Josephine Head

Josephine Head is a conservation biologist who originally trained as an Anthropologist at Durham University. Following this, she spent seven years working in the rainforests of Central Africa for the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, where she completed a PhD on the feeding ecology of wild chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants. Upon returning to the UK, she was keen to engage in wider-scale issues of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. She spent three years working on a behaviour change project focused on reducing hunting pressure on wildlife and promoting sustainable dietary practices in Africa and South East Asia. She has always had a particular interest in the interface between public health, the environment and animal welfare, and in trying to increase individual and community engagement with these issues when making food choices. Josephine now leads the Sustainable Diets and Health project at Medact. Josephine’s focus is on raising awareness among the health community on the links between food systems, climate change and health, and working with educators in the health sector to incorporate sustainability into their graduate curriculum.