David is Head of Research and Applied Learning at the Foundation, where he has worked for 18 years. He has led the organisation’s involvement in research projects that enable people to support their own, and each others’ mental health.
During his 30 years in the sector, he has developed national service user networks in England, Scotland and Wales, been a chief executive of a national charity and a non-executive director, and vice-chair of a national independent, non-departmental public body.
He is now developing public mental health as an academic discipline and taking an evidence-based approach to improving public mental health, including his role as an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Public Mental Health. David has substantial personal experience of using mental health services, including time as a detained patient, and now applies this experience and the learning from it in his work.
He is currently co-chair of the ethics, policy and position committee of the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics, a fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, and has written and edited several academic publications. He has previously been a technical advisor to the WHO and senior mental health advisor to Public Health England.
In his spare time, David makes cheese, bakes bread, and builds and programs computers.
