Amy Carney has been passionate about country houses for as long as she can remember, first studying a BA History of the Fine and Decorative Arts and then an MA in Country House Studies at the University of Leeds. Her long career with the National Trust, an organisation she adores, has enabled her to lead a number of transformative projects. Most recently as House and Collections Manager at Lyme restoring the Library, removing ropes to allow visitors to fully experience the Library for the first time, and opening up the Butlers Rooms, the first below stairs rooms brought to life for our many visitors.

Matthew Faber is the e-learning instructional designer for Historic England where he is responsible for creating immersive and engaging training solutions to help support the sectors understanding of complex policies and practices. Prior to this, he has worked for Jisc, where he was involved in supporting the academic sector in the use of digital technologies, including 3D technologies, to create digital assets via digitisation processes and making them more discoverable to wider audiences online. Matt also worked with English Heritage on the highly successful ‘Britain from Above’ digitisation project, responsible for digitising ninety thousand aerial photographs of England taken between 1920 and 1970. The resulting output of this project is a searchable and interactive web site that viewers can add their own notations to. These skillsets have enabled Matt to provide insights into the various workflows for making heritage assets more visible to numerous stakeholders from academia to the public.

Nathan Lee is Head of Engagement, North of England, for the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Nathan has worked in the cultural sector for the last 12 years including Arts Council England and Museums Libraries and Archives Council. Prior to 2007, Nathan had a career in general management in health and social care. With degrees in Fine Art and Mass Communications as well as an MBA, Nathan’s interests range widely from the arts, to museums, archives, libraries. Between 1989 and 1993 Nathan was Chief Officer for a Community Health Council, representing the interests of communities in the local NHS and supporting people to make complaints. From this comes his passion on the impact of culture on people and communities. The North West of England team of the National Lottery Heritage Fund developed a number of good practices to engage a wider range of people with heritage and to expand the heritage available to all of us including micro grants in Barrow and work with BAME organisations in Greater Manchester. He is currently responsible for making sure that the development advice leading to grant applications for National Lottery monies for heritage is available to those who most need it in the North of England.

Simon Mabey is a 3D and virtual reality specialist. He has been working in 3D for 28 years. After spending the first half of his career pioneering many of the current applications of 3D technology, he then focused on city modelling. He developed a 3D city model of Manchester following the terrorist bomb in 1996. This city model has continued to grow in both area and detail, being used by many different parties, and supporting an ever-increasing range of applications. Simon received a Royal Town Planning award in 2008 for his Manchester-based Ancoats Urban Village project. He developed much of his expertise during his 14 years at Arup where he established and led the city modelling team, integrating technical data and helping people make more informed decisions. He has worked with both public and private sector clients, exploring requirements and developing solutions.

Caroline Schofield is a Curator for the National Trust in the North, responsible for a varied portfolio of properties including Little Moreton Hall, Lyme and Tatton Park. She managed the house and collection at Tatton for many years where she learnt her craft before joining the regional consultancy team to provide curatorial expertise in 2013.

Liz Stewart is Curator of Archaeology and the Historic Environment at the Museum of Liverpool. Liz has been involved with numerous exhibitions and a wide range of engagement and community archaeology through her role at Museum of Liverpool. Liz is interest in medieval and later archaeology, with a specialism in buildings archaeology. Liz project managed the ‘Galkoff’s and Secret Life of Pembroke Place’ project from 2016-2019.

Dr Gehan Selim is an Architect and academic at the University of Leeds. She was Fellow of The Senator George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice (2017/18). She obtained her PhD from the University of Sheffield and held permanent posts in several schools of Architecture in the UK. Dr Selim is leading the Architecture and Urbanism Research Group at the University of Leeds with her research covering interdisciplinary methods bridging between Architecture, Urban Politics and Sustainable Heritage. Dr Selim is leading several AHRC/GCRF funded research projects with extensive fieldwork experience in the Middle East and conflict zones (Egypt, Lebanon & Northern Ireland). She is the author of ‘Unfinished Places: The Politics of Remaking Cairo's Old’ (Routledge, 2017) and ‘Architecture, Space and Memory of Resurrection in Northern Ireland Shareness in a Divided Nation’ (Routledge, 2019).

Thanh Sinden is a specialist consultant in diversity, inclusion and engagement in the cultural sector. Thanh is part of the Museum Detox committee – a network of BAME museums and heritage workers. Museum Detox advocate for better representation of BAME people, work to deconstruct systems of inequality that exists in our cultural sectors to enable a sector where diversity thrives, a workforce and audience that is reflective of the UK’s 21st century population. Thanh has worked with engaging communities and audiences in the museums and heritage sector for the past 14 years. A fellow of the RSA and Future Proof Museums, she works with organisations in an empowering way. Supporting teams and individuals to maximise their potential in making positive impact and achieving strategic goals.

Dr Virginia Tandy OBE completed a PhD at the University of Manchester on the role of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the construction and preservation of the past, earlier this year. The former Director of Culture for Manchester City Council (2008-2011), in her previous role as Director of Manchester City Galleries (1998-2008) she oversaw the £35m refurbishment and extension of the City Art Gallery working with Michael Hopkins and Partners. She is now an independent arts and heritage consultant. Current clients include Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, the John Ellerman Foundation and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. President of the Museums Association from 2006-2008, she was a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund from 2009-2015. A member of the board of National Museums Liverpool, she chairs Curious Minds a creative and cultural education charity, is a member of the Fabric Committee for St Paul’s Cathedral and a trustee of the Granada Foundation.