and the ongoing development and maintenance of digital systems and infrastructure.

David Rousseau (Advisory role ~ Company Secretary 2014-2025, Chair 2018-2023)

Dr David Rousseau  is the Director of the Centre for Systems Philosophy, UK, a Research Associate in the College of Engineering in Oregon State University, USA, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

His current focus is on developing a methodology, grounded in Systems Philosophy and General Systems Theory, for use broadly in exploratory research but specifically tailored for analysing exceptional human experiences.  David has been a member of the BASS Executive Committee since 2013 and has served as the BASS Company Secretary since 2014.  He is also a Trustee of the Alister Hardy Society (since 2018).  He has been a Trustee of the Society for Psychical Research since 2003, where he has in the past served as Treasurer and as Chair of the Research Activities Committee.  Since 2013 he has been a member of the Research Committee of the Religious Experience Research Centre in the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, UK, and he is a co-founding Editorial Board Member of the Centre’s Journal for the Study of Religious Experience (since 2014).  He has been since 2012 a full member of the Centre for Spirituality Studies in the University of Hull, UK, where he is also a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Systems Studies (since 2013).    He is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Bertalanffy Centre for the Study of Systems Science in Vienna, Austria (since 2015), and a past Editor-in-Chief of their journal Systema (2013-2016).  Since 2018 he has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the International Federation for Systems Research’s book series on Systems Science and Systems Engineering (Springer).  He is a past President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (2017/18) and since 2018 the Chair of their Board of Trustees. 

He has since 2010 published more than 40 articles in the Journal for the Study of Spirituality, the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the Journal of Near-Death Studies,  Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and a range of journals in Systems Science and Systems Engineering.  He contributed the chapter on “Philosophy and Spirituality” to the Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions (2019), and the chapter on “Anomalous Cognition and the Case for Mind-Body Dualism” to Extrasensory Perception: Support, Skepticism, and Science (Praeger, 2 vols, 2015).  In the last decade he has additionally contributed to four books in Systems Science and Systems Engineering.

Louise Spiers (Conference Co-ordinator)

 Dr Louse Spiers  (PhD, M.A., Dip Psych, Cert Psych., Dip Arch., B.A. [Hons], UKCDP, MBAP, ACTO) is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Counselling at The University of Northampton where she teaches on counselling, research and spirituality modules. After a life transition, she began her PhD, exploring Transpersonal Experiences in individuals with epilepsy, which she was awarded in 2022. Louise is the co-lead of the Exceptional Experience and Consciousness Studies (EECS) special interest research group in the Centre for Psychology and Social Sciences and is passionate about qualitative research into the phenomenology of experiences that are otherwise pathologized or silenced. Research interests include mystical, anomalous and transpersonal experiences, clinical parapsychology and spirituality in epilepsy. Louise combines experience-near personal research with more traditional approaches. She has published a chapter on the use of autoethnography to understand spirituality in Spirituality and Wellbeing - Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Religious Experience and Health (Schmidt & Leonard 2020) and another on autoethnography in Storying the Self (Adamson & Moriarty 2022). Her current project, utilising Early Career Research Funding, is to provide a more discriminating type of categorisation of spirituality in epilepsy than has previously been undertaken, and to answer the research question ‘Do individuals with all types of epilepsy report associated anomalous experiences and which experiences do they have?’

In addition to her academic roles, Louise has a private practice as a Psychotherapist, Counsellor and Clinical Supervisor, where she uses creative therapeutic methods including the use of dreams and archetypal symbolism to facilitate healing in adult clients. Clients with anomalous and exceptional experiences are frequently drawn to her practice. She has an interest in researching spirituality in psychotherapy, transpersonal practices in therapy, and the wounded healer, and is exploring the possibility of psychedelics in therapeutic healing.

Further information and links to research activity

https://pure.northampton.ac.uk/en/persons/louise-spiers

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9261-068X

External Advisor to the Executive Committee

Julie Billingham (Strategy Advisor on Operations and Technology)

Mrs J.A. Billingham, MSc (Royal Holloway College, University of London), BSc (Hons) Mathematics (University of Pretoria).

Julie is the Strategy Director of the Centre for Systems Philosophy (CSP). Her professional expertise is as a consultant in decision analysis, in contexts ranging from environmental management to business optimisation. With extensive experience supporting startup companies or new business initiatives, she has frequently used her technical and business knowledge to help charitable organisations modernise their operations. For example, she served as as Hon Webmaster for the Society for Psychical Research for more than 10 years, setting up their first content management based website, membership management system and online library. A serial social entrepreneur, she co-founded the Centre for Fundamental and Anomalies Research in 2000, and co-developed the Library of Exploratory Science in 2004. 

Julie's academic background is in mathematics and physics, with a practical focus in operational research and systems modelling. She has authored a number of peer-reviewed publications introducing new tools and methods for research, especially in frontier science. She is particularly interested in the ways that current thinking in the metaphysics of science might accommodate credible evidence from spiritual, mystical and psychic experiences. In 2021 she and her co-author, David Rousseau, were awarded a runner-up prize in the prestigious BICS essay competition, with their essay entitled "What would have to be true about the world? On evidence for the possibility of consciousness surviving death".

Further information and links to selected publications: https://www.systemsphilosophy.org/julie-billingham