Creative Cambridge 2025

Dr Emma Salgård Cunha is Associate Director at Cambridge Enterprise, the innovation office of the University of Cambridge. Emma leads Cambridge’s support for innovative projects with roots in research in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines. With special interests in social enterprise and creative technology, Emma has supported hundreds of researchers to developing research and evidence-based approaches in a broad range of sectors: from cultural industries to public health to global development to financial services.

A literary historian by training, Emma holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Since 2018, Matt has been Artistic Director & CEO of Cambridge Junction, leading on the curation and production of theatre, dance, live art, circus, and artist development programmes. During his tenure at Cambridge Junction, Matt has commissioned and co-produced more than 60 new projects, including Quarantine’s 12 Last Songs, Marikiscrycrycry’s Goner, Back to Back Theatre’s The Democratic Set Cambridge, Igor x Moreno’s Karrasekare, Bert & Nasi’s x ATRESBANDES’ It Don’t Worry Me, and Laura Murphy’s A Spectacle of Herself.

Since early 2024, he is a co-lead of Create Cambridge, the city’s new cultural compact. Between 2016-2018 he developed an independent producing and programming portfolio, working across artform, locating radical structures for the creation of new work. Projects included Leeds 2023 (developing the programme for Leeds’ bid to be European Capital of Culture), LIFT (producing the UK tour of Lola Arias’ Minefield), Northern Stage, Unlimited Theatre, Proto-type Theater, West Yorkshire Playhouse and independent artists Luca Rutherford and Hannah Jane Walker.

He was Artistic Director of Yorkshire Festival 2016, curating a programme featuring more than 900 artists, 15 new commissions and hundreds of performances and days of exhibition across the whole of the county. He was Head of Programme & Audiences at Warwick Arts Centre (2011-2015), where he co-produced work by artists and companies including Complicite, Forced Entertainment, and Theatre de Bouffe du Nord. Previously he was Executive Producer for Norfolk & Norwich Festival (2008-2011) and General Manager of Forced Entertainment (2003-2008).

Matt has been on judging panels, advisory and curatorial groups for the Total Theatre Awards, BE Festival, and international showcases including Caravan and Edinburgh, and on the boards of Something To Aim For, Candoco Dance Company, Reckless Sleepers and Bootworks Theatre Company.

Michelle is a behavioural scientist specialising in the intersection of psychology, human-centric AI and digital systems. She works with engineers, designers and other social scientists to understand consumer behaviour, model decision-making, and build adaptive systems that enable human-machine teaming and human-machine interaction. With almost a decade of experience in the Consumer sector, she has led high-value technology innovation projects for start-ups and blue-chips incorporating thought-leading insights into human behaviour. She has BSc (Hons) in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and an MBA.

Guy Schofield is an artist and researcher whose practice involves VR, installation, film, sound, music, physical computing, animation and games. He is deeply committed to collaborative and participatory co-creation and much of his practice involves engaging members of the public in making high-quality, innovative digital and immersive installations. Having worked previously in the games industry and as a researcher in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, his current body of work involves using videogame technologies to explore heritage themes. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York.

Hannah Claus is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge’s Language Technology Lab, researching low-resource large language models, cultural adaptation, and the social impact of AI. As a Gates Cambridge Scholar and part of the ELLIS PhD Programme, she is co-supervised at the University of Copenhagen. Previously, she earned an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from Queen Mary University of London as a Google DeepMind Scholar. Her work spans AI ethics, accessibility, explainability, and robotics, with research experience at the Ada Lovelace Institute and the German Aerospace Centre. Passionate about diversity in AI, she actively supports initiatives that empower women and underrepresented groups in tech.

Ran Xiao is the Founder and CEO of Planarific, an AI-driven company transforming housing retrofit and home improvement. He is an architect-turned-technologist, and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He specialises in machine learning applications in architecture and the human and machine interaction between automated systems and human experts. He was recently recognised as a RIBA Journal Rising Star. At Planarific, Ran and the team focuses on scaling retrofits by delivering semantically enriched 3D models and geometric insights for thousands of homes at a time.

As IE Cambridge Manager Helen is responsible for driving greater engagement and collaboration within the University’s Innovation and Enterprise community. Prior to joining Cambridge Enterprise, Helen was a Senior Producer at Northam Media, an agency that worked with global clients providing them with brand strategy, video production, podcasts, social media assets and copywriting. She also created content for Cambridge University’s Centre for Digital Built Britain and the Centre for Climate Engagement. She previously worked for 10 years as a broadcast journalist and producer for CNBC, the financial and business news channel.

Chanelle is a singer, songwriter, poet, and co-founder of The Ubuntu Network. Chanelle’s passion for creativity and people has been prevalent throughout their previous working career – when volunteering in Kenya in 2019 Chanelle wrote handwashing songs for students, organised a choir and wrote a song for World Mental Health Day and taught it to their community in Voi. Ultimately, it’s their love of music that led them to creating Slay-on-a-Sunday and co-founding the Ubuntu Network which gave them the events experience that landed them their current role of Events and Front-of-House Co-Ordinator for Innovate Cambridge.  They are early in their career and are currently planning the Ubuntu Network’s next ‘Creatives For’ fundraising event with the aims of raising money for a LGBTQIA+ homelessness charity.

Kate’s job is to share all the brilliant things happening at digital agency Studio 24 – especially around their advocacy for accessibility. She is a volunteer organiser at CamCreatives – a monthly meet up where creative minds come together. For the first time this year, the team curated an exhibition of their members’ work at the Grand Arcade as part of the Cambridge Arts Festival. Kate is also a trustee for Cherry Hinton Hub – a community space with a library, community café and meeting rooms which opened in February 2025. The hub’s first event is a VE Day 80th anniversary tea party – free to ex-service personnel and anyone who lived through WW2. Through her work and her volunteering, Kate is building communities, sharing experiences, and learning every day!

Chloe Thomas is a BAFTA-nominated TV director best known for her work on Harlots, Victoria, The Deceived, and Horrible Histories. She is the founder of One Glove Films, an independent production company based in Cambridge, developing character-led fiction. Moving from London to Arbury, inspired Chloe to create the local Facebook group CB4People to connect with new neighbours—it now has over 9,000 members. In the last 2 years she’s helped start the Cambridge Film People network and is a founding member of the Cambridge Salon – a quarterly invite-only social meet up.

Sean is Deputy Dean for Research and Innovation (in Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences) at ARU in Cambridge. He has led a number of successful REF submissions and REF impact case studies (in the area of media, communications and culture). Sean’s research explores issues of politics and migration in popular music and popular culture. He has published several books on this topic, and has advised on a range of films and television programmes.

Minna Sunikka-Blank is Professor of Architecture and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College. Her research focuses on sustainable urban development and social equity. She has led the AHRC-funded Filming Energy project and an ESRC IAA project on solar energy transitions in rural India, employing participatory filmmaking to document women’s energy transitions and lived experiences in low-income housing. Her work has been featured in the BBC Arts Animated Thinking series. In Cambridge, she co-leads Behaviour and Building Performance (BBP) research group and Global Energy Nexus in Urban Settlements (GENUS) network, and is a member of the Cambridge Room team. She is a registered architect and served as a jury member for the Stirling Prize 2024.

Alex has over 25 years of experience working across communication, content production and brand storytelling, shaping work for top-tier global advertising agencies, broadcasters and leading brands. He now works as an Investment Funding Advisor for Creative East, working with Creative Industries in the region to develop and grow their businesses.

Currently Frances is facilitating work on a Cultural Strategy and developing the Council’s services and their links with the wider community. The services include Arts Development, City Wide arts and promoter networks, Cultural Venues including Cambridge Corn Exchange, City Events and outdoor community festivals, and Cambridge Folk Festival. Frances has a background in large scale outdoor event management, including safety and greener festival initiatives. She has also previously worked on programme and film making for the Earth Summit, touring shows in inner city London Boroughs, stage management, sponsorship, and strategic development.

Dr Emma Salgård Cunha is Associate Director at Cambridge Enterprise, the innovation office of the University of Cambridge. Emma leads Cambridge’s support for innovative projects with roots in research in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines. With special interests in social enterprise and creative technology, Emma has supported hundreds of researchers to developing research and evidence-based approaches in a broad range of sectors: from cultural industries to public health to global development to financial services.

A literary historian by training, Emma holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Laura Davies (King’s College) researches the literature of the British eighteenth century, with a particular focus on the ways in which writing can enable forms of reflection on phenomena and experiences that exist at the edge of our comprehension, including time, dreams, religious faith, and death. She co-founded the ‘A Good Death?’ project in 2018 (https://good-death.english.cam.ac.uk/) and leads the team in their impact and engagement projects, including monthly arts-based workshops for Arthur Rank hospice, public talks and events, and collaborations with creatives, including theatre-makers and games-designers.

Ellie Finch, MA, MBACP (Accred), is a clinical supervisor, social worker, and counsellor specialising in working with neurodivergent clients and parents of children with disabilities or complex medical needs. She is the founder of PlayMode Academy, a social venture that offers training and consultancy to health and social care practitioners on delivering accessible, engaging services through the integration of digital tools, including video games like Minecraft.

By day, Chris Burgess wrangles rare books and manuscripts as Head of Exhibitions at Cambridge University Library; by night, he’s CEO and co-founder of SNICKET Media. Dreamt up during lockdown, SNICKET reimagines digital exhibitions as immersive stories with the UX flair of e-commerce and social media. Alongside co-founder Matt Maude, Chris has turned this pandemic brainwave into a working prototype and MVP. Launch later this year…

Sara asks pressing questions about the nature of human interaction that finds articulation through public sector spaces. Her current concerns are in how practice-based research and expanded choreographic practices can help to change the human imagination of relationships in ways that can be more inclusive and sustainable in the museum and through methods of archiving, collecting and conserving dance. She is a practitioner researcher at MUNCH in Oslo and her work is in the collection at the Van Abbemuseum. She is an Associate Researcher at Robinson College and an Affiliate Researcher at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge and has a forthcoming monograph with Bloomsbury.