Speakers

Elísabet Hrund Salvarsdóttir
Elísabet is chairperson of NAC and Executive director at Icelandic Adoption Society. 

Ólöf Ásta Farestveit
Ólöf Ásta is qualified in the field of pedagogy and criminology and family therapy. She started working in a state treatment center for youth from 1994-2000, worked for a short time in Icelandic prison and probation administration and monitoring of young offenders and since 2001 she has worked as a therapist and a forensic interviewer at Barnahús, and as leader from 2007 until 2021.  Since September 2021 she was the General Director of Government Agency for Child Protection and since January 2022, she is the General Director of the new agency The National Agency for Children and Families.

Rut Sigurðardóttir
Rut is a social worker and family therapist, she has worked for Icelandic Adoption Society since 2017 in education and support.

Heiða Þorleifsdóttir
Heiða is a social worker and a mother of an adopted child.

Bergdís Wilson
Bergdís is a psychologist

Kristin Gartner Askeland 
Kristin is a senior researcher at Norce, an independent research institute that conducts research for both public and private sectors, to facilitate informed and sustainable choices for the future. Kristin Gärtner Askeland - Norce (norceresearch.no) 

Lynelle Long
Lynelle is a founding Executive Director of ICAV, InterCountry Adoptee Voices. ICAV´s mission is to educate, support, connect, collaborate, galvanise and give voice to intercountry adoptees from around the world, https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/. 

Anna Guwert 
Anna Guwert, Bachelor degree in Political Science, from Stockholm University. Her professional career has been focused on international relations and global development cooperation in Sweden and abroad. She holds a position as case officer at Roots and Journeys. Anna Guwert was adopted from Guatemala at the age of 6 months.

Anna Taxell
Anna Taxell, has a degree in Spanish and Portuguese, from Stockholm and Lisbon University. She has worked as Program Officer for the Colombia-program since 2003 and has visited Colombia frequently for the last 20 years. Anna Taxell has participated in most of the group travels for adoptees to Colombia, organized by Adoptionscentrum.

Hanna Björk Atreye Sigfúsdóttir
Hanna is studying master´s degree in Social Work.

David Asplund
David Saad Per Asplund is a cultural anthropologist from Sweden, who did his master's thesis on 'the negotiation and crafting of identity among transnational and/or transracial adult adoptees in Sweden. Before his master's, David used to live in California, where his focus of studies and research was gravitating structural racism and marginalization towards people of color. Before arriving in the United States, David was traveling the world where he would participate and work in various organisations and projects as both project coordinator and a key-note speaker. 

David himself is adopted from Israel, and was only recently given his adoption file where information about his past could be found, which was kept away from him until earlier this year. Since the theme of this year's conference is 'Adoption - a lifelong process,' David will be sharing how his personal narrative has changed over the years as he is currently in the process of searching for his biological mom. He will also be sharing his research to offer insight into the world of adoption from an anthropological point of view." http://davidasplund.com.

Moderator: Dr. Ingunn Unnsteinsdóttir Kristensen
PhD in psychology and Director, Executive Education & Continuous Learning at RU, https://en.ru.is/.