Assoc. Prof. Thomas Astell-Burt is the Deputy Head of the School of Health and Society and co-director of the Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab). Astell-Burt uses quantitative methods to explore how places shape healthy ageing and resilience to stress.

Susan Thompson is Professor of Planning and Head of the City Wellbeing Program in the City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Susan’s academic career encompasses research and teaching in areas ranging from social and cultural diversity in urban planning, to migrant women’s meanings of home, and the use of qualitative research in built environment disciplines. Since 2004 Susan has focussed on the interdisciplinary area of healthy urban planning, advancing understandings about the supportive nature of the built environment for health and wellbeing as part of everyday living, contributing to legislative innovation and professional practice. Her longstanding contribution to urban planning was recognised in 2012 when she was elected Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia and in 2015, with the awarding of the prestigious Sidney Luker Memorial Medal. Susan is one of only three women to receive the award since its inception in 1956.