We invite you to a one-day conference and associated arts event, sharing key findings from the flagship EDIFY programme: Shaping a Better Future for Young People with Eating Disorders: Insights from four years of cross-disciplinary research, driving a step change in prevention and early intervention

Conference:

Date: Thursday 22 January 2026 | Time: 09:30 – 16:00
Location: Great Hall, Strand Campus, KCL, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
Ticket option - In person or online

Arts Event: EDIFY Artists-in-Residence in Conversation with Prof Sally Marlow
Date: Wednesday 21 January 2026 | Time: 18:00 – 20:00
Location: Bush House, 8th floor North, KCL, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
Ticket option - In person only

Eating Disorders: Delineating illness and recovery trajectories to inform personalised prevention and early intervention in young people (EDIFY).

Join us for two integrated events to explore the key findings and impact of this ambitious four-year programme of work. Alongside presentations from across the interdisciplinary EDIFY consortium we will have a host of internationally distinguished guest speakers who will reflect on how the EDIFY programme, and the eating disorder field, sit within the wider youth mental health arena.

EDIFY is a four-year programme of research, led by Prof Ulrike Schmidt (KCL) and Dr Helen Sharpe (University of Edinburgh), focused on how we understand and treat eating disorders in young people. It includes six core workstreams, each approaching the topic of early intervention for eating disorders from a different perspective. The workstreams span projects in the arts and humanities right through to state-of-the-art scientific research in informatics and neuroscience. This interdisciplinary approach has helped us to build a rich picture of the different reasons why young people develop eating disorders, how these illnesses progress, and what we can do to promote lasting recovery.

Join us for a day of learning, debate and celebration.

International keynote and guest speakers include:

Prof Matthew Broom, Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health at the University of Birmingham.
Matthew is an academic psychiatrist and Director of the Institute for Mental Health at the University. He is a leader in the field of early psychosis and in the philosophy and ethics of mental health. Matthew will be talking on youth mental health and transdiagnostic processes, pathways and early intervention.

Dr Jessica Schleider, Associate Professor, Director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health and Director of Digital Services at the Centre for Behavioral Intervention Technologies at Northwestern University, Chicago.
Jessica is a clinical psychologist, intervention scientist an internationally-recognized leader in research on single-session interventions for youth mental health. She will speak on her extensive research on designing and evaluating scalable interventions for common mental health problems.

Prof Ed Watkins, Professor of Experimental and Applied Clinical Psychology at the University of Exeter.
Ed is a researcher and clinical practitioner and Director of the Mood Disorders Centre, a partnership between the University of Exeter and Devon Partnership NHS Trust, specialising in psychological research and treatment for depression. Ed will share new research from the UKRI-funded Nuture-U programme, which focuses on finding better ways to support university students with their wellbeing and mental health.

Prof Essie Viding, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London.

Prof Pasco Fearon, Professor of Family Research, Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge.
Essie and Pasco will discuss their UKRI-funded RE-SET project, a hybrid IPT and cognitive training prevention programme for at risk teenagers in the UK.

Prof Sally Marlow, Professor of Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research, King’s College London
Sally is a researcher and broadcaster, who works together with cultural partners, community groups and service users to create events and activities to support research around mental health. Sally will lead an evening discussion with the EDIFY artists-in-residence about their experience of working with the team and producing creative outputs based on the EDIFY programme.

EDIFY Artists in Residence
Sian Fan is an interdisciplinary artist who explores embodiment, identity, and the human experience in the digital age. Her work combines movement, the body, and technology, drawing on her background in contemporary and aerial dance. Through choreography and digital media, she suspends, augments, and interrupts the body, creating a meshing of the physical and the virtual. Her pieces take form as sculpture, costume, performance, animation, installation, and new media.
Website: https://www.sianfan.com/

Ivana Picek, also known as Pi Lubanjice, is an electro-fairy artist whose bewitching and genre-defying music is a concoction of electro-alien-fairy-cyber-hyper-pop. After two acclaimed folk albums, Picek transformed herself into an occult analog-electronic fairy, pushing the boundaries of music since her 2011 debut. She is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who collaborates with various artists from her native Croatia and beyond, captivating a devoted following with her mystical, avant-garde sound.
Website: https://www.youtube.com/@IvanaPicek 

Zofia Chamienia is an illustrator who specialises in bold, playful designs, full of incidental shapes, wobbly lines, and self-made textures. Her work is created by mixing drawing, printmaking, and digital techniques, and she draws inspiration from ordinary, day-to-day happenings. Her illustrations always aim to feature a diverse range of people, places, communities, and cultures, celebrating the different characters and personalities she meets.
Website: https://zofia-chamienia.com/work

Maeve Magnolia Gillespie is a textile artist and designer whose work explores the changing value of materials through processes of craft. She documents fragility, recovery, regeneration, and decay, and is interested in the human connection between objects and the fluctuating value system we attach to different materials.
Website: MAEVE MAGNOLIA GILLESPIE

A full programme will be shared in due course.