KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Australia
Australia
Australia
Netherlands
Australia
USA
INVITED SPEAKERS
Australia
Australia
Australia
Australia
Australia
Clinical Update Speakers
Australia
Australia
Mr James Hill
James Hill is an accomplished lived experience mental health advocate, who has used his journey to influence significant positive change. James spent most of his career in the electricity industry, however after his own experience with poor mental health and suicide ideation he decided it was time to change the narrative. He began volunteering and sharing his story through a mental health charity, from there he introduced the first ever fulltime mental health advocate position in the energy industry. His lived experience advocacy has seen him provide advice to the sector and gain recognition through several awards and journal publications.
Professor Colleen Loo
Colleen Loo is a psychiatrist, Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Leadership Fellow and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the Black Dog Institute, Sydney; Australia. She is a clinical and research expert in the fields of electroconvulsive therapy, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and ketamine, and led the first Australian RCTs of these interventions in depression. She is now also researching psychedelic assisted therapy. She has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and has received competitive grant funding from the Australian NHMRC, MRFF and major overseas grant funding agencies.
Professor Maree Toombs
Professor Toombs has advanced Indigenous mental health through pioneering work. She developed culturally validated assessment tools, leading to a landmark prevalence study of mental disorders in Indigenous populations. Toombs created a therapy approach integrating traditional healing with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Her most significant achievement is I-ASIST, a culturally adapted suicide intervention program with mobile app support. This initiative has trained over 10,000 individuals across 95 communities, expanding suicide prevention in Indigenous areas. Her work has earned notable recognition, including the 2023 Australian Mental Health Prize and the 2021 Suicide Prevention Australia Queensland LiFE Impact Award. NHMRC's 2024 "10 of the Best" featured her community-designed suicide intervention research.
Professor Milton Wainberg
Dr. Milton Wainberg is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Co-Director of the Division of Translational Epidemiology and Mental Health Equity of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute. He is the Director of the Columbia University Mental Wellness Equity Center and the founding Chair of the APA Caucus on Global Mental Health & Psychiatry. Prof. Wainberg has dedicated his career to bringing research-to-practice to sustainably decrease the mental health research and treatment gaps in the US and multiple countries in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America while training the next generation of implementation scientists.
Professor Iris Sommer
Iris Sommer studied public health in Maastricht and medicine in
Amsterdam. Later she obtained her PhD (cum laude) in Utrecht on
language in schizophrenia. She trained there as a psychiatrist
and learned from prof Rene Kahn and prof Jean Paul Selten. She
started the Voices Clinic in Utrecht and investigated the
cerebral basis of auditory verbal hallucinations. She also
assembled a multidisciplinary team to study language as a
biomarker for schizophrenia using computational linguistics.
In 2017 she moved to the north of the Netherlands to become
director of the Research Institute Brain and Cognition in UMC
Groningen. She started the HAMLETT-OPHELIA cohort to study
effects of maintenance medication in 350 FEP patients. She also
investigated optimal treatment for women with psychosis and
leads several studies to investigate the influence of nutrition
and the microbiome on brain health. She now leads a team of some
25 PhD students and 5 postdocs.
In 2021 she was appointed distinguished Lorentz fellow at the
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies and in 2022 she won
the Huijbregtsen prize for Science and Society. Together with
three European colleagues (prof Philipp Homan, prof Wolfram
Hinzen and prof Brita Elvevag) she leads two large projects
funded by EU to study how speech and language can be used as a
biomarker for psychosis. Iris authored six popular scientific
books from which three became best-sellers.
Professor Grant Sara
Grant Sara is the Director of NSW Health’s InforMH unit, which is responsible for data collection, analysis and reporting for NSW mental health and suicide prevention services. His work and research aim to develop health service data to support and improve mental health care, and to understand physical health and mortality gaps in people who use our mental health services. He is a Clinical Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney University, Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychiatry, UNSW, and Honorary Professor, Faculty of Health, Macquarie University.
Professor Kimberlie Dean
Prof Kimberlie Dean is UNSW Chair of Forensic Mental Health and holds both clinical and research positions with Justice Health NSW, as Clinical Research Lead for Forensic Mental Health and Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist. At UNSW Prof Dean is also Head of the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health within the School of Clinical Medicine and Academic Program Director for the Master of Forensic Mental Health.
Dr Anne Buist
Anne Buist is the Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, based at Austin Health, and has over 30 years clinical and research experience in perinatal psychiatry; she was director of mother-baby units for much of this time, more recently overseeing an outreach team that works to improve attachment. She was director of the beyondblue PND initiative which resulted in Australia wide screening for perinatal depression and anxiety. She also works in forensic perinatal cases and with Protective Services and writes fiction including a series set in a mental health service.
Dr Dinesh Palipana
Dinesh was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland.
Dinesh is a doctor, lawyer, disability advocate, and researcher.
While in medical school, he was involved in a car accident that
caused a spinal cord injury.
Dinesh works at the Gold Coast University Hospital. He is a
senior lecturer at Griffith University and assistant professor
at Bond University. Dinesh is a researcher in spinal cord
injury, co-leading the BioSpine research team.
Dinesh was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019.
Dinesh was the Queensland Australian of the Year for 2021. His
autobiography, Stronger, was published in 2022.
A/Prof Anthony Korner
Anthony Korner works in Sydney as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is Director of the Master of Medicine (Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy) Program at the University of Sydney. He is active in teaching, research and clinical practice. Research interests are in psychodynamic psychotherapy, linguistics and philosophy. He completed a PhD on psychotherapy process in 2015 and has published widely. He is author of a book on psychotherapy, Communicative Exchange, Psychotherapy and the Resonant Self (Routledge, 2021). He has been president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy since 2022 and currently also a Vice-President of the World Council for Psychotherapy.
Professor Paul Fitzgerald
Professor Paul Fitzgerald is the Head of the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. He is an academic psychiatrist with a MBBS degree, Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD. He has conducted an extensive series of clinical trials and experimental studies developing new treatments for patients with mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease. He now leads an innovative School of Medicine and Psychology developing education and research programs integrating these traditionally diverse health disciplines.
Professor Valsa Eapen
Valsa is Professor and Chair of Child Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney and Clinical Academic at South-Western Sydney Health District. She is a NHMRC Senior Leadership Fellow focussing on research into neurodevelopmental disorders and leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in child and family health. She is Stream Director for Early Life Determinants of Health (ELDoH) with SPHERE, a NHMRC Advanced Health Research and Translational Centre. Valsa is President, International Neuropsychiatric Association; Co-Chair, Section on Developing countries and Oceania Zonal representative, World Psychiatric Association; and Chair, Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, RANZCP. She has >450 publications and grants totalling >A$40Million.
Professor Henry Brodaty
Henry Brodaty is a researcher, clinician, policy advisor and strong advocate for people with dementia and their carers. At University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), he is Scientia Professor of Ageing and Mental Health, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA). He has published extensively, is a senior psychogeriatrician at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney and serves on multiple committees for the New South Wales and Australian governments and WHO.
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