Dr Alex Conner is one of the co-founders of the award winning and nominated charity ADHDadultUK and co-hosts of the UK’s most popular ADHD podcast ‘The ADHD Adults’, which is in the Top 10 of Apple Podcasts ‘Mental Health’ chart, the Top 10 of Spotify’s ‘Health and Fitness’ chart and in the Top 150 of all podcasts listened to on Spotify in the UK and has listeners in 190 countries. Both Alex (and his co-hosts James and Sam) have ADHD and were diagnosed as adults. The podcast is statistically in the top 1% of all podcasts worldwide. Statistics are very dubious.

Alex was a career academic who was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship in 2021, elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biolofgy and is a Senior Fellow of the HEA. Alex also has ADHD and used this experience with non-directive coaching to support learners and academic colleagues to author their own definition of success.

Alex is also a science communicator, and journalist, as well as being a public speaker. Alex also mentors PhD students through his work as an academic and with Findaphd.com, was a national finalist in the Fame Lab competition, and has done stand-up comedy for Bright Club.

Print, Online Media and The Conversation

Alex has written over 30 newspaper articles on ADHD and science in general (https://muckrack.com/alex-conner-2/articles). As well as writing independently for the Mirror online as a Media Fellow for the British Science Association, the Times Higher Educational Supplement and Medical News Today, Alex published two articles with Professor James Brown in The Conversation, which have been reshared through creative commons to The Independent, IFL Science, Metro, The Daily Mail, Newsweek, El Pais, CNN, RTE and The World Economic Forum. He is also a senior Editor for the online adult ADHD magazine “Focus on Adult ADHD” (https://focusmag.uk/).

Examples include: Independent (ADHD summary) – shorturl.at/elGKP,  Mirror (Gender differences in brain biology) – https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/girls-boys-not-different-brains-11003245. THES (ADHD and education) – https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/adult-adhd-and-higher-education-improving-student-experience. Medical News Today (ADHD is not new)- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/adult-adhd-a-21st-century-epidemic, Independent – shorturl.at/yDJ12

Research publications

Alex has also published more than 50 scientific research papers in several areas of neuroscience including neurodiversity (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19784855/) and ADHD (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12402-010-0040-0)

Live events

As well as delivering talks on The Science of ADHD for Seed Talks, (both on his own and joining James), The ADHD adults podcast team had their first “live podcast” show at the Genesis theatre in London in March 2023. Alex first tried his hand at science/stand-up back in 2016 for a Bright Club event at the Rep theatre in Birmingham. He also won the Birmingham heat of the Famelab Science communication competition and won the Northern England final (competing nationally).

Radio hosting.

Alex and James were the guest co-hosts for the “Beans on Boogaloo” show on Boogaloo Radio for ADHD Awareness month in 2021 (https://www.mixcloud.com/BoogalooRadio/beans-on-boogaloo-adhd-awareness-month-ep2-with-adhd-adult-uk-111021/). Alex was a guest co-host talking about Brain Science on the movie show for Brum Radio.

Podcast appearances

Alex has appeared as a guest on several notable podcasts including ADHDAF, Sober Awkward, The Open Circle, A Dopamine Kick and more.

Invited Talks on ADHD

Alex has been invited to give talks on ADHD for many groups and organisations such as “Oxford University Post-Graduate Education Group”, the Academy of Medical Sciences, The Housing Diversity Network annual conference, Killing Kittens event on kinks and ADHD. Alex speaks to NHS groups and organisations as well.