Speakers

Anna Talasniemi is professional in arts and culture currently pursuing a PhD on sauna and heritage futures at University of Jyväskylä (art education). As a part of her research, she has developed and organised Sauna Dialogues, discussion events in sauna. She is also a co-founder of Seurasauna project and chair of Seurasauna association working towards more inclusive sauna culture and establishing a new public sauna in Helsinki. She is also a traditional sauna healer (“perinnesaunottaja”).

OOPEAA Office for Peripheral Architecture

Ashley Mason, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry in Residence at the Weill Institute of Neurosciences, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Mason received her PhD from the University of Arizona, completed her resident training in behavioral medicine at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, and completed a National Institutes of Health (NIH) fellowship training at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health.

Becky Pelkonen, MSc is a sustainability educator, researcher, and co-founder of Kamu Sauna and Ilomaa Forest Farm in British Columbia, Canada. She is a doctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland focusing on sauna and third spaces in rural communities. Becky works across the global sauna ecosystem, and serves as a North American liaison for Sauna from Finland International. Her work blends systems thinking, cultural heritage, and regenerative business design to strengthen sauna culture and community well-being.

Charlie Duckworth is the Managing Director of Community Sauna Baths CIC. He oversees the strategic development, governance, and long-term direction of the CIC, including the integration
of sauna into public health systems through social prescribing. His work focuses on why community saunas — as collective, non-clinical, and relational spaces — can be particularly powerful interventions for wellbeing, and how they can be scaled without losing their social and cultural integrity.

Polly Joy Wilson is the Social Prescribing and Community Manager at Community Sauna Baths CIC, where she leads NHS-linked social prescribing, outreach, and inclusion programmes across London. Her work focuses on widening access to sauna for people facing health inequality, isolation, poverty, and exclusion. Polly has played a central role in pioneering sauna social prescribing in the UK, working to build credible partnerships with the NHS while ensuring that delivery models remain community-led, ethical, and financially sustainable. She has a background in community theatre, education, and community arts, and brings participatory, relational approaches into the design and facilitation of sauna-based health interventions.

Christie Pearson is the author of a global history of public bathing cultures, The Architecture of Bathing: Body, Landscape, Art (MIT Press, 2020). Bathing culture research fuels her work as an artist, writer, and architect, critically re-imagining urban infrastructures as utopian bathing environments for thermal delight. Christie is a licensed Architect and Project Manager at the City of Toronto’s Parks and Recreation Capital Projects Design and Development division. Founding member of Thewaves collective for immersive vibratory environments, Wade Festival for installation and performance art in public pools, Urbanvessel performance collective, and the critical journal Scapegoat: Architecture/Landscape/Political Economy.

TTNE Co., Ltd. is a sauna creative group headed by Totonoe-oyakata (Matsuo Dai)and Sauna-shisho (Akiyama Daisuke), and is involved in the sauna business. With the management philosophy of "Japan Sauna Culture to the World," TTNE
aims for a future where people from all over the world visit Japan for the sauna experience.
In addition to producing over 100 sauna facilities, the company also operates a sauna-specialized apparel brand, the Japan Sauna Society, which conducts sauna medical research, the sauna rating media "SAUNA37" and "SAUNACHELIN," and is a HARVIA sauna dealer.

Eda Veeroja is a bearer and mediator of the Estonian smoke sauna tradition and the hostess of Mooska Smoke Sauna Farm. She led the successful nomination of the Vana-Võromaa smoke sauna tradition to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (2014). Mooska Farm operates three smoke saunas, where Veeroja is sharing sauna customs and healing practices since 2004. Her work approaches the sauna as a living meaningful partner.

Einar Niemi, Professor Emeritus, UiT the Arctic University of Norway. Graduated at the University of Oslo; been teacher at Gymnas (videregående skole/high school), county curator (fylkeskonservator) in Finnmark, and professor of history at UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. Main fields of teaching and research have been within history, cultural history and cultural heritage, with focus on cultural encounters, ethnic minorities, state minority policy, and regionalism in the north of the Nordic World.

Eva Hilland is an Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, from the Mental Health Research Group (Clinical Neuroscience Project Group). Hilland has a PhD in psychology, within the field of cognitive neuroscience.

Dr. Hannah Pallubinsky is Assistant Professor and leader of the Thermophysiology & Metabolism Research Group (TherMU) at Maastricht University (NL). Her work explores how environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and air quality affect human physiology, health, and well-being. Her team also explores the therapeutic potential of heat and cold exposure to improve cardiometabolic health.

James Mugavin is an architect, designer, artist, and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia. His work focuses on bathing cultures and their contemporary expression across architecture, landscape, and film. Having lived and worked in Spain, Helsinki, and Australia, he explores how design can deepen sensory experience, cultural understanding, and connection to place. He has designed and built multiple saunas and continues to investigate sauna culture through built work and filmmaking.

Jan Nåls is a screenwriter, film educator, author, and communication scholar based in Helsinki, Finland. He holds a PhD from the University of Helsinki, with research focusing on empathy in film narrative. He is a senior lecturer in film at Arcada University of Applied Sciences and principal investigator of the Nordic research project Compassion Revolution. He has published widely on film, theatre, and set design.

Jesús “Chuy” Álvarez is the founder of Papaya Sauna, an outdoor Finnish-style sauna initiative based in Monterrey, Mexico. With a background in environmental policy, urban sustainability, and community-based projects, his work focuses on creating accessible, nature-connected spaces that foster social interaction and wellbeing. Since 2024, he has been experimenting with the introduction of authentic sauna culture in contexts where sauna has no historical or climatic roots, emphasizing public access, ritual, and community formation.

Did I mention our sauna is a mobile former delivery truck?

Julia van der Velde is a Dutch social anthropologist based in Oslo. She recently completed her fieldwork for the Master’s in Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo, studying badstue (sauna) culture at the Oslo Badstuforening.

She collaborates as a research assistant with the Clinical Neuroscience Group at OsloMet’s Faculty of Health Sciences on their project “Sauna and Cold Water Immersion to Prevent and Reduce Stress and Mental Disorders.”

Dr. Kaarina Kailo has held positions as professor or researcher of women’s and cultural studies in Canadian universities and Finland (Oulu University and the Finnish Academy); she is now an independent scholar and artist focused on saunas, Indigenous worldview, the gift imaginary, healing philosophies, gender issues and the bear religion/mythology. She received the Saraswati award with Barbara Mann for their book The Woman who Married the Bear. On the Spirituality of Ancient Foremothers (Oxford UP, 23).

Karlstads universitet

Institutionen för samhälls- och kulturvetenskap

Dr. Lassi Liikkanen (he/him) is a designer, author, and founder. For the past ten years he has worked in the Finnish tech industry, most recently leading digital product design. He used to be an active researcher and has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings in the fields of product design, interactive technology, music psychology and cognitive neuroscience - and naturally sauna. As a reminder of his academic past, he is also a docent of Human-centered product design at Aalto University in Finland.

Since 2016 he has been an internationally acknowledged contributor of sauna design and technology knowledge. He collects, creates, digitalizes and disseminates sauna-related knowledge through Saunologia.fi website accessed annually by over 400,000 Finnish visitors. In 2019, he authored a book, Secrets of Finnish Sauna Design, available also in English since 2021 and in Japanese from 2024. His latest book, Finnish Sauna, was released in September 2025 and is distributed globally by Hachette.

Laura Foon “Sauna-Akka” is a Finnish Saunotus practitioner and teacher at Sipoonjoki Heritage Sauna. Her rituals, speeches and teaching draw deeply from Finnish mythology and cultural heritage, offering modern participants a chance to pause, let go, and heal through the ancient wisdom of sauna traditions in a safe way.

Naoki Yoshioka is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and Doctor of Medicine (PhD) in Japan who
operates a medically linked bathing facility and conducts research on sauna and enzyme baths in preventive
medicine.

MSc. Nina Magatova - is a Slavic sauna practitioner and psychology researcher studying what emerges in the mind when the body is softened by the steam. Her first study from University of Exeter explored what regular sauna users across Europe experience during the session and what they feel it brings to their mental well-being. This path led her to a second project, examining the gendered experiences and emotional labour of women sauna practitioners. Rooted in Baltic tradition, her work weaves science and ritual with a vision of sauna as public care—embodied, inclusive, and culturally grounded.

Perttu Rönkkö works in Innovation and Technology at Harvia, focusing on the digitalization of sauna and wellness solutions. He brings extensive experience in digital innovation, smart systems and product development, with a background spanning startups, software development, AI solutions and connected living environments. His work centers on applying data, usability and emerging technologies to enhance sauna experiences, contribute to health and wellbeing, and develop more sustainable sauna solutions.

Rachael McGrath is a Research Affiliate at the London Interdisciplinary School. Her dissertation, “Should Saunas be Prescribed?”, informed a co-authored paper with Dr Martha Newson published in Social Science & Medicine, exploring sauna, belonging, and wellbeing. She designed the first service evaluation of sauna social prescriptions at Community Sauna Baths, an ongoing study she leads alongside her full-time role in marketing and commercial operations at Samphire Neuroscience.

Rolf-Andreas Pieper is considered Germany's leading expert on saunas and related sweat baths. From 1983 to 2021, he worked as managing director of the German Sauna Association. He is an author of specialist books and has written several hundred articles and given lectures on all kinds of sauna topics. In 1999 and 2022, he organised the International Sauna Congress in Germany.

Stephen Jaye is a designer, researcher, and founder of HORMESIS AI and BASTU HOLDINGS, ventures uniting architecture, health science, and artificial intelligence. He is the inventor of the Hormetic SaunaTM, a precision-engineered system developed with Finnish experts to quantify and optimize the health benefits of traditional Finnish sauna. Stephen holds a Master’s in Strategic Design from Parsons School of Design Paris and studied AI and Machine Learning at MIT.

Thomas O’Connell is an associate professor at the Indiana University
School of Medicine an investigator in the Indiana Center for Musculoskeletal Health. His research focuses on the development and application of tools to understand the metabolic drivers of musculoskeletal health. His interest in sauna research was the result of a Fulbright Fellowship in Finland where he began collaborating with Dr. Earric Lee.

Tim Jago is a traditionally trained Celtic sweatlodge leader. He has more than forty years of practice in this art and currently teaches a small group of students. Tim lives in the north of Sweden but was born and raised in the UK. In between ceremonies he writes poetry and wanders about in the forest with his dog.

Veerle de Haan (MSc) is a PhD student with the Thermophysiology & Metabolism Research Group (TherMU) at Maastricht University. With a background in Medicine and Human Movement Sciences, she brings a broad perspective to health research. Her PhD focuses on the cardiometabolic effects of combined heat and cold exposure, using infrared sauna bathing and cold water immersion.

Victoria Arnhold is the founder of Saade, a sauna-focused wellness brand based in Europe.

With roots in Estonian sauna culture, she grew up with sauna as a regular health practice and has spent recent years working at the intersection of modern wellness, product development and textiles across the UK, France and the Nordics. Her work focuses on hygiene, material innovation and accessibility in contemporary sauna environments.