Team ACT:

Dr. Lorna Collins

Founder, director

https://lornacollins.com

Lorna had a traumatic brain injury when she was 18, which resulted in total amnesia, organic psychosis, and 20 years of enforced hospitalisation in psychiatric institutions. She now works as an artist, writer, educator and researcher, always engaging with art and creativity to support people living with brain injury or a neurological condition, and expanding healthcare services to support more people in this sector. Lorna is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority, the Royal Society for Public Health and the Royal Society of the Arts.

Trustees:

Dr. Roxana Baiasu (Chair Trustee, philosopher and ethical advisor with carer experience)

Roxana Baiasu is Assistant Professor, University of Birmingham, Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology. She is the Programme Director for the Online MSc Mental Health at the University of Birmingham, UK. Roxana’s academic interests include the philosophy of mental health and psychiatry and, more specifically, phenomenological and ethical approaches to mental health, resilience, wellbeing and vulnerability. She has written articles on these topics in prestigious journals and in edited volumes. She is currently writing a textbook on feminist philosophy commissioned by Wiley and articles in the area of mental health.

Eleanor May Blackburn (artist, lived experience)

Eleanor May Blackburn is an actor/writer/theatre-maker/facilitator/poet from Sheffield. She was 18 and in her first term of university in Falmouth when she was hit by a bike. She suffered a life-threatening brain injury and stroke and had to learn to eat, talk and walk again. At 22 she graduated with First Class Honours in BA Acting. She has gone on to write and perform in 3 solo shows (the most recent of which was the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe), play the lead in a feature film and become a supported artist at Sheffield Theatres (where she toured her 2nd solo show). She is passionate about gritty, contemporary, feminist narratives and writes often about her lived experience of TBI and disability.