Meet the team
Staff
Dr Michael Plant
Founder and Research Director
Peter Brietbart
Managing Director
Dr Lily Yu
Development and Operations Manager
Lily has worked at the intersection of philanthropy, research, innovation, and international development over the past decade. During this time, she has managed and advised on a range of grant-based programmes, impact investing initiatives, and policy recommendations to promote inclusive economic development and social innovation across the Asia-Pacific and Europe. She has a PhD in Neuroscience from University College London and was a Fellow at the University of Tokyo.
Dr Ryan Dwyer
Senior Researcher
Joel McGuire
Research Analyst
Samuel Dupret
Research Analyst
Lara Watson
Communications Manager
Ben Stewart
Research Analyst
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.
Trustees
Dr Caspar Kaiser
Chair
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.
Dr Samantha Bernecker
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.
Advisors
Prof Julian Jamison
Karolina Sarek
Prof Peter Singer
Dr Tatjana Višak
Summer Research Fellows
2021 Cohort: Matt Coleman, Frank Hong, Chihiro Ito, Niall Maher, Amarins Veringa, Akash Wasil
Contributors
Former volunteers and team members who have supported our work: