Our Programme Director, Professor Kathryn Woods-Townsend, recently delivered her inaugural lecture at the IDS lecture theatre, University Hospital Southampton.

For those outside academia, an inaugural lecture marks an important milestone in an academic career, celebrating the appointment or promotion to professor. It offers colleagues, students and collaborators an opportunity to learn more about the research, impact and professional journey that has shaped their work.

In Kath's lecture, Change the beginning and you change the whole story, she reflects on her unconventional academic journey, from studying the genetic foundations of human development to creating educational interventions that reshape young people's life trajectories. She describes how LifeLab engages with children and young people to find out for themselves the science behind the health messages, and what that means for their own futures.

She finishes her lecture by exploring how positioning young people as active participants in their own development, rather than passive recipients of health messages, fundamentally shifts how they approach their own futures. This demonstrates that when we change the beginning, through opportunity and engagement, we can change the whole story.

Professor Cheryl Metcalf, Head of the School of Healthcare Enterprise and Innovation, University of Southampton, who opened the inaugural lecture, said: "Kath embodies so much of what the university stands for. She has travelled an extraordinary professional journey, one she modestly describes as unusual, but one many of us would call inspiring.

"Over the past 16 years Kath has shaped, defended, grown and championed LifeLab with a clarity of purpose, perseverance and vision. She has built it into an internationally recognised, evidence based programme, that champions the belief that young people should not merely receive health messages, they should question them, investigate them, and make them their own.

"Today LifeLab is thriving, spanning primary and secondary schools, colleges, peer-to-peer programmes and youth led research, reaching more than 20,000 young people and helping them understand the science behind their health and their futures.

"Congratulations on your appointment as a professor, Professor Kath Woods-Townsend."

You can watch Professor Kath Woods-Townsend's inaugural lecture in full below.