Susana Pendzik (PhD., RDT) is Head of the Drama Therapy Graduate Program at Tel Hai Academic College (Israel), lecturing also at the Theatre Studies Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Swiss Dramatherapy Institute, as well as in other institutions of higher education in Europe and Latin America, and conducting workshops worldwide. Susana is founder and honorary member of the Swiss Dramatherapy Association, accredited supervisor by the Israeli Association of Creative and Expressive Therapies, representative of Israel at the European Federation of Dramatherapy and at the World Alliance for Drama Therapy. Published poetess, theatre director, and researcher, Susana is the author of many articles in the field, a book for using action techniques with abused women, co-editor of Assessment in Drama Therapy (2012), and The Self in Performance: Autobiographical, self-revelatory, and autoethnographic forms of therapeutic theatre (2017), and co-author of a recently published book in Spanish, Dramaterapia: Un enfoque creativo para el trabajo terapéutico (2018).

Robert J. Landy, Ph.D., is a pioneer in the profession of Drama Therapy. He developed the first Master’s degree program in Drama Therapy in the US at New York University, where was also a Professor of Educational Theatre and Applied Psychology. A prolific researcher and author of 12 books and more than 100 scholarly articles, he lectures and trains professionals internationally. As a drama therapist, Professor Landy has more than 40 years of clinical experience treating children, adults and elders with a wide range of psychiatric, cognitive and adjustment challenges. He has worked in many institutional and community settings including hospitals, schools, prisons and refugee camps. Alongside his academic career, Professor Landy has been a  prolific artist. As a composer, he has written songs for albums, musical theatre, and cabaret. As a creative writer, he has published and produced numerous plays, stories and poems. As a theatre artist, he has directed and acted in multiple plays over a distinguished career of 50 years. As a visual artist, he has had many exhibitions of photography, most recently at the Cheng Contemporary Art Gallery in the 798 District in Beijing, China.

Poh Lin Lee is an Australian trained social worker who continually seeks to cross borders to bring together a thoughtful and intricate practice based on her experience and knowledge as a narrative therapist, trauma specialist, writer, teacher, film protagonist and creative consultant. In an attempt to expand opportunities for linking individual experience to wider context and contributing to conversations that hold social action at the heart Poh Lin is dedicated to creatively co-researching with people, families and communities – exploring together alternative practices in response to trauma, injustice and the operations of power and discourse.

Di Gammage originally trained as a drama teacher at Central School of Speech and Drama. She trained as a dramatherapist in 1989 then as a play therapist a couple of years later.

Di has worked in the NSPCC Child Sexual Abuse Consultancy, the NHS and largely in private practice. She has worked with a private foster care agency as a drama and play therapist and as a consultant to foster carers and social workers. She has been a clinical supervisor since 1994. Di has had a long term interest in Buddhism and embarked on an MA in Buddhist Psychotherapy with the Karuna Institute, Devon. At that time, she believed she would end her practice as a drama and play therapist in order to practice as an adult psychotherapist, however, she discovered, with great joy, that Buddhism is exceptionally playful! Her book, ‘‘Playful Awakening – Releasing the Gift of Play in Your Life’ (2017, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London) was developed from her MA dissertation. Di also delivers a resilience training called the Challenge of Change (Derek Roger, 2017) and is studying to develop a playful, creative approach to building resilience in children and families.

Di lives in Devon.