Online Autscape 2025: Presenters

Last updated: 27 Jan 2025

Lyric Schranz, Emily Slater and Tokyo Attard

Presenting: Empowering Autistic Youth – Introducing the ACTIVATE Project

Lyric Schranz (they/them) is a multiply neurodivergent, queer, and chronically ill individual. They founded and are the president of The Autistic Student Community, are currently studying for a Master's in Disability Studies at the University of Malta, and are working as an Executive Project Manager at CRPD. Apart from autism activism, they are also passionate about cosplay, dance, and video games. Due to being late diagnosed at the age of 19, they strive to increase autism awareness and acceptance by combining both academic and lived experience. Through research, activism, and public speaking, Lyric wishes to promote the Neurodivergent Paradigm and Neuro-affirmative practices to improve wellbeing for all.

Emily Slater (she/her) is an autistic woman. She was diagnosed at the age of 12, which is considered to be late. Since then she has been involved in autism advocacy and even managed to help change the university entry rules for autistic people in Malta. Currently she forms part of the Autistic Student Community, an upcoming autistic-led NGO in Malta. She has a passion for cultural heritage, particularly in providing autistic access to it. In her free time, she likes to bake, crochet, read and play tabletop roleplaying games.

Tokyo (she/her) is a passionate Project Officer at the Directorate for Disability Issues in Malta, working on the ACTIVATE Project to advocate for autistic individuals. Diagnosed with autism at the age of nine, the details of her autism were hidden from her until she happened upon her diagnosis papers nearly a decade later. She faced challenges in social and academic settings for her entire life due to this, always feeling like an outcast. This personal journey fuels her commitment to building safe and inclusive communities for people with autism. In her free time, Tokyo's special interest is solving various types of Rubik's cubes and similar twisty puzzles.

Harriet Axbey

Presenting: Joyful Degrees: Autistic Adjustments at University

Harriet is a researcher at Swansea University on the ‘Autism from Menstruation to Menopause’ study. She has a PhD in Education from Durham University; her PhD focused on neurodiverse interactions, and innovation through diversity. Harriet is a qualified teacher, and volunteers with the Scouting Association in her spare time. She has written two books: ‘My Brother Tom Has Superpowers’ aimed at young children, and ‘University: The Autistic Guide Everything You Need to Survive and Thrive’ for Autistic people heading to university.

Satsuki Ayaya

Presenting: An autistic application of Tōjisha-kenkyū: Otoemojite self-help group, Japan

Satsuki Ayaya, Ph.D., is an autistic researcher in Japan. From an early age, she has struggled with speech difficulties, unexplained physical weakness, and sensory experiences that differ from those of other people. While at university, she worked with Deaf students and learned sign language as a way of expressing herself. After being diagnosed as an adult, she has been running a Tōjisha-kenkyū group with neurodivergent peers.

Ayaya is also a project associate professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, where she researches the history, philosophy and methods of Tojisha-Kenkyu. She is currently working on issues related to the protection of the human rights of autistic people and collaborative research between minorities and academia.

Publications (in Japanese) include: ‘Developmental Disorders Tōjisha-kenkyū’ (2008), ‘The Birth of Tōjisha-kenkyū’ (2023).

Barnabear

Presenting: The Joy of Engineering

Barnabear is a Software Engineer with 42 years development experience in computing. Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 2011, he taught computer engineering on a voluntary basis at Southlands Special School where he was outsmarted by a dead woodlouse. When not breaking things, Barnabear is a guest lecturer at Southampton University and an advocate for autistic self awareness and autistic STEM careers. Barnabear is interested in air accident investigation, sometimes actively from home. He is supported by a dedicated team of hug therapists (ursus domesticus theodorei). He has a wife and two sons, one of whom is also an engineer at the same company.

Laura Buckland Mason

Presenting: Abstract collage workshop

Bio TBA

Martijn Dekker

Presenting: Report from Japan: the radically integrated approach of Tōjisha-kenkyū

Martijn “McDutchie” Dekker is a 51 year old autistic parent of three and autism trainer. He was diagnosed in 1995 at age 21 and was actively present in online autistic space from then on, witnessing the neurodiversity movement in its infancy. In July 1996, he set up the first entirely self-hosted online autistic community on the internet: InLv (Independent Living on the Autistic Spectrum), which lived until 2012-ish. He served on the board of Autscape in various capacities, including chair, programme coordinator and technical manager, between 2006 and 2015 and from 2016 until now. In September 2024 he went to Japan with Heta Pukki and learned about the fascinating approach of Tōjisha-kenkyū, in which people with disabilities take charge of the conceptual framework in which they are discussed and researched.

Kate Fox

Presenting: Autistic Joy and Other Hopeful Poems

Kate Fox is a stand-up poet, spoken word artist and broadcaster. She is a regular contributor to Radio 4's spoken word cabaret “The Verb”, has made two comedy series for Radio 4, been Poet in Residence for the Glastonbury Festival and the Great North Run and completed a PhD in stand-up comedy.

She is the author of “Where There’s Muck There’s Bras: True Stories of the North of England’s Women” published by Harper North, and poetry collections including "On Sycamore Gap" (Harper North, 2024), "Bigger On the Inside" (Smokestack Books, 2024) and "The Oscillations" (Nine Arches Press, 2021). She is also a neurodivergent advocate whose latest show “Bigger on the Inside" explores neurodiversity through the lens of Doctor Who.

Joanna Ławicka

Presenting: The joy of autistic parenting: how to build healthy and safe attachment in an autistic family

Joanna Ławicka, Ph.D., is an autistic special pedagogue and social sciences expert with a focus on autism. A doctor in the field of Special Pedagogy, Joanna is the president of the Prodeste Foundation and serves on the boards of the informal autistic people’s association The Bright Side of the Spectrum and the umbrella organsation European Council of Autistic People (EUCAP).
Joanna provides consultations and supervises specialists working with individuals on the spectrum. A published author and speaker at conferences, including Tedx Warsaw, she also runs her own educational company, Consensus dr Aśka.
Joanna has been granted the award of Ambassador of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She comes from Poland and currently works in Poland.

Jorik Mol

Presenting: Now I wanna think about all the good times - The joys of Breaking the Boundaries

Jorik Mol (he/him) is an actually autistic author, educator and community organiser. He runs the QND Writers' Network for neuroqueer writers, is a mentor for autistic university students, runs workshops, panels and wellbeing sessions. Jorik also writes autistic fiction and neurodivergent non-fiction, is an activist for disabled and LGBTQIA+ liberation and lives with his equally autistic husband-to-be, several dozen pluchies and several hundred books in Bath, UK. Jorik spoke previously at Autscape 2023 about his book Feeling Fast and Slow, on autistic love, alexithymia and the problematic history of empathy; to be published by Hachette/Jessica Kingsley in 2025. Breaking the Boundaries is published by Lived Places Publishing Ltd, based in Boston, Massachusetts (USA), so Jorik looks forward to his first book ban under the Trump administration.

Max Marnau

Presenting: Music, word-sounds and the taste of languages: vocal stims and autistic joy

Max calls herself a “second-generation exile”. Her parents were refugees and quite consciously did not transmit their culture to her for fear of making her an outsider. That’s quite funny, given that she’s autistic! She never quite fitted in England, where they landed, and has spent her life finding joy in other languages, musics and cultures. It’s only over the last few years that she has discovered that folk clubs and sessions seem quite happy to hear her sing in languages they don’t understand! Max is also an "out loud and proud" autistic psychotherapist, activist, writer, and trainer.

Alicja Nocon

Presenting: Sensory joy to the rescue: emotional containers and portable safe spaces

Alicja Nocon (she/they) is a professional late-diagnosed autistic coach and mentor. She works with autistic adults to help them become more authentic, aligned and alive in their work and personal lives, using a blend of evidence-based research and lived experience knowledge to support positive change.
Following Alicja’s peer-reviewed research on the role of character strengths in supporting the wellbeing of autistic adults (2022), Alicja’s interest has expanded to cover the role of senses, memory and sensory environments to enable and promote autistic wellbeing.

Madge Woollard

Presenting: Chillout Classical Piano

Madge Woollard has taught piano for over 30 years, and especially enjoys teaching neurodivergent children and adults. She lives in Sheffield with her wife Jo.