Daisy Fancourt is Senior Research Fellow/Wellcome Research Fellow in the Psychobiology Group, Department of Behavioural Science and Health at UCL. Daisy studied at Oxford University and King’s College London before completing her PhD in psychoneuroimmunology at UCL. She subsequently undertook postdoctoral work in the Centre for Performance Science (a partnership of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Music) before returning to UCL in 2017. She specialises in psychobiology and social epidemiology, focusing on the effects of social and community participation on health, with a particular interest in the effects of arts and cultural engagement.

Alongside her research, she has worked for over 7 years in the NHS, including at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital managing arts and clinical innovations programmes, working alongside clinicians to devise interventions to improve patient experience and clinical outcomes. She has also worked as a consultant to a range of hospitals and Clinical Commissioning Groups on the integration of arts and cultural interventions within care pathways in primary, secondary and tertiary care. Daisy is currently working with WHO on a Health Evidence Network Synthesis report providing policy options to the 53 member states of the European Region on the role of arts and cultural interventions in healthcare.