Dr Carine Laughton – Creative and Performing Arts; Applied Theatre practitioner; certified micro-phenomenologist 

Dr Carine Laughton is a theatre-maker and academic whose career spans over 25 years across France, Wales, and Australia. With a foundation in special education and socio-cultural youth work, Carine’s creative and scholarly journey has consistently focused on using performance as a catalyst for wellbeing, resilience, and social transformation. 

Her formal training began in 1999 with an AFDAS award to study at the prestigious Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. She also holds a BAFA Diploma in socio-cultural facilitation (1993), a master’s in education, and a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies. Since 2019, she has lectured at the University of Newcastle, where she continues to develop innovative approaches to arts-based research and youth engagement. Carine’s practice combines theatrical embodiment with mental fitness frameworks, working extensively with young people in foster care and high-risk environments. She is certified in micro-phenomenology and trained in perceptual psychoeducation via the Danis Bois method enabling her to guide individuals into the pre-reflective dimensions of lived experience — an approach foundational to the LEAP methodology. 

In 2000, Carine co-founded Imibala Theatre Company, a site-specific ensemble committed to intercultural dialogue and youth resilience. Imibala toured in over 22 countries across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, partnering with institutions such as the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Arts Alive (Johannesburg), Pro Helvetia (Switzerland), the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, and Alliance Française networks in East Africa. The company’s humanitarian theatre projects earned acclaim for bringing transformative performances to communities facing social and political adversity. 

Her later work with Emergency Exit, a nonprofit theatre initiative for at-risk schools in Paris suburbs, and her directorial role at La Ménagerie (2003-2020), reflect her commitment to ethically co-created, trauma-informed practice. Projects such as Exsulo, Polaroids of Exile, The Bestial Parade (Corsica), and Searching for Dionysus were staged with refugee and precarious youth communities, combining poetic narrative with deep social inquiry. 

Dr Anne Gotfredsen - PhD in Public Health

Dr Anne Gotfredsen is a public health researcher whose work explores youth mental health and leisure. Based at the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University in Sweden, and currently affiliated with the Centre for Youth Studies, University of Newcastle, Anne brings an interdisciplinary lens to youth wellbeing, drawing on public health, gender and leisure studies. 

Her research is grounded in qualitative and participatory methodologies, with a strong emphasis on equity, representation, and relational wellbeing. She has investigated topics such as leisure participation, gendered stressors, and community-based mental health initiatives. Her doctoral thesis, Carving out collective spaces: Exploring the complexities of gender and everyday stressors within rural youth leisure, examined how rural youth—particularly girls—navigate everyday stressors through shared leisure practices, highlighting the importance of collective, non-clinical spaces for emotional resilience.

Anne’s current research explores the loss of leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on youth mental health, examining how disruptions to everyday practices have shaped young people's emotional wellbeing and sense of connection.

She has a strong interest in visual and arts-based methods, and has used photo elicitation and participatory photography in her research to centre young people's voices and experiences. Anne’s use of photo methods supports her broader commitment to co-creative and inclusive research practices that challenge traditional hierarchies and foreground lived experience.

She has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications, including studies on Sweden’s youth clinics, cross-sector collaboration in youth mental health, and the role of creativity and belonging in the lives of young people with trans experience.

She holds a PhD in Public Health, an MA in Global Health, and dual BSc degrees in Gender Studies and Political Science. In her private time, Anne has been an active member of the theatre and improv scene for many years, both in Sweden and in Australia.