Andrea Padré
Andrea Padré is Cluster Manager at CICAT, the Lighting Cluster of Catalonia. With a background in materials engineering, industrial design and innovation management, she works at the intersection of lighting, innovation, digitalisation and sustainability.
Her role focuses on fostering collaboration across the lighting sector and connecting companies, knowledge centres and strategic partners.
Amy Rennie
Joining Buro Happold’s Edinburgh office in 2014, Amy is a lighting designer with over 10 years of experience in the architecture, urban and engineering industry.
In her role, Amy specialises in delivering healthy and sustainable solutions on our projects. She recognises the transformative effects of lighting and its importance within the built environment and as a result, this is a key focus in her work. Amy is passionate about the protection of biodiversity and ecology in our natural environments and promoting the importance of dark skies for all.
She also leads our lighting and environment initiative which seeks to educate our collaborators and clients on lighting in the outdoor environment with respect to preservation of the night sky and our ecosystem.
Amy has experience and detailed knowledge in a diverse range of sectors and markets with specific expertise in delivering projects such as landscape and public realm, cultural venues, sports stadia, education, museums, and heritage assets. She has worked on projects within UK, Europe and Middle East, which has allowed her to gain a deep understanding of the requirements and expectations in a range of cultures and climates.
Amy has a Master’s in Architectural Lighting Design and is a member of CIBSE Society of Light and Lighting, the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) and The International Dark Sky Association (IDA). She is actively involved in the UK Dark Skies group where discussions involve establishing policies for the outdoor environment and is also Scotland’s Women in Lighting Ambassador.
Alys Bryan
Alys is a knowledgeable Editotial Director who is focused on instigating conversations, both online and in-person, with industry experts, which challenge, educate and advance the commercial interior sector. Alys’s training and 20 years of professional experience as a furniture designer for the commercial sector make her uniquely placed to lead Design Insider as Editorial Director. Leading the editorial content of the publication, she curates unique industry events, which bring together commercial designers and suppliers. Alys is a speaker and presenter for the commercial design sector, hosting important discussions at leading industry events.
Àfrica Sabé
Àfrica Sabé Dausà is an architect and lighting designer whose work explores the relationship between light, architecture, perception and human wellbeing. Through her own practice, À. Studio, she combines lighting design, strategic consultancy, applied research and education, translating knowledge from different disciplines into practical criteria for the design of spaces.
She is Business Developer at CICAT, the Lighting Cluster of Catalonia, where she helps lead LightingPlat, a technology platform for light and health that connects companies, designers, researchers and institutions. She also teaches in architecture and lighting programmes, with a particular focus on neuroarchitecture and human-centred design. Her work is driven by the belief that light (both natural and artificial) should be understood as an essential part of how spaces are experienced, not simply as a technical layer added to them.
Sacha Abizadeh
Sacha Abizadeh is Growth Director and Lighting Advisor for Lighting & Energy Solutions at WSP and an award-winning lighting specialist. He works with clients across transport, aviation, public realm and major infrastructure projects, helping shape the future of cities and places through design, technology and innovation. As host and moderator, he brings together perspectives from architecture, landscape, lighting and local government to explore emerging challenges and opportunities in the built environment.
Dr Shelley James
Dr Shelley James is an international lighting design consultant specialist in health and well-being, TedX speaker, author and member of the WELL Light Advisory team. She is also a visiting lecturer at UCL Bartlett and the Royal College of Art.
A social media campaign for teens about light during lock-down was translated into three languages and reached over 2.5 million worldwide and her TedX talk was in the top three most-watched in the world in the month after launch. She has written two books and now works with regulators and academics, manufacturers and developers, housing associations, clinicians, teachers and HR professionals all around the world to deliver practical, evidence-based solutions to harness the power of light to create healthy, productive and sustainable places to live and work.
Xander Cadisch
Xander Cadisch is Co-Owner of Phos and Founder of Light Tribe by Phos, working at the intersection of light, human biology, neuroscience, and the built environment.
He is the author of the international award-winning The Light Within Us, which reframes light as a biological input that shapes health, emotion, cognition, and performance, combining ancient biology with modern scientific research to explore how we design healthy environments for an indoor species.
Building on this work, Xander is developing a next-generation global framework for healthy lighting in the built environment, bringing together circadian science, photobiomodulation, neuroaesthetics, neuroarchitecture, spectral biology, and practical design application through global research, academic collaboration, and direct conversations with some of the world’s leading scientists, architects, designers, neuroscientists, and wellbeing pioneers.
He is also the creator and host of the In Light of It All, now in its third season, where internationally respected voices in science, design, and human performance help test, challenge, and refine this emerging framework in real time.
Internationally, Xander has presented his work across Europe, Asia, and North America at platforms including LEDucation, FIND, Darc Sessions, Surface Design Show, and Clerkenwell Design Week, while also lecturing master’s students in Oslo and universities across the UK.
His work also extends into policy and industry change. Xander has engaged with MPs and ministers at the House of Commons and serves on the Lighting Industry Association Government & Public Affairs Committee, helping protect the integrity of health-led, quality lighting standards within future UK legislation.
Recognised as a Forty Under 40 UK and Forty Under 40 Global lighting leader, his work and thinking have featured in House & Garden and HiddenWires.
Through Phos, he applies this philosophy to product. Built on more than 140 years of British engineering heritage, including historic precision engineering work for Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Jaguar Land Rover, Phos creates precision lighting instruments that combine engineering excellence with biological intent. The business is a recipient of the King's Award for Enterprise.
His core principle is simple. Light is not decoration. Light is biology. Light is a form of care.
Matt Waring
An NCTJ qualified journalist, Matt Waring is Editor of arc magazine - the world's leading publication for lighting design in architecture.
With a background in journalism that has seen him work across various trade publications, Matt joined Mondiale Publishing as Assistant Editor of arc magazine in 2017, Matt has since risen to the role of Editor. In this position, he leads the publication, sourcing, co-ordinating, writing and editing the creative output for the publication, while also managing the day-to-day activity across its website and various social media accounts. Matt's role also sees him support [d]arc media's events, the [d]arc awards, and [d]arc sessions, liaising with specifiers and hosting panel discussions and awards presentations. Matt also represents arc magazine and [d]arc media at exhibitions and lighting design events and conferences around the world, meeting with clients and designers, and has regularly moderated panels on the myriad aspects of lighting design. Although still relatively new to the world of lighting and lighting design, Matt now considers himself a lighting enthusiast; through his work at arc, he loves nothing more than speaking to designers who are passionate about light and lighting.
