Waheed Saleem
A graduate from the London School of Economics with a degree in Social Policy, Waheed has worked across the public, private and voluntary sectors, regionally and nationally. He is an expert in providing support and advice on organisational change, governance, business development and strategic management. Waheed has director level experience, including being a Non-Executive Director […]
Nicola Bacon
Nicola co-founded Social Life with Saffron Woodcraft in early 2012, and in the last ten years has grown Social Life’s work on place-based innovation and social sustainability. In 2025 she started work on Social LIfe Practice CIC with Larissa Begault and Lucia Caistor-Arendar. Nicola advises central and local governments, foundations and third sector agencies in the UK and internationally, with […]
Afzal Hussain DL
Afzal Hussain DL is a regeneration professional having held senior posts in the Community, Local Government and Social Enterprise sectors. He is a passionate advocate of community-led approaches and is on a mission to demonstrate that by working with and alongside our communities we deliver change that is genuinely transformational. Afzal is Chief Officer at Witton […]
Chinedu Ekechukwu
Chinedu is a civil engineer and a PhD candidate in mathematical modelling and simulation focused on infrastructure improvement at the University of the West of England’s School of Engineering. His research centres on enhancing environmental sustainability in built assets. Over the past few years, he has designed, delivered, and evaluated a variety of modules related […]
Heather Noble
Heather Noble holds an MSc in Regional and Urban Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in History from the University of Aberdeen. She is a Freelance Urban Researcher and the Director of 65 SQM, a dynamic design collective that blends art, architecture, human-centered design, and material research to create impactful […]
Simeon Shtebunaev
Simeon Shtebunaev is an interdisciplinary researcher in the built environment. Simeon’s PhD project at Birmingham City University explores how young people engage in the planning of future ‘smart’ cities. He was a principal investigator on the AHRC funded project “Are you game for climate action?” developing the board game Climania with young people focusing on the […]
Dr Halima Sacranie
Dr Halima Sacranie is a housing and communities policy researcher and completed her PhD at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2011, a regional centre of excellence for housing research. She went on to lead the Housing and Communities Research Group at the University of Birmingham from 2018 to […]