Cardiff Conversations: Mental Health for Future Generations with Dr Alex George: Expert Panel / Q&A

Dr Alex George, best-selling author and Youth Mental Health Ambassador to the UK Government, has given Cardiff University’s inaugural Cardiff Conversations lecture, which shone a spotlight on the mental health challenges that young people face.
Following his keynote address, Alex joined three leading Cardiff University mental health academics - Professor Frances Rice, Professor Anita Thapar, and Dr Olakunle Oginni - for an expert panel and Q&A session. The panel shared their expert insight into youth mental health, and answered questions from a research and scientific perspective, highlighting the ground-breaking mental health and neuroscience research taking place across the University.
About the panel:
Dr Alex George has become a well-known and respected figure amongst healthcare professionals in the UK, from his years as an A&E doctor, to bringing the nation accessible and reassuring advice directly from the frontline throughout the pandemic. He has published three Sunday Times bestsellers and published his fourth book in January 2024. He is also the co-founder of Mettle, the mental fitness app for men.
Professor Frances Rice is a psychologist and on the Senior Leadership team for the Neuroscience and Mental Health Innovation Institute and is also the Co-Director for the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health. She studies depression and anxiety in young people and recent work includes testing a preventive intervention for adolescent depression. 
Professor Anita Thapar is a Clinical Professor who heads the academic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Section at Cardiff University. Her research focuses on youth depression, and ADHD from ages 0 to 25 years.
Dr Olakunle Oginni is a child and adolescent psychiatry trainee and an Early Career Researcher in the Welsh Clinical Academic Fellowship scheme. He has previously researched the Mental Health of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people in Nigeria. Currently his focus is on using genetic approaches to investigate mental health among children and young people in low and middle-income settings like Nigeria.