People
Meet the academics in the Creative Health and Wellbeing Group and discover their research interests and activities.
Directors
Dr Ruth Herbert
Lecturer in Performing Arts, School of Communication and Creativity
Dr Ruth Herbert is a music psychologist and performer with diverse research interests in the fields of music in everyday life, music, health and wellbeing, music and consciousness (including ASC and Trance), sonic studies and music education. Further research interests include performance psychology, evolutionary psychology and ethology.
As a professional pianist, Ruth has performed with various ensembles, notably recording soundtracks for silent films commissioned by the British Film Institute (BFI) with the piano trio Triptych, subsequently touring these works at major venues in the UK and USA (e.g. Barbican and Lincoln Centres). Ruth is a co-director of the Creative Health and Wellbeing Research Group.
Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo
Presidential Fellowship, School of Health and Medical Sciences
Dr Katie Rose Mahon Sanfilippo is a Presidential Research Fellow at the Schools of Health and Medical Sciences, a co-director of the Creative Health and Wellbeing Research Group, and a member of the Centre for Health and Care Innovation Research, where she is the Arts and Health lead. Her overall research interests concern the function and application of music and the arts within healthcare contexts.
Her current research investigates how community- and arts-based approaches and interventions can be scaled up, spread, and sustained more equitably in the UK and globally, with a focus on resource-constrained settings. She works with various policymakers, charities and health organisations to promote the use of arts to support mental health in the UK and globally.
She is an affiliated lecturer in the music faculty at the University of Cambridge and has extensive experience in the UK charity sector. She co-founded the Musical Care International Network and the Music and Parental Wellbeing Alliance.
Professor Deborah Padfield
Reader in Arts & Health Humanities, School of Health and Medical Sciences
Professor Deborah Padfield is a visual artist specialising in lens-based media and inter-disciplinary practice and research within Fine Art and Medicine. Her research focuses on the role of images and image-making processes to the diagnosis and management of chronic pain.
In particular she argues that photographs can facilitate improved interaction and mutual understanding between patients and clinicians in the pain clinic and between those living with and those witnessing pain.
Professor Annie Bartlett
Professor of Offender Healthcare, School of Health and Medical Sciences
Professor Annie Bartlett has published extensively in the field of forensic mental health. Her main research interests are social exclusion and mental health (with particular reference to women and sexual orientation) and the culture of secure institutions. Early work was on the experiences of gay men and lesbian women of mental health care.