Alexandra, a Law graduate from the University of Bristol, boasts a diverse decade-long career spanning humanitarian operations in Africa and the Middle East (including an internal audit for a major donor) and programme management for international charities, the UN, and the UK Government. Whilst living in Senegal, Alex co-founded a small business producing and distributing environmentally sustainable coconut products. At HLI, she spearheads operational tasks, optimising organisational policies and addressing bottlenecks. Outside of work, she enjoys outdoor activities like walking her Senegalese rescue dog, riding motorbikes and surfing (badly).

Ben assists the team in the pursuit of identifying the most cost-effective ways to deliver subjective wellbeing. He holds a First-Class Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Durham University, and a Masters in Behavioural Science from the LSE. His academic interests include the quantification of subjective wellbeing, the psychology of giving and new quantitative research methodologies. In his spare time he can be found travelling, playing the lesser-known sport of Roundnet or curled up with his cat and a book.

Caspar is an assistant professor in behavioural science at Warwick Business School and a research fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre. He holds a DPhil in Social Policy. His research focuses on the measurement and determinants of wellbeing.

Sam is a Research Scientist at BetterUp. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Before joining BetterUp, she was a Clinical Research Scientist at Happify Health and a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

Sara is a Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, working in the Centre for Economic Performance on the Wellbeing Value for Money of Government policies. Prior to this Sara spent over 10 years Government Economic Service where she authored the Wellbeing Guidance for Appraisal: Supplementary Green Book Guidance (2021) the UK HM-Treasury guidance for incorporating wellbeing in policy appraisal. Sara was also Head of Evidence at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing where she supported UK government departments to incorporate wellbeing in policy analysis and development

I am assistant professor of public policy at the University of Warwick and an affiliate researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge University. I was previously a Fulbright Scholar at the Brookings Institution in DC. I completed my PhD in economics from the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in 2018. My dissertation was an interdisciplinary exploration of well-being theory and measurement in a policy context (published in 2022 with Oxford University Press as A Theory of Subjective Wellbeing). I continue to work primarily in these areas. I try to take a trans-disciplinary approach, which means that I am an area specialist (well-being) rather than a discipline specialist, and I publish in journals across multiple fields. I don’t feel at home anywhere, but when PPE (philosophy, politics, economics) crosses with philosophy of science that’s pretty close, except that I do a lot of policy work (i.e. much more applied than either PPE or philosophy of science). I also use mixed methods in my research, having published philosophical, quantitative, and qualitative papers.