When I was asked to speak on a podcast on neurodiversity and creative research, I extended the invitation to my PhD student, the brilliant digital artist Georgia Thom to share the platform with me. If you fancy hardcore hemming and hawing (mine), and sharp insights into neurodiversity, transgender rights and creative research and resistance (Georgia’s), listen here.
APA citation: Tan, K.S., Thom, G. (04 February 2026). Neurodiversity Matters: Kai Syng Tan and Georgia Thom on creative practice. Qualitative Applied Health Research Centre, Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Kings College London, UK. Host: Sohail Jannesari. Editor: Rachel Olive. Podcast link: https://www.quahrc.co.uk/get-inspired/kai-syng-tan-and-georgia-thom-on-creative-practice/
ABOUT QAHRC
The Qualitative Applied Health Research Centre (QUAHRC) at King’s College London (KCL) promotes the rigorous and innovative application of qualitative research within the health field, raising the visibility of high-quality qualitative research and providing opportunities for knowledge exchange, training and support.
ABOUT GEORGIA THOM
First and foremost, I am a human artist. I am also writing a PhD thesis, under supervision from artist researchers Kai Syng Tan, Gordon Hon and Ian Dawson, on digital art practice through the lens of my own trans-neuro-queer identity. I am very interested in knowledge sharing and production, and have focused heavily on an actor-network theory interpretation of art making in my thesis research for its highlighting of intersections of people and objects. I am also an artist with a background in painting, sculpture, drawing, digital artwork, installation, performance, collective making and virtual worlds. https://groockstudio.wordpress.com/
ABOUT DR SOHAIL JANNESARI
Dr Sohail Jannesari is a Research Fellow at King’s College London and a Senior Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London. He founded the health inequalities Stolen Tools journal, co-convenes the Inspiring Ethics group, and founded the Migrant Connections Festival.
His research focuses migration and mental health; outcomes for survivors of human trafficking(he is currently co-editing a Lancet series on human trafficking and health); creative, participatory and decolonial methods; equitable knowledge production, and research ethics.
As a freelance consultant he’s worked on violence affected youth, maternity experiences, supporting torture survivors, mapping out migration services and designing a community-based ethics review.
He hosts the Qualitative Open Mic podcast, gives conference keynotes, and has made media appearances on the BBC and LBC. You can find out more about his work on his website www.sohailj.com.
ABOUT DR KAI SYNG TAN
Kai Syng Tan PhD PFHEA (@kaisyngtan, she/they) is a tentacular artist-academic-author- agitator. Their book Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership: An A-Z towards Collective Liberation (2024) introduces 26 love-led strategies to reframe ‘leadership’ as a trans- disciplinary, (co-)creative, diversified, decolonised, neuro-queered practice of change- and future-making. Networks founded includes the 480-member Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network. Their co-curation of a 4-day festival for Black History Month 2020 reached 18.4m people worldwide. A curatorial project Karama: Expressions of Resistance from Gaza with UK and Palestinian community leaders was praised as ‘moving’ and ‘fantastic’. Kai is Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership by day. www.kaisyngtan.com/artful
ABOUT RACHEL ROWAN OLIVE
Rachel joined King’s College London in 2022, having previously worked as a lived experience consultant with King’s and UCL via the Mental Health Policy Research Unit. She has an MA in Applied Linguistics and Communication from Birkbeck, University of London, where she researched the experience of voice-hearing in multilingual people. She has taught MSc students and DClinPsy students at London South Bank University and the University of Essex, covering lived experience / survivor knowledge and the psychiatric system. She has also run several full-day training programmes via the London Hearing Voices Network on critical approaches to the construct of “Borderline Personality Disorder”, and writes and campaigns on this topic.
