Prof. Dr. Matthias Berking is Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Friedrich‑Alexander University Erlangen‑Nuremberg (FAU), Director of the Psychotherapy Outpatient Clinic and of the Training Center for Psychotherapists at the FAU. He is also author of numerous scientific articles and ranked in the top 0.01% of most‑cited researchers worldwide in Clinical Psychology according to the Stanford list in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Nazanin Derakhshan is a Professor of Experimental Psychopathology and founder of the Centre for Building Resilience in Breast Cancer (BRiC) in the UK, where she leads groundbreaking research on emotional resilience in anxiety, depression, and cancer. Her work has highlighted the crucial role of attentional control in emotional vulnerability and has led to the development of effective neurocognitive interventions. As a breast cancer survivor, she is deeply committed to supporting women through psychoeducational resources and has been widely recognised for her impact, including being named a key transformational figure in Birkbeck Inspires. With over 100 publications and nearly 20,000 citations, Naz has made a significant contribution to psychological science and the integration of mental health care in oncology. She also advises charitable and governmental organisations, advocating for holistic, research-informed approaches to cancer care and psychological wellbeing.

Willem Kuykem is the Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. His work focuses on preventing depression, promoting mental health, and flourishing across the lifespan. He has published more than 150 journal articles and was named by Web of Science as in the top 1% of the most cited scientists in the world in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

He is the author of two books, Mindfulness for Life, (2024) and Mindfulness – Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology (2019) with Christina Feldman; both published by Guilford Press. His work has been featured in the New York Times, New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, Times Oprah Daily, Educational Supplement, the BBC, CBS, New Statesman, Le Monde, der Zeit, the Telegraph, the Guardian and numerous podcasts. He lives in London.

Dr. Pachankis is the David R. Kessler Professor of Public Health, Psychiatry, and Psychology at Yale and Director of Yale’s LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative. His research examines the mental health of LGBTQ populations in the US and globally. He has published 200 scientific papers on LGBTQ mental health.

Dominique Page holds a doctorate in psychology and has developed recognized expertise in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for over thirty years. She has practiced this approach in hospital and outpatient settings, and now in private practice. Passionate about therapist training, she is also the author of books related to DBT and actively involved in networks that promote its dissemination in the French-speaking world.

He is  professor of clinical psychology at the university of Lausanne and at the Center for Excessive Gambling (Lausanne University Hospitals). His research regards the psychological factors involved in the etiology of addictive behaviors, and the conceptualization and diagnosis of behavioral addictions. He also conducts research on the therapeutic use of tabletop role-playing games. He is a contributor of ICD-11 CDDR section on “substance use disorder and addictive behaviors”. 

Cecilia A. Essau is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Roehampton, UK. She recently received the Distinguished Contributions Award from the British Psychological Society Developmental Psychology Section for sustained and substantial contributions to research, translating to an impact on wider society. Cecilia has developed a program (Super Skills for Life; SSL) which equips children and adolescents with skills to deal with situations that would have caused them anxiety and been challenging. By using a “train-the-trainer approach”, SSL training has built capacity and shaped the practice of 26,000 practitioners and has produced positive mental health outcomes in approximately one million young people in 23 countries.

Dr. Nikolaos Kazantzis is a Professor of Clinical Psychology with appointments at the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Research Unit (CBTRU; Melbourne, Australia) and the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Philadelphia, USA), and is widely recognized as a leading figure in CBT for advancing evidence-based approaches to tailoring the therapeutic relationship and, in particular, optimizing patients’ engagement with between-session therapeutic tasks. His team’s work—grounded in CBTRU conceptual models and measures—has secured multiple U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and produced over 200 scholarly publications, six clinician books, and 19 journal special issues; in 2019, the American Psychological Association (APA) recognized the team with its Top Downloaded Paper Award for the most-downloaded article across all 89 APA journals, out of more than 4,500 articles. He is the immediate past Editor-in-Chief of Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, currently serves as editor of Springer Nature’s “CBT: Science into Practice” book series, and has received the Beck Scholar Award from Dr. Aaron T. Beck and Dr. Judith S. Beck in recognition of his scholarly contributions; additional information is available at www.nikolaoskazantzis.com, www.cbtru.com, and https://link.springer.com/series/15752/books.

Niki (Nicola) Petrocchi, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at John Cabot University (Rome) and Founder of Compassionate Mind Italia. She has published over 100 scientific papers and a manual on Compassion Focused Therapy. Her research and teaching focus on the psychophysiological bases of compassion and emotion regulation, integrating CFT and CBT approaches in both scientific and clinical contexts, with a particular interest in gender-diverse populations.

Ebru Şalcıoğlu is a behavior therapist and researcher known for her work on evidence-based cognitive and behavioral therapies, with a focus on idiographic case formulation and transdiagnostic intervention strategies. Her clinical and research experience spans trauma-related conditions, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive spectrum problems, prolonged grief, and eating disorders—particularly among survivors of war, torture, natural disasters, and interpersonal violence. She has published widely on the mechanisms and treatment of trauma and is the author of a recognized book on case formulation and therapy planning, as well as co-author of a clinical volume on the behavioral treatment of war and torture trauma.