Michael Ungar, PhD, is a family therapist and professor of social work at Dalhousie University where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience. His research on resilience around the world and across cultures has made him the No. 1 ranked social work scholar in the world, with numerous educational institutions, government agencies, not-for-profits and businesses relying on his research and clinical work to guide their approaches to nurturing child, family, organizational and community well-being under stress. He the author of 18 books for mental health professionals, educators, caregivers and employers, including his most recent works The Limits of Resilience: When to Persevere, When to Change, and When to Quit, a book for individuals and organizations under stress, Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success, a book about our emerging understanding of resilience as more than individual grit, and Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs: 20 Skills to Build Resilience, a book for mental health professionals and educators. As well as having received numerous awards for his work, including the Canadian Association of Social Workers National Distinguished Service Award and being named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Ungar also maintains a blog, Nurturing Resilience, which can be read on Psychology Today’s website.

Professor John F. Cryan is professor and chair at the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience in the School of Medicine and was appointed vice president for research and innovation in March 2021. He is also a principal investigator in the APC Microbiome Institute. He received a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry and a PhD in Pharmacology from University of Galway, Ireland, and was a visiting fellow at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Australia, which was followed by postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and The Scripps Research Institute in California. He spent 4 years as a group leader in the pharmaceutical industry at the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research in Switzerland prior to joining UCC in 2005.

Professor Cryan's research is focused on understanding the interaction among the brain, gut and microbiome and how it applies to stress, psychiatric and immune-related disorders at key times across the lifespan. 

He is a senior editor of Neuropharmacology and of Neurobiology of Stress. He is on the editorial board of a further 15 journals. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2017 and has served on UCC’s Governing Body from 2015 to 2021.