Our team

Jamil Abdulkader is originally from Tanzania and has lived in Manchester for over 50 years. He retired from a bank and since then has worked in the neighbourhood of south Manchester as a volunteer. He is a Board member of Age Friendly Manchester and other community organisations and through them is able to influence policies and strategies that affect older people in Greater Manchester.

Dr. Luca Brunelli is an architect and Senior Lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art (GSA). He is interested in the transformative potential of the intersection of ageing, climate change and the disciplines devoted to the design of the places in which we live.

Dr Mei Lan Fang is a Lecturer / Assistant Professor in Health and Environmental Gerontology located in the School of Health Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland. She is also an Adjunct Professor and Engagement and Education Director at the Science and Technology Aging Research Institute, Department of Gerontology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Dr Fang’s current research programme focuses on co-creating ecosystems of intergenerational and inclusive physical and virtual environments with and for older people living in the community.

Sheena is a Public Health specialist with over 35 years' experience across the public sector. She has worked in the NHS, Local Authority, and in third sector organisations, at local, regional and national level, on healthy ageing and mental health workstreams. Most recently Sheena led the Age-friendly Communities development programme in Scotland for the Scottish Older People's Assembly.

Sheena has developed skills in a public health and inequalities approach focusing on the strengths and assets within communities to create change. She is passionate about working and co-producing with people with lived experience and applying that to projects that she is involved in.

Bella is Intergenerational Development Officer with Generations Working Together across Scotland connecting generations to build a better future with communities that are safe to grow up and grow old in. Bella studied BA Joint Hons Sociology Politics at University of Strathclyde and Post Graduate Education and lifelong learning.

Shelagh has been a strong advocate and friend of older people during her 28 years as a county councillor for North Yorkshire, and 13 years as a non executive director of 3 NHS Boards. On retirement, she continued her role as an ambassador for the Campaign to End Loneliness. Currently she is a trustee for LLUK (Linking Lives UK), a Christian Charity which sets up befriending schemes in partnership with churches and the Yorkshire and Humber Age Well, Live Well. Network. Shelagh was awarded her OBE in 2014 for ‘her work with the elderly’.

For many years Allister has been involved with communities and how their infrastructure is adapting to an ageing population. He also runs a dementia charity and a community cafe for those 65 and over. He has also worked with Professor Ryan Woolrych on many community projects and looks forward to doing so again.

Ro has commercial information systems experience, and also knowledge gained as a peer researcher at the University of Stirling since 2016. She aims for optimised impact, so that UK communities can better support people with increasing needs, and their caring friends, in times of more frequent heatwave and flash floods.

Pat Scrutton is active in a number of areas. Originally a linguist, she spent most of her working life in community development. She co-ordinates the Intergenerational National Network in Scotland. She is also passionate about human rights and co-production and about applying both to the research projects she is involved in.

John Whitelegg is Visiting Professor, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University and an Associate of the German transport research organisation Zentrum fuer Mobilitätskultur in Kassel in Germany. He has authored 11 books on sustainable transport and related issues and his latest book “Mobility: A New Urban Design and Transport Planning Philosophy for a Sustainable Future” was published in September 2015. He is a former member of the International Advisory Board of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy in Germany and an adviser on road safety and promoting "active travel" to reduce obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease to the World Health Organisation in Geneva. He is a board member of the Californian organisation “Transport Choices for Sustainable Communities”.