The Full Fact team

Chris Morris

Chief Executive

Prior to joining Full Fact in October 2023, Chris was the BBC’s first dedicated fact checker on air and online, pioneering fact checking on mainstream outlets through his development and leadership of BBC Reality Check. His work covered two general elections, post-Brexit politics, the US Presidential election, the pandemic, and the climate crisis.

Before launching Reality Check, Chris spent more than two decades as a senior correspondent, winning awards and interacting with government and business leaders around the world on a daily basis.

Steve Nowottny

Editor

Steve leads Full Fact’s editorial team and oversees our day-to-day fact checking work. Prior to joining Full Fact in 2021, he was news and investigations editor at the UK’s biggest consumer website, MoneySavingExpert.com – and before that he was a health journalist, working first as a reporter and then eventually editor of the GP magazine Pulse.

Nasim Asl

Senior Political Journalist

Nasim joined Full Fact in June 2023. Before that she worked on BBC Question Time, and BBC Scotland News. She took part in the BBC’s Journalism Trainee Scheme, and has a masters degree in journalism.

Sian Bayley

Senior News and Online Journalist

Sian joined Full Fact in April 2024 as senior news and online journalist. Prior to that she was news editor at The Bookseller magazine. She has previously worked for the Local Democracy Reporting Service and the Evening Standard.

Leo Benedictus

Journalist

Leo joined Full Fact in January 2020. For 15 years, he worked freelance as a feature writer for the Guardian, Prospect, the New Scientist and others, making maps of immigration, explaining citizens’ assemblies and debunking superfoods. He has a fondness for science and statistics. He also writes novels.

Alex Brocklehurst

Politics Editor

Alex joined Full Fact in April 2023 and leads on politics fact checking. Alex previously worked in roles in the UK Parliament providing research and information services, as well as in New Zealand managing a research and evaluation team in a government agency.

Charlotte Green

News & Online Journalist

Charlotte joined Full Fact in November 2023 as a news & online journalist from her role as a Local Democracy Reporter at the Manchester Evening News.

She was previously a senior news reporter with the Manchester Evening News, Rossendale Free Press and Accrington Observer titles.

Jess Hacker

Health Policy Journalist

Jess joined Full Fact in 2024 as a health policy journalist. Before this she covered health and primary care for GP magazine Pulse and its sister titles. In 2023, she received the PPA Next Gen Award and was named in its 30 Under 30.

Lolo Kalake

Clinical Fact Checker

Lolo is a qualified medical doctor with over 10 years’ experience, working in the NHS and abroad. She joined Full Fact in April 2024.

Claire Milne

Health Editor

Claire joined Full Fact in 2016 and leads on work relating to Health and Social Care. In addition to fact checking work, she takes part in Full Fact’s work with schools, universities and statisticians, speaking about fact checking and the work of Full Fact. She has also appeared on BBC Live Lessons talking to schools about how to spot misinformation.

Grace Rahman

News & Online Editor

Grace joined Full Fact in March 2018 from the Press Association. She’s in charge of our work on the Third Party Fact Checking programme with Facebook and is particularly interested in debunking rumours spreading on social media.

She is a qualified journalist and has a Biology degree.

Hannah Smith

Senior Political Journalist

Hannah joined Full Fact as a fact checker in May 2022. Before that she wrote news and features for UNILAD. She is a qualified journalist, and also has a degree in history.

Evie Townend

News & Online Journalist

Evie joined Full Fact as a news and online journalist in February 2023. Before this, she worked as a freelance journalist, a money reporter for The Mirror and in the regional CornwallLive newsroom.

Tony Thompson

Specialist Journalist

Tony joined Full Fact in May 2022. He previously worked as the Crime Correspondent of The Observer and News Editor of Time Out. He is the author of 11 non-fiction books.

Sarah Turnnidge

Senior Journalist (Threads)

Sarah previously worked for HuffPost UK, and before that worked in local newsrooms including the Bristol Post, the Essex Echo and the Thurrock Independent.

Laura Dewis

Chief Operating Officer

Laura is our Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the delivery of Full Fact’s strategy. Laura previously spent a decade leading digital transformation in government, delivering changes to working practices and merging teams to focus on data publishing.

Prior to that, Laura worked in product and editorial roles at The Open University and the BBC, with a focus on open data and online learning. She worked briefly in research and development for McGraw-Hill in New York.

Laura has served on advisory groups for the Cabinet Office, the United Nations Statistics Division, UNESCO, the OECD, the UK Regulators Network and Harvard University.

Eddy Crimmin

Operations Assistant

Eddy joined Full Fact in 2024 as Operations Assistant. He previously worked in operations in the food industry setting up and running food factories.

Sophie Hale

People Partner

Sophie joined Full Fact in September 2022 as People Operations Manager. Prior to joining, she worked in People Operations for a variety of charities focused on arts, culture and heritage.

Charlotte Ross

Senior Operations Manager

Charlotte joined Full Fact in September 2017 as Operations Manager. Before joining, she lived in Australia and worked for Committee for Sydney, a not for profit think tank. Prior to that she worked for Centre for London – another charity that generates ideas to improve London.

Andrew Dudfield

Head of Full Fact AI

Andrew has led Full Fact’s artificial intelligence team since 2019, developing technology to tackle misinformation at internet scale by serving the needs of fact checkers around the world. Andy was previously the Chief Publishing Officer of the Office for National Statistics and prior to that spent a decade working in product and technology roles at the BBC.

Simon Coltman

Front End Developer

Simon heads up front-end development for the variety of Full Fact products and tools. Simon joined Full Fact in 2018 after working at Expedia Inc.

David Corney

Senior Data Scientist

David joined Full Fact in 2019 as a data scientist specialising in natural language processing. He helps bring AI into Full Fact’s tools to better support fact checkers and other colleagues. David has previously worked in academia and for tech startups, where he developed tools to analyse news articles and other text.

Ed Dearden

Data Scientist

Ed joined Full Fact in 2022, and works in the automated fact checking team as a Data Scientist. He has a background in computer science and natural language processing, with experience in both industry and academia.

Dakota Harris

Software Engineer

Dakota joined Full Fact in 2022 as a Software Engineer in the automated fact checking team. With a degree in Robotics and experience in telecommunications, Dakota brings a unique set of experiences to the role.

Cameron Johnston

Data Scientist

Cameron joined Full Fact in November 2022 as a Data Scientist. He previously worked as an AI Engineer at a tech startup, and holds a Theoretical Physics degree.

James McMinn

Senior Software Engineer

James joined Full Fact in May 2023 as a Software Engineer in the Automated Fact Checking team. He has a background in Computer Science, and has worked for a number of startups developing large-scale data pipelines, handling everything from natural language processing to nuclear data.

Kate Wilkinson

Senior Product Manager

Kate joined Full Fact’s automated fact checking team in 2022 as a senior product manager. She’s working to scale our technology output and ensure it develops inline with the needs of users around the world.

Kate has ten years’ experience working in African development, training, media, journalism and fact checking. She was formerly deputy chief editor at Africa Check and co-host of award-winning WhatsApp-based podcast “What’s Crap on WhatsApp?”

Mark Frankel

Interim Head of Communications & Policy

Mark leads our communications & policy team, overseeing Full Fact's profile, outreach and impact. Before joining Full Fact, he worked as a journalist for BBC News for nearly two decades, producing political programmes for TV and Radio Four news programs and managing the Corporation’s eyewitness media team and social media output as Social Media Editor.  Following his career at BBC News, Mark worked in a series of content creation roles in the private sector, ran digital training for news journalists, and lectured on media and politics at several London universities.

Kevin Armstrong

Policy and External Relations Manager

Kevin joined Full Fact in November 2023 and leads follow-up work on fact checks. This involves pressing for corrections to false and misleading claims, as well as making other interventions to address inaccurate statements and problems of bad information online. Prior to this, Kevin led the delivery of impactful policy and campaigns work for a range of charities.

Thom Callan-Riley

Community Manager

Thom joined Full Fact in September 2020 to help develop our community work as we establish ways to engage directly with those most impacted by misinformation. Thom manages the fact check requests that come into our WhatsApp service and via the Full Fact website.

Thom brings experience from working as a community organiser in the USA and UK, most recently setting up a Community Interest Company to provide support for international NGOs, academics and community groups using skateboarding as a tool for social development.

Robert Cann

Policy & Government Relations Manager

Robert joined Full Fact in 2023 as Policy and Government Relations Manager, to lead our relationships with government ministers, civil servants, and regulators. He has 20 years’ experience of working in public affairs, most recently as Education Campaigns Manager at Humanists UK.

Jon Chittenden

Product Manager (Supporter Experience)

Jon joined Full Fact in May 2024 and leads the development of supporter experiences across Full Fact’s digital platforms. Jon is a keen climber and brings a wealth of experience building digital experiences and engaging supporters for the British Mountaineering Council and as a Trustee for climbing education charity NICAS.

Craig Dawson

Digital Campaigns Manager

Omer Hamid

Press & Media Manager

Omer joined Full Fact in February 2024 and leads our relationships with print, online, and broadcast media in the UK and around the world. His priority is ensuring that Full Fact communicates on the front foot with strategic impact and influence.

Omer’s previous roles include in the UK Government delivering strategic communications on foreign policy and national security, crisis communications with the police service, and as a pollster advising major global brands on connecting with their audiences.

Following a childhood in the Middle East, Omer recently swapped London for Bristol where his life outside of Full Fact involves a growing family, a rescue dog, and loves of test cricket and science fiction.

Prakash Lekshmanan

Salesforce CRM Administrator

Prakash joined Full Fact’s team in 2022 as a CRM Administrator. He works to enhance our CRM capabilities and ensure it develops in line with the needs of users within Full Fact. Prakash has 20 years’ experience working in CRM development across various domains including telecoms, pharmaceutical, automotive and public sector.

Andy Lulham

Web Developer

Andy joined Full Fact in 2019 as a web developer. Prior to joining, he worked in international aid transparency. He’s a keen open source contributor, and has a background in computer science and machine learning.

Azzurra Moores

Policy Lead

Azzurra joined Full Fact in January 2024 to lead on policy and engagement in Parliament, focusing on online misinformation and honesty in politics. Azzurra is an international campaigner with a background in free expression and prior to joining Full Fact she led the UK advocacy work of Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Frances Rougvie

Social Media Manager

Frances joined Full Fact in November 2023 as the Social Media Manager. Her focus is on engaging and growing our audience of supporters on all of our social media platforms. Frances started her career in digital journalism, before moving into the social media and audience insights side of journalism. Previous roles include Audience Editor for two Scottish national news brands and Head of Social Media in DC Thomson’s news brands.

Caroline Gellatly

Head of Development

Caroline joined Full Fact in May 2024 and manages our philanthropy and corporate partnerships fundraising. She brings her experience managing successful teams and major gifts programmes for causes as varied as London’s Air Ambulance Charity, Prostate Cancer UK and the University of Cambridge.

Josey Cullen

Individual Giving Manager

Josey joined Full Fact in June 2022. His role involves fundraising from individuals. He puts together communications and analyses responses to help supporters better understand how their donations are being used, and the impact they are having. He also looks for ways of reaching new audiences to ensure as many people are benefiting from Full Fact’s work as possible, and that our income remains sustainable. His previous fundraising experience focussed on raising income for international human rights and environmental campaigning organisations.

Anna Jones

Fundraising Consultant

Anna joined Full Fact in May 2024 as part of the fundraising team. She is responsible for overseeing and growing grant income, as well as working with our Individual Giving Manager. She sits on the management team and is supporting operational development in income generation.

Meghan Oakley

Philanthropy Officer

Meghan joined Full Fact in August 2024 as part of the fundraising team. Meghan works with corporate organisations and major donors. She has previously worked within individual giving, trusts and statutory fundraising at national and local charities, as well as volunteer roles at grassroot charitable organisations. Prior to this, she worked as a tutor and a secondary school teacher, specialising in human geography.

Louisa Wania

Trust Fundraising Manager

Louisa joined Full Fact in August 2024. Louisa has worked across the private, public and charitable sectors and has worked in fundraising for a couple of years. Prior to joining Full Fact she was the Fundraising Officer for Clinks, the infrastructure charity supporting voluntary organisations working in the criminal justice system. Louisa is passionate about creating opportunities for individuals and organisations to make considerable gifts to further collective social goals and visions.

Maurice Koppel

Business Development Manager

Joseph O’Leary

Training Manager

Joe has been fact checking UK politics and policy for over a decade, having joined the team in 2011. He has delivered training in fact checking to civil servants, statisticians, journalists and businesses, both in the UK and internationally, as well as designing accredited courses in data analysis for the FE sector. Joe also enjoys teaching critical thinking in primary and secondary schools, and regularly gives talks to journalism students. He is now designing courses to help businesses and employees use data with more confidence.

Michael Samuel MBE

Chairman

Michael is Chair and Co-Founder of Full Fact. He also chairs the Anna Freud Centre and Civic, as well as being a Trustee of Helpforce and five family charities. As a businessman, he built up Mayborn Group and now chairs Muddy Puddles and Murex Energy, as well as serving as director of a number of other companies. He has been a Conservative Party donor. We are grateful to Michael for his past and continuing financial support.

Anna Cook

Anna Cook is a partner at Bristows LLP, where she specialises in commercial law, information technology, copyright and dispute resolution. She is also a Fellow of the Society for Computers and Law and a member of its Advisory Board, after serving as a Trustee of the SCL from July 2012 to February 2019. Anna is also a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, where she is currently the Vice-Chair of International of the Cyber Security, Data Privacy and Technology Committee.

Antonia Cox

Antonia Cox is a former reporter, correspondent, columnist and leader writer at the Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, the award-winning online financial comment service BreakingViews, along with contributing to other publications including The New York Times and The Independent on Sunday. She served as a transport policy adviser to the Conservatives in opposition and as review co-ordinator for the Hodgson Review of the 2006 Charities Act. She was a non-executive director of the Student Loans Company from 2016 to 2019, and was a Conservative councillor for Hyde Park ward in the City of Westminster.

Tim Gordon

Tim Gordon is the co-founder of Best Practice AI which advises organisations, investors and entrepreneurs on AI strategy and adoption. Best Practice AI was the first UK AI firm invited to join the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution and WEF’s Global AI Council. He works with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI.

He has held leadership positions at the Financial Times, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and in European and Asian media businesses. He was previously an adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and was Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats from 2012-17.

James Harding

James Harding is Co-Founder and Editor of Tortoise. Prior to this, James was the Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC, the world’s largest news organisation, until January 2018. Prior to that he was Editor of The Times of London from 2007-2012, winning the Newspaper of the Year in two of the five years he edited the paper. He was previously The Times’ Business Editor, having joined from The Financial Times, where he worked as Washington Bureau Chief, Media Editor and China correspondent opening the paper’s bureau in Shanghai in 1996. He is the author of Alpha Dogs – How political spin became a global business and he presented On Background on the BBC World Service with Zanny Minton-Beddoes, editor of The Economist.

Lord Richard Inglewood

Lord Inglewood is a non-affiliated peer in the House of Lords and Chair of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, having previously been a Conservative. He was Chairman of the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Communications 2011-2014. Prior to that he was a MEP 1989-1994, 1999-2004, and Minister for Broadcasting 1995-1997, and was Chairman of CN Group 2002-2016, a local media company across the North of England, and was a member of the Reuter’s Institute, Oxford University, Advisory Board 2015-2019.

Dr Claire Melamed

Dr Claire Melamed is the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. This growing network brings together several hundred members to harness and leverage data and data technology towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She was previously Managing Director of the Overseas Development Institute, and in 2014, she worked in the office of the UN Secretary General, writing the report of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution, “A World That Counts”. Claire is based in London and heads up a global team based in seven countries. Claire is an Affiliated Researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and serves on a number of Boards and advisory groups for institutions including the UK Office of National Statistics Data Science Campus and Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Index.

Professor Anand Menon

Professor Anand Menon is director of academic think tank The UK in a Changing Europe. He’s also professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College London. He is co-author of Brexit and British Politics and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the European Union. Twitter: @anandmenon1

Baroness Janet Royall

Jan Royall is Principal of Somerville College Oxford. Under the last Labour Government she was Leader of the House of Lords and a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet. She then served for 5 years as Leader of the Opposition in the Lords. She was appointed to the Lords in 2004 and became a Government whip with responsibility for health, international development, Foreign Affairs, Equality and Northern Ireland. She previously worked in the European Commission, for Neil Kinnock and for the Labour Group in the European Parliament.

Jan is still an active backbencher with an interest in education, young people, housing, health and social care, social justice, women, diversity and foreign affairs. In addition she is Chair of Trustees of the People’s History museum, Chair of the Oxford Strategic Partnership, Vice Chair of the Conference of Colleges and is associated with many charities and voluntary organisations.

Jan has always been passionate about education and equality of opportunity and has taken many associated Bills through Parliament from the Government and Opposition benches. She also regularly visits schools in this country and in other parts of the world. She has worked on many policy areas including citizenship and democratic engagement and is a strong supporter of social action for young people.

Dr Claire Wardle

Dr Claire Wardle is one of the world’s leading authorities on social media and user generated content, and in particular misinformation and disinformation. She has top tier editorial, policy, and research experience. For the Council of Europe, she wrote the seminal and authoritative paper ‘Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making’. For the European Union, she was a member of the High Level Expert Group on Disinformation. For the UK Parliament, she gave evidence to the DCMS Select Committee inquiry. For the World Health Organization, she advised on how to manage what its Director General called the ‘infodemic’ around Covid-19 and trained public officials from around the world. For the Surgeon General of the United States, she supported the development of the Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment. Through First Draft, the non-profit she co-founded and leads, she has convened and supported civil society and media responses to election disinformation in many countries across the world. Dr Wardle did her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world’s top communications departments, and became head of Teaching and Learning the Cardiff School of Journalism, one of the UK’s leading journalism departments. She was Research Director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and has recently joined Brown University to work on a new initiative around global health misinformation.