Dr Daisy Fancourt

Biography

Daisy Fancourt is Associate Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology and Wellcome Research Fellow in the Psychobiology Group, Department of Behavioural Science & 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. Her research focuses on the effects of social factors on health, including loneliness, social isolation, social & community assets, arts and cultural engagement, and social prescribing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Daisy is leading a team running the UK's largest study into the psychological and social impact of the virus, providing weekly data to government, the World Health Organisation, and hundreds of community and third sector organisations (www.covidsocialstudy.org). She is also leading the COVID-MINDS Network: an international network of longitudinal studies exploring the global mental health impact of the pandemic (www.covidminds.org). 

Daisy has received awards from the British Science Association, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, British Academy, British Federation of Women Graduates, American Psychosomatic Society, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Royal Society for Public Health and NHS England, as well as being named a BBC New Generation Thinker and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Her research has received over £12 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust, AHRC, ESRC, MRC, EPSRC, NERC, Arts Council England, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust & Tenovus Cancer Care. 

Daisy previously worked for 7 years in the NHS, including at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital managing arts and clinical innovations programmes, and as a consultant to a range of hospitals and Clinical Commissioning Groups on the integration of arts interventions within care pathways. Daisy is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and the Chair of their Special Interest Group on Arts & Health. She established and chairs the International Arts Health Early Career Research Network, the UKRI MARCH Network, and is a consultant to the World Health Organisation on arts and health, for whom she has authored several evidence and policy reports.