Miranda is a social justice entrepreneur who has spent 35 years turning kitchen table ideas into nationwide campaigns, culminating in founding The Reading Agency in 2002. The charity’s Summer Reading Challenge now involves 800,000 children every year. 

Having “retired” to go trekking, she became fascinated by the building body of research showing that reading builds empathy, which led her to found EmpathyLab.

Sarah is one of EmpathyLab’s founders whose library background has long convinced her of the power of stories to change children’s lives. 

She is the Programme Manager at Libraries Connected.

Jon is a teacher at one of EmpathyLab’s pioneer schools, with a passion for developing genuine reading cultures in schools. 

He coordinates the Patron of Reading initiative, writes a regular blog and talks about books at every possible opportunity. In 2019 he won the Experienced Teacher Award in UKLA’s Reading for Pleasure Awards.

Richard is an experienced Key Stage 2 teacher and Professional Teaching Enhancement Lead at Springwell School, Heston. He co-leads a Teachers' Reading group in Ealing, South-West London and is the UKLA representative for London. 

Having studied the effect that graphic novels may have on their readers in his own research, he is interested in developing children's empathy through a wider range of texts. 

Anna Nolan has been working as a psychologist for nearly thirty years with experience in the UK and internationally; a rich experience of working with children, families, teachers and other psychologists. She leads a large team of psychologists in Hampshire and sees connections in her role with the work that EmpathyLab is doing to build empathy in school communities.

Valuing the power of story started in her time as a primary teacher, the opportunity to develop discussions with young children about lives imagined, about different possibilities, different perspectives.  She is very much looking forward to immersing herself in the wonderful transformative world of story on the EmpathyLab panel.

Simon has been in education for 27 years as a teacher and now as a headteacher  at East Whitby Academy. He has worked mainly in areas of high deprivation and is a firm believer that education can make a real difference. Throughout that time he has been a passionate advocate for the importance of reading and children's literature

Took the scenic route to becoming a head after years of saying 'I don't blummin' want that job!' and 'Why on earth would anyone do that?' Now thinks that it is the most amazing job in the world. He has been a headteacher for the last six years and has put reading at the core of the work his school does. 

5 describing words: driven, bald, sarcastic, beardy, kaffy-hearted (it's a Whitby term meaning soft)  Simon also can be found on Twitter where he tweets mostly about books and occasionally about being a headteacher as @smithsmm 

Sonia is the Head Teacher at St Matthew’s C.E. Primary School, in Nechells, Birmingham: the first winner of the OU/UKLA Whole School Reading for Pleasure School of the Year. She is passionate about evidence-based reading for pleasure practices and places these at the heart of the school. 

She has run an OU/UKLA Teachers’ Reading Group for two years and is an advisor for the OU/UKLA Research Rich Pedagogies website. She has spoken at various conferences about RfP, including Peters Love Literacy and ResearchED. Sonia is a co-opted member of the UKLA National Council, representing the Teacher Reading Groups.

Nicolette is a writer and journalist who has been the children’s book reviewer of the Sunday Times for more than two decades.

Dawn has spent all her career mainly with a Schools’ Library Service, moving to include children’s libraries, then back as manager of SLS. 

She has more recently brought that knowledge and experience to the School Library Association where she still enjoys the challenge of getting the right book into the hands of students and teachers who need a particular book for a specific need at any one time.

Jennifer Ford is the Headteacher of Treorchy Comprehensive School in Swansea for students aged 11-18. At her previous post as Headteacher at Pentrehafod School, she was proud to be part of the first EmpathyLab cluster in Wales. 

Jennifer has been a passionate advocate of children’s books  both as a mother and a teacher.

Sarah is the Libraries Development Manager for Brent Libraries. Her role involves the planning and delivery of strategic service provision for libraries covering children and young people's services, adult learning and adult reading services. 

A highlight of her role was being a lead partner with Apples and Snakes arts organisation for the delivery of the Spine annual arts and literature festival for children and young people across half of London.

Paul has worked in education for almost 30 years, working across all key stages, in FE, HE, adult education, managing training for the NHS and working in the third sector. Since 2014 he has been a teacher at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School, an in-patient mental health setting.

Subnum has over 20 years of experience in the public library and museum sector and is currently Library and Information Manager for Oldham Libraries.

She is Chair of the Libraries Connected North West Regional Group, a Trustee of The Reading Agency and on the Diversity Steering Group for Curious Minds.

Fozia is Service Development Coordinator for Children and Access with Manchester Libraries. Fozia has developed the EmpathyLab offer across all 22 libraries in a city-wide approach to embed Empathy as part of the core library offer. 

Supporting the city's Read Manchester campaign, Fozia brings authors and poets to the city, organises the Summer Reading Challenge programme and teaches English online to children in China in the other part of her working week!