Staff

Michael Plant
Founder and Director

Michael is a a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre, Oxford. Michael has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford. Previously, he was Peter Singer’s Research Assistant and worked on Hippo, a happiness tracking app start-up. 

Clare Donaldson
Chief Operating Officer

Clare joined HLI after attending Charity Entrepreneurship’s Incubation Program. She has interned in the research team at the non-profit Development Media International and has a PhD in geophysics from the University of Cambridge.

Joel McGuire
Research Analyst

Joel has a Masters in Economics and Data Science from the University of Oklahoma, graduating top of his class. In his previous social science research he studied goal-achievement using novel datasets, structurally modelled migration within the US labour market, and mapped the geography of prospective language across the US.  ​

Volunteers

 Mental Health Programme Evaluation

Lucia Coulter

Lucia is a NHS doctor with a special interest in global mental health and a long term involvement with a number of effective altruism projects and organisations.

Derek Foster

Derek’s academic background is in public health and health economics, with a focus on cost-effectiveness analysis and the measurement of wellbeing. He recently co-authored a chapter of the 2019 Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Report, and currently works as a Research Analyst for Rethink Priorities.

Florian Kuhlmeier

Florian is working on researching the most cost-effective mental health interventions. He has a bachelor’s degree in business psychology and is currently working towards a master’s degree in cognitive science in order to understand and apply machine learning models in mental health contexts.

​Jasper Synowski

​Jasper is working on the mental health charity section of the HLI. He has a bachelor’s degree in business psychology and is doing his graduate studies in public health. His focus is on global health with special interests in mental health and pandemic preparedness. ​

​Sonia Vallentin

​​​Sonia is currently studying Global Mental Health at King's College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in order to understand how to design and implement interventions that address the mental health treatment gap. She previously studied Music at Durham University and also founded Effective Altruism Durham.

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Scoping Reports

Jide Alaga

​Jide has a BA in political science and philosophy at the University of Toronto. He joined HLI as a volunteer researcher in February 2019 and is currently working on a report on the impact of positive education interventions on mental health.

Ulf Johansson

Ulf has a MSc in public health. He is a research assistant in Örebro, Sweden. He has created a volunteer organisation that is trying to reduce loneliness. He is working on the positive education cause area report with Jide.​​

Sid Sharma

Sid is a junior doctor in Perth, Australia with an interest in population health and cultivating environments to enable people to live fulfilling lives. He has a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake a Master of Public Health at Harvard University in 2020. He is working on the pain cause area report.​​ 

Caitlin Walker

Caitlin has a degree in Biological Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. She has interned at UNAIDS and is part of a team developing an app for school education (Climate Science). She is working on the mental health cause area report.

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Communications

Barry Grimes

​Barry is part of the Events Team at the Centre for Effective Altruism and provides communications support to HLI on a pro bono basis. He has over 10 years experience working in communication roles across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

Advisors

Peter Brietbart

Peter is the CEO of the anxiety management app Mind Ease. He is a veteran of the effective altruism community with a background in philosophy, entrepreneurship and project management. 

Julian Jamison ​

Julian is a behavioural development economist with a particular focus on health and welfare analysis. He is currently a professor of economics at the University of Exeter and works with the World Bank and multiple governments around the world.

Karolina Sarek

Karolina is Co-founder and Director of Research at Charity Entrepreneurship. She also serves as a Fund Manager for the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund, a mentor at WANBAM, and a consultant for various effective altruism non-profits. 

Peter Singer

Peter is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He works on practical ethics, and is best known for the book Animal Liberation and his writings about global poverty.

Tatjana Višak

Tatjana is a philosopher specialising in ethics and political philosophy. She is currently based in the Department of Philosophy and Economics at the University of Bayreuth.

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With thanks to previous contributors:

Justus Baumann, Ethan Bialick, Brendan Eappen, Marcin Kowrygo, Nikita Patel, Teis Rasmussen, Vanessa See, and Eemaan Thind.